Remembering Mrs Goldsmith

 

by Katie Fewings

Want to plan an ethical wedding? My best advice is: remember Mrs Goldsmith.

“I chose my wife,” writes Oliver Goldsmith in the 1700s, “as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well.”

Leaving to one side the implied slight to poor Mrs Goldsmiths’ looks, when did you last hear of a bride hunting down a wedding gown made to last?

Times change. The wedding dress for years of Sunday best is no more. The simple ceremony for a lifetime of love and commitment mutates into The Best Day Of Your Life. How can mere marriage compete?

Even a major women’s glossy that extols the virtues of boundless consumption asked recently: When did weddings go so over the top?

It’s a good question. My grandparents described their weddings as simple affairs, rationing ruled. My parents, just a generation ago, wed, sat down to eat with family and friends, then headed off on honeymoon. To Northumberland. In November. No evening’s entertainment into the early hours with more eating, drinking and dancing. Friends swap similar stories of their parents’ weddings.

So what changed? As divorce rates soar, the world has welcomed the wow factor wedding. It might not last long but we can damn well party while it does. And we do. The cost of the average wedding rises every year, now teetering around £20k. When planning our own nuptials, this revelation pushed us down the ethical wedding path: imagine the good you could do with that money!

Our media age offers aspirational types a tempting spread of multi-million pound celebrity weddings. Jordan and Peter. Wayne and Colleen. Not forgetting the original ‘whatever love is’ fairytale wedding of Charles and Di. In film too, ‘Four Weddings & a Funeral’ set in stone the benchmark for a very British wedding: the stately home, the embossed invite, hoards of guests in huge hats and aisles choking with flowers. Who cares that the main character rejects marriage? We’ve already fallen in love with those weddings.

Couples who plan a different celebration, that reflects their values and shares the love with local producers, fair trade co-ops and family and friends, can suddenly come unstuck when wedding etiquette rears its elegant neck or ‘tradition’ (or rather popular culture) trips them up.

Let’s come full circle. While credit crunches and the world crumbles, ethical and green weddings are on the up, a return to simpler, less wasteful times. Borrow (or hire) as much as you can: the groomsmen’s suits, vintage tableware, a necklace from a friend. Borrow skills too: an aunt to make the cake, a cousin the invites, friends for the music. Stop splashing the cash and let creativity flow for a personal and memorable day.

Treasure your something old, a grandmother’s veil or engagement ring? Choose carefully your something new: flowering plants for centrepieces to replant full of memories in the marital garden or, remembering Mrs Goldsmith, a wedding dress to wear again, adjusted and dyed for many a happy occasion in years to come.

And something blue? Why be blue? You’re getting married! Congratulations.

Katie Fewings, is Co-Editor of EcoChic Magazine & Director of Ethical Weddings.com

The gorgeous Rosette White Silver Bangle, pictured above, is courtesy of Leblas, purveyors of fine ethical jewellery. More from Leblas coming very soon.

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