Boho brides aren’t cool, they’re just big poseurs
LUCKILy for me, I’m not at that stage in life where I get invited to many weddings. My children are too young and my friends are mostly still on their first marriages.
Which is a blessing, really, because I’m not sure I could cope with wading across a muddy field just to sit on a prickly hay bale watching two people burble new Age platitudes through a cloud of midges.
It appears weddings have changed a lot since I tied the knot. Back then, hats and heels were the order of the day; now it’s wellies and waterproofs.
According to John Lewis, more and more couples are turning their backs on formal venues such as churches and hotels, opting instead for alternative ‘farmyard’ weddings in more Instagram-friendly settings such as barns and yurts.
out go buttonholes, in come daisy-chains. out with the church organ, in with the wind- chimes. Abba and champagne? no, it’s acoustic guitar around the fire-pit and craft beer in jam-jars.
And forget booking a room at the local Travelodge: guests will slumber beneath the stars in glamping tents festooned with solar-powered fairy lights.
THE bride, meanwhile, will be radiant in billowing clouds of loose-fitting white. Shod in baby-blue hunter wellies, her hair garlanded in wild flowers, she will be the very vision of rural loveliness.
Like a Pre-Raphaelite princess she will take her place at the woven willow altar, pledging eternal love to her barefoot groom as friends swat away flies and granny contemplates the half-mile trek to the eco-friendly chemical loo.
Alternative? original? Boho? no, just predictably pretentious.
of course, all weddings are, to an extent, a cliche. But with a traditional wedding you can blame the worst excesses on convention. At least with a church ceremony you know where you are. Literally.
Getting hitched off-grid in a forest or a field, by contrast, presents your guests with a logistical nightmare.
how are they to know which tree to turn left at, or whether those ominous-looking cows are friendly?
As to the idea that these fauxboho weddings are somehow less uptight and more spontaneous, that’s clearly nonsense. The more laissez-faire they appear on the surface, the more frantic leg-work has gone on behind the scenes.
your traditional ceremony can be organised with just a few phone calls and a cup of tea with the vicar. A back-to-nature wedding, by contrast, requires military planning.
I once helped a friend organise a forest wedding for her daughter. And let me tell you, transporting 80 guests, assorted druids, food, booze and innumerable floral embellishments to the heart of a Wiltshire wood is a far more costly and timeconsuming process than booking the big room at a local hotel.
hay fever, sunburn, trench foot — these are all very real dangers. As is the prospect of rain.
yes, a hog roast is a lovely thing on a hot day; but soggy pig is no one’s idea of fun.
And in case you think I’m just being a killjoy, note that as well as doing a roaring trade in outdoor fairy lights (sales up 30 per cent, year on year), John Lewis has also seen a boom in wedding insurance. Successful claims have included a barn that burned down and a bride’s dress ruined by pollen.
you don’t get that at your local register office.