NOW it's October’s start, the shops are full of Christmas items and the sun is unseasonably blazing in the skies, it's confirmed – high wedding season has drawn to a close.
I can’t say I’ll miss it, prone as I am to find weddings an inexplicable societal oddity.
But it has set me to thinking: imagine we could harness the power of the wedding for all other situations.
Weddings seem to cast a spell of loyalty and obligation that no other event can match.
Can’t persuade your cantankerous boss to give you time off for your aunt’s funeral? Don’t worry, you’ll be allowed three days with full pay to cavort down to Sheffield for your boyfriend’s sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s aunt’s wedding, no problem.
That frenemy who pledges to attend your every shindig but goes AWOL on the night? She’ll make the effort for your wedding. She’ll come to the hen do, be the first to peruse your John Lewis gift list and she’ll be one row behind your mother at the ceremony.
Routinely have but five people out of a guest list of 30 at your birthday? You’ll wait a long time to hear two hoots in the distance for birthdays but all 30 will be queueing up to RSVP for that Big Day.
Speaking of birthdays: birthdays are far more important than weddings. The people who turn up to your birthday parties are your true friends. There’s no societal pressure to attend birthday parties and most folk think, “ach, there’ll be another one next year.” Well, there might not be. And the people who show up every year are the ones who really rate you. Life tip: anyone who slings off your birthday party – sling them off your life.
There is nothing worse when organising an event than young people, nowadays. The advent of mobile phones and social media has made it perfectly acceptable for a response to an invitation to an event simply to be “I’ll try to make it.” What does that mean? You’re coming or you’re not.
This translates to “I can’t be fagged but I’m going to make an appearance of being keen so that I don’t appear a totally uncommitted, selfish ingrate, then let you down on the evening in question, friend.”
Yet imagine sending back a wedding RSVP having drawn and ticked a third box under Attending and Not Attending and marked it I’ll Try To Make It.
Is there some way to harness the power and importance people attach to the requirement to attend weddings – even if it costs them several hundred pounds or more – and divert it to other situations? Like, say, voting. Or charity swishing parties. Or birthdays. Definitely birthdays.
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