GBBO is the only proposal I’m happy to accept
For better or worse, I’ve never schemed for a wedding of my own. Sure, it’s a time of celebration that brings together elderly aunts for a glass of warm wine in a small hotel near Loch Lomond, but most of it looks like several rounds of the Generation Game, with Bruce Forsyth, Larry Grayson or Jim Davidson coaxing you through a series of undignified tests and tasks.
Put together a guest list that doesn’t provoke wars that make Eastern Bloc countries look chummy and good-natured? Select a dress that makes you look like a sacrificial meringue? And after the deed is done, take to the floor and dance with your partner in front of a roomful of people?
That last one is my deal-breaker. The prospect of taking to an empty dance floor, gazed upon by many people who have watched at least one episode of Strictly Come Dancing, is the sort of storybook moment that belongs in a Stephen King anthology.
This is supposed to be part of the happiest day of your life, not an opportunity to relive one of your favourite recurring nightmares. You might as well have a point in the nuptials where the bride and groom are required to strip to their pants and sit a last-minute wedding exam that you haven’t revised for, just as a siren goes off signalling the release of zombie hordes.
On the other hand, wedding waltzes seem to hold no fear for singer Cheryl Tweedy-ColeFernandez-Versini, who divorced husband number two last week, and is now set to make Liam from one Direction husband number three. Good luck to both of them: Cheryl’s a terrific dancer and I’m only sorry that I can’t remember Liam’s second name, or tell the difference between him and niall.
Marriage is for the brave and purposeful, whether you are gay or straight. In fact, the only difference between gay marriage and straight marriage is that the former means no one complains about how you left the toilet seat. A marriage proposal means dealing with the quiet voice that asks whether this is just a way of ending those awkward ‘I don’t know what we are to each other’ conversations.
It’s not that I won’t get married. It’s a very romantic idea but surrounded with a lot of cynicism. We’ve all been to weddings that feel like the opening of a book on how long the marriage will last.
one friend attended an elaborate ceremony where the happy couple cut the cake and then, behind the bride’s back, the groom playfully mimed stabbing her to death with the cake knife to amuse guests. The wedding present toaster had barely warmed up before that marriage went cold and they divorced.
To a passionate adolescent, weddings sound like a finale because in most stories, they are: romeo and Juliet, and orpheus and Eurydice: these were great passionate loves with weddings that lasted the rest of their (very short) lives.
Signing up for matrimony is a big public act, but small private ones that offer all the joy of a wedding ceremony can be just as valuable: such as watching The Great British Bake off together, even when it clashes with the motor racing.