Authenticity and being true to ourselves was important when my husband and I married. We didn't believe in pomp and undue ritual so the marriage itself contained just the bare minimum words necessary to complete the formalities. Guests who blinked may have missed the low-key 6.30pm ceremony which was conducted by a Justice of the Peace and held at Auckland's Regent hotel (now the Stamford Plaza).
I eschewed any traditions that referenced the oppression of women. I didn't wear white but rather a pale green silk suit by Annie Bonza. I shunned the veil which to me has a similar subtext to and all the appeal of the burqa. And no one 'gave me away'; it was 1993 and women were no longer regarded as possessions.
We had two clear goals on our wedding day. Firstly, we simply wanted to be married to each other and we didn't feel the need to hire the services of a wedding planner or dive unthinkingly into trite and clichéd rituals in order to do so. We didn't even use the event as the launch-pad for some extravagant overseas trip but chose to spend three nights at a Taupo lodge instead. I remember just wanting our married life to start for real rather than be delayed by the traditional no-holds-barred honeymoon.
Our second goal was to share and celebrate the occasion with family and friends. So, all our decisions were based on facilitating this pair of objectives. We had no inclination to mindlessly tick off the obligatory boxes.
It's refreshing to see occasional bursts of authenticity amidst the stereotypical weddings. A photograph in a recent NZ Woman's Weekly showed a farm-style affair in which the men in the bridal party wore black singlets and Jandals while the reception was held in a woolshed. This couple gets full marks for lack of pretension and refusal to conform. And sixties model Jean Shrimpton described her no-nonsense wedding reception in a recent Sunday article: "We had champagne with fish 'n' chips, but the only guests were our two registry office witnesses."
Carolyn Bourne, the UK woman who spectacularly berated her future daughter-in-law in an email that went viral, wrote: "No one gets married in a castle unless they own it."
Beyond the snobbish undertones there's an inkling of relevance to this comment.
When a couple stretches themselves financially and throws untold money at their dream wedding to get the limousines, the fancy frocks, the posh reception and exotic honeymoon, it must be such a letdown to wake up in their normal lives and regular homes when their short-lived fantasy is over.
That's yet another reason to keep it real.
