A wedding day to remember — for just £4,500
WE’RE told the average cost of a wedding these days is as much as £20,500 (Mail), but it really needn’t cost that much.
My son Darren married his fiancee Rebecca in Sussex last October in a ‘rustic’ — i.e. cheap — affair, and all concerned agreed it was the best wedding they’d ever been to.
They married at Bury Church with a reception at the village hall. Their ‘limo’ was my old Land Rover which I kitted out with special seats and steps from old wood and decorated inside. I also made them a blackboard and easel, from old materials, for a guest name-board.
Others provided homemade bunting and floral bits and pieces, and most guests helped decorate the hall. We had a buffet spread, a disco and a mobile bar. No flowers were needed at the church as it was Harvest Festival, so it was already sorted.
The caterer, photographer and woman who made the bouquet were all friends of the bride, and the hall decorations were mostly homemade by the bride and her friends.
The total cost, including the wedding dress and bridesmaids’ dresses, the groom’s suit, the church and hall was around £4,500 — and they got around £1,000 back as gifts instead of presents (they’d requested cash gifts). The weather was a sunny October day: it was a rustic wedding to remember!
DAVID COX, Maidenhead, Berks.
Nanny State nonsense
WE all know where a road paved with good intentions leads and that’s the course we are on with the SNP’s Named Person nonsense.
As Dr Stuart Waiton (Mail) warns, it’s all too easy under the new scheme for even good parents to fall foul of a system full of good intentions about rooting out feckless families.
The idea of protecting children is not something to be argued against, but suddenly the state is going to be interfering in the lives of lots of families.
There is a danger here that Named Persons are going to be so busy with trivial issues arising from families doing fine that serious cases of child abuse and neglect will go unnoticed.
Shouldn’t we be putting our resources in to finding the genuine hardship cases, not trying to paint every parent as an idiot who can’t raise a child without the Nanny State on their shoulder?
J. WATSON, via email
Give Ruth a chance
AS the Holyrood election looms, we are going to constantly hear the words ‘ Tory austerity’ being spouted from the lips of Nicola Sturgeon and co as though it will make any red-blooded patriotic Scot rush to the polling stations and slap an X in the SNP candidate’s box, come what may.
Well, before that happens, I urge all those floating voters and everyone fed up with the Nationalists’ dismal record so far – from NHS Scotland to the Forth Road Bridge f arce and everything else in between – to listen to Ruth Davidson, and give her a chance.
Forget the Conservative label. She and her party care passionately about this country as much as the others, and will be a far better opposition than Labour. Vote with your head, not your heart.
B. STEVEN, Glenrothes, Fife
Migration madness
I FEEL thoroughly ashamed to live in a country that deports a hardworking Canadian family such as the Zieldorfs (Mail).
The economic climate in this country has been extremely hard the last few years. How brave of them to have taken on such an exciting challenge together.
We go out of our way to house asylum seekers, but are happy to throw out young, hard-working families who add so much to our small communities.
The Home Office should be able to deal with some cases on a humanitarian basis. They are taking away this family’s home and employment, things that are considered a priority for others.
If the Zieldorfs have to go, it will be our loss not to mention shame. We should be helping them every way we can.
C. GIZATULLIN, Ayr
Fracking makes sense
RATHER than tell us ‘fracking ain’t happening,’ perhaps Nicola Sturgeon can tell us how she intends to keep the lights on in this country.
I took a walk on a beautiful cold, crisp day. Every wind turbine – and I saw lots of them – was still in the flat calm. Renewables aren’t reliable enough to base our power supply on and yet we’re ignoring cheap gas recovered by fracking because it’s deemed trendy to oppose the technology.
America is booming on the back of cheap domestic gas and oil, the water table is just fine – but we’re heading for powercuts.
A. JARDINE, Paisley, Renfrewshire
Don’t cast stones, Mick
SO Mick Jagger is ‘absolutely staggered and horrified’ at his ex-wife marrying Rupert Murdoch. How ironic when Jagger himself cheated on Jerry Hall with women much younger than himself.
Even at 72, Mick is still with girlfriends young enough to be his granddaughter, yet Jerry – bless her – is derided because her new husband is older.
It’s a shame that Mick just cannot be a bit more magnanimous and wish her well. I for one wish her good luck – she deserves it after all the infidelity of her feckless ex.
KATHY SCRIVENS, Drummore, Wigtownshire
Market forces
SO they’re talking about moving Glasgow’s Barras to another site (Mail). It seems the city’s authorities are against any means of people obtaining second-hand things.
First it was the demise of Paddy’s market and now they have their sights on the Barras, so nothing will remain of the Glasgow of old.
W. MCLEAN, Glasgow
Socialist utopia
WHILE I was working in the front garden recently, my neighbours stopped for a friendly chat and I asked their 12-year- old daughter what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said she wanted to be Prime Minister.
Both of her socialist parents were standing there, so I asked her: ‘If you were Prime Minister, what would be the first thing you would do?’ She replied: ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’ Her parents beamed with pride.
‘You don’t have to wait till you’re Prime Minister to do that,’ I said. ‘You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds and trim my hedge, and I’ll pay you £50.
‘Then you can go over to the food shop where that homeless chap hangs out and give him the £50 toward food and a new house.’
She replied: ‘Why doesn’t the homeless chap come and do the work, and you can pay him £50?’
‘Welcome to the Conservative Party!’ I told her.
Her parents aren’t speaking to me now. What a shame Cameron doesn’t think like this any more. DAVID HODGSON,
Swindon, Wilts.