Why I changed my mind on marriage

telegraph.co.uk:

a shotgun wedding to a man about as far from my usual type as it is possible to be – and I am blissfully happy at the prospect.No one is more surprised than I am, given I haven’t changed my mind about the vast majority of what I previously said.

Being well versed in the statistics (42 per cent of marriages end in divorce, according to the latest ONS data), and considering my own father left when I was five, I am under no illusions that our union will last a lifetime simply because we signed on the dotted line.I don’t subscribe to religion, which has always been at the root of matrimony, and until very recently in history was the sole moral incentive that kept fundamentally mismatched couples bound.

Neither do I approve of all the couples I know who don’t believe in God either but have nevertheless jumped flagrantly through the hoops required to hold their nuptials in a church, and disingenuously pledged their love to Jesus Christ before an audience.The creepy rituals associated with a traditional wedding still make my toes curl; everything from the “handing over” of the bride to the performative snog at the altar and the awkward speeches that follow.

The expense of it all (upwards of £30,000 being the current UK average) confounds me – thousands of pounds spent on a puritanical white dress to be worn just once, plates upon plates of buffet food that will never be much better than a canteen dinner, no matter how much you spend on it – all for a party, the planning and politics of which is guaranteed to waste more time and generate more stress than it can ever make up for in momentary fun.