I regret to inform you that your kitten heels and morning suits will probably not be seeing service this wedding season: once again, marriage rates are down. In fact, this year the rate for heterosexual marriages is the lowest on record.
What’s more, fewer than one in five of these marriage ceremonies are religious, in keeping with a downward trend of several decades standing.
As a wedding guest, I slightly regret this turn towards the civil ceremony, only because the secular liturgy is so oddly anaemic. Seeing someone from the local council officiate on this most solemn of occasions, I can’t help but be reminded of the Simpsons episode in which a Las Vegas casino worker marries Homer and Marge with the words ‘by the power vested in me by the state gaming commission I pronounce you man and wife.’
But then everyone knows that the modern wedding is a bit of a farce, particularly since April of this year, when no fault divorce was introduced in this country.
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