IS GETTING MARRIED THE MOST TACTLESS THING YOU CAN DO?
SUSIE BOYT ON ANNOUNCING YOUR ENGAGEMENT TO THE WORLD, EVEN WHEN THE WORLD ISN’T AS HAPPY AS YOU ARE
‘ I never wanted a traditional wedding… I wanted a strong wedding.’ If ELLE were to marry, we’d probably share Serena Williams’ brief. Whether you’re a bride looking for a sustainable ring or a best friend wanting to make a killer speech, we’ve asked our insiders for their tips on how to bring your strongest wedding game this summer
With any luck, when you announce that you are getting married, your nearest and dearest are delighted for you, and your friends grin and cluck and rally. Pals send snaps of the table decorations in My Best Friend’s Wedding, where garden roses are mixed with humble little Michaelmas daisies to great effect. You wonder whether those rumours of duels being fought by your gallant aunties, all desperate to lend you their diamond bracelets, are true. Your wedding is your moment, after all.
Or not. How do you happily get married when your best friend has just had a searing break-up, or your brother’s been cruelly bereaved, or your father doesn’t generally like to take a day off work? How do you make the day enjoyable, or manageable, for those who are unhappy in their lives? How, on your big day, do you attend to the side of yourself that has often felt miserable at the weddings of others, assuming you would live a solitary life writing novels in bedsits, drinking gin and suffering in style? Have you betrayed her somehow?
In ordinary times, when things are going well for us, we tend to be a bit bashful and keep quiet about it. We employ selfdeprecating humour with a nervous smile, we don’t trumpet the fact, and we certainly don’t sell tickets. With that in mind, is getting married the most tactless thing you can possibly do? If you are accustomed in life to having all the feelings, can you be happier on your wedding day than your most unhappy guest?
When I got married, four of my friends had just split up with the men they’d hoped to marry, and three had recently lost loved ones. It seemed almost disgraceful to be merry. I felt I had let them down by being up, and my worries multiplied like rabbits. What if my life turned out to be happier than my mother’s? Was that a form of betrayal, too?
Confused and headachey, I talked to the priest about it. He was 6ft 5in and so scholarly I think he would have preferred to converse with me in Ancient Greek. ‘A lot of my friends are going through a hard time at the moment,’ I said. ‘I feel a bit ashamed that things are going well for me. Most of my life I have been the one who’s struggling, so it seems almost unnatural. I don’t know who I am anymore.’
He suggested we have special prayers at the wedding for those who were bereaved, sad at heart or going through a difficult time in their lives. That felt better. I thanked him. After we said goodbye, I darted back to ask if we could somehow acknowledge those who were single and did not wish to be in the service. ‘It’s not Bridget Jones,’ he said.