‘I used to think having a wedding certificate would prove I wasn’t failing at life’

Trudy Tyler was glad to see that at the very least weddings were saved, after a fashion. It even made her reflect on her own wedding. By Christine Manby

(Illustration by Tom Ford)

Happy “Day Formerly Known as Freedom Day!” I don’t know about you but I can’t say I’m in the least bit surprised that the day when we get to toss our masks on the communal bonfire, throw a hugging party for fifty strangers and have the legal right to stand nose to armpit at the bar of our local Wetherspoons has been pushed back for another indefinite period of time.

Fortunately, I have no desire to do any of the above apart from the burning of masks bit but the news that the last of the restrictions will not be lifted this month is devastating for hospitality and entertainment. At least BoJo saved big weddings, after a fashion. I would not have wanted to be him if he hadn’t made that exception; facing the wrath of 50,000 angry soon-to-be-weds as they marched on 10 Downing Street with cake forks. As it is, those big weddings that are able to go ahead according to social-distancing requirements are going to be very different, with traditional multi-generational dance-floor routines to YMCA still banned.

I can’t help wondering if one of the reasons the PM brought his own wedding forward was so that he could be seen to have followed his own advice on scaled back celebrations if that’s what he had to decree for the rest of the summer. Of course he was happy to have a small wedding (albeit in Westminster Cathedral). It was his third after all (if not in the eyes of the Catholic church).

At this time of year, I often think back to my own wedding. When Gideon asked me to marry him on the last morning of a holiday in Menorca, I said “yes” with unseemly haste. He looked so shocked at my response that for a moment I wondered whether I’d misheard the question. He didn’t get down on one knee and he wasn’t bearing a ring. All these years on, I’m pretty sure that I did mishear the question but he was so frightened that I would burst into tears if he put me right that he trapped himself into a wedding that would lead to many more tears later on.

When we touched down at Gatwick after the Balearic proposal, I insisted that we drive straight to my parents’ house to break the news. My brother and sister-in-law were staying with Mum and Dad for the weekend. Everyone acted very pleased for me and my new fiance for at least ten minutes before talk turned back to my brother’s plans for a patio. Still, I was so excited to be able to tell anyone who asked that I had a fiancé that I managed to be enthusiastic about paving slabs too. Suddenly, my slightly disappointing boyfriend was shiny and new again and I was no longer an object of pity. Or so I thought.

How ridiculous that at thirty-five, as I was then, I still thought that a marriage certificate would prove I wasn’t failing at life. Somebody wanted me. Never mind that it might not be the right somebody. Back in London, I bought three wedding magazines at the local newsagent and carried them home beneath my arm, titles out, hoping that I might bump into someone who could tell my ex-boyfriend that I’d been snapped up. When I did send an email to tell my ex that I had definitively moved on, he responded in a way that suggested he was genuinely pleased for me. Which was galling.

I threw myself into wedding planning, quickly coming up with a guest list two hundred names long, which of course was whittled down to fifty when Gideon worked out the cost of giving two hundred people a chicken dinner without the benefit of a bridal dowry (my parents spent the money they were saving for my wedding on their own patio when I turned thirty-two). I tried on dresses that cost more than my car and decided I needed six bridesmaids. I clocked up a hundred miles travelling to taste wedding cakes that would satisfy all my guests’ various dietary requirements. The chosen cake cost as much as a top-of-the-range washer-dryer and most of it would end up trodden underfoot on the dancefloor. Meanwhile, Gideon’s contribution to the manic planning was to hire two morning suits (one for him and one for his best man) and promise to turn up on the day.

Looking back (still wincing at the cost of the flowers – think ordinary flowers times ten) it seems so obvious that I was more in love with the idea of having my big day at last than I was with the man himself. Fairy tales have a lot to answer for. They always end with the big wedding and never address what hard work maintaining a “Happy Ever After” might actually entail. The sequel to Cinderella would be bloody.

Had the pandemic arrived when I first got engaged, would I have put off my wedding in the hope that I could still have a bigger party later on? I think I would. But if I’d had to put it off again a second or even a third time, as some poor couples have, perhaps it wouldn’t have happened at all. Just as there must be couples up and down the country who are giddy with delight at the thought of having their dream nuptials at last (albeit with a Cromwellian ban on singing), I’m sure there are those who were secretly wishing for another excuse to put the big day off to the point where it might be quietly shelved for good. Congratulations to the people who are going to marry their soulmates in grand-ish style this summer. To the others, I say in a whisper, a cancelled wedding is always going to be cheaper than a divorce.