News

A couple of years ago, a deliciously bitchy girlfriend and I amused ourselves by composing a bridal-themed version of Allen Ginsberg's Howl. It went like this: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by weddings, starving, hysterical, lace-clad/ Dragging themselves through Ashley's at dawn looking for a matching dish,/ Chignon-headed bridesmaids burning for an eligible connection to the bustling madness in the hell-bound tent rental of the night ..." You get the idea.

Overnight, it seemed, all of our friends had decided to get married. We were, as they say, "at that age." Where once there were dry martinis and dirt-dishing, suddenly there were mocktails and debates on family-style vs. buffet.

In short, it was boring. And, of course, we weren't getting married, which made it absolutely infuriating! So we got a bit drunk and wrote our catty poem and had a good cackle. And then we went to our girlfriends' various weddings and wished them all the best. We were genuinely happy for them, after all. And besides, when you get past all the frilly nonsense, weddings are actually quite lovely, right?

Well my girlfriend didn't think so. She was well and truly put off. Since we wrote our poem, she has bought a house and had a baby with a man she's firmly in love with - but she's sticking to her guns on the marriage front.

I, on the other hand, have muddled along, not knowing what to think.

But lately I (actually my boyfriend and I) have started to come around to the idea. We've been thinking that maybe, if we did it our own way, a wedding might actually be kind of fun.

Okay, so it's not exactly earth-shattering news. I imagine the headline, like one of those faux news stories in The Onion: "Woman, 33, to wed live-in boyfriend; parents relieved." But maybe marriage is not as hopelessly conventional as we thought. These days, in fact, it's becoming the radical choice.

It was recently reported that the proportion of married adults in Britain has dropped to an all-time low. I don't just mean that there are fewer people getting married (the marriage rate is the lowest since they started recording such things in 1862). But the result of the decline is that, for the first time, married adults are estimated to make up less than half the population.

The main cause being cited is the same one trotted out for any current social trend, from teen pregnancy to the mood swings of house cats: the credit crunch.

Apparently, people don't want to get married any more because they can't afford to. But I'm not buying it. After all, weddings, like child-rearing, can be done perfectly well on the cheap. And besides, the same trend was reported in the 2006 Canadian census, which showed that unmarrieds outnumbered marrieds by a small margin and that rates of common-law unions were fast outpacing formal marriages - and that was in a time of relative economic stability.

I think my generation has gone off marriage - or more precisely weddings - because the sentiment (which we believe in) has been obscured by the ludicrous pageantry (which we reject).

The thing that has always shocked me most about many newly engaged couples is the level of pretense required to fit into the Hallmark-approved idea of romance.

This starts with the proposal, in which he "asks" and she pretends to be "surprised." Then there is the engagement, in which she becomes suddenly obsessed by trivialities like napkin colours while he rolls his eyes indulgently and makes lame jokes like: "Just tell me where to show up."

Then there is the social permission it gives otherwise sane, polite people to behave like spoiled celebrities, the ridiculous, narcissistic "princess-for-a-day" clichés and finally the unfettered materialism that turns so many otherwise happy celebrations into garish cake shows.

Suffice to say, I have some issues - not with all weddings (I have been to some very nice ones), but with the ghastly wedding machine. And so does much of my generation, if you believe the numbers.

The bridal industry, with its fabricated notions of formality and ceremony ("traditionalesque," as Rebecca Mead put it in her book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding) and Hollywood, with its consistent output of mawkish chick flicks such as Bride Wars, has conspired - as a primary school teacher might say - to ruin a perfectly nice thing for everybody else. So much so that if the trend continues, we will soon live in a society in which marriage, with all its good and honourable connotations of commitment, love and partnership, may soon be a curious anomaly.

Which is why I am urging happy, loving couples everywhere not to be afraid. Follow your heart. Be radical. Do it your own way. Throw convention to the wind. Who cares what the neighbours say? You, too, can get married. Just don't be ridiculous about it.

lmclaren@globeandmail.com