Publication of the Month 2

Now back to “Borsetshire Bride and Groom”, our publication of the month, “produced in association with the Church of England” (it says on the cover). I think the idea is that we shove this at couples coming to book weddings, having first taken note of communications from our diocese suggesting we promote marriage in churches by using posters with phrases like “we’ve got four hundred great venues just waiting for you!”. Hmm. One or two slight drawbacks to that, such as Church of England marriage law.

The magazine is full of glossy photos of everything you could possibly think of for a grand wedding, plus an number of other things you would never think of, such as personalized slogans on umbrellas to hand out to all your guests (“No-one Rains on My Parade!”). What it is short on is much mention of prices. There are few pound signs to be seen. You have to go all the way to page 125 before you get a breakdown of costs for a series of possible wedding scenarios; Bronze, Silver and Gold. For the tightwads amongst you, you can do a Bronze wedding for £6,135. Silver comes to £13,145. But if you really want to push the boat out, go for Gold at an eye-watering £31,510. You could buy a house for that not long ago. In very small print in the corner, you can find the cost of a “minimalist” wedding, which is just the cost of legal fees, at around £200. Or just give ’em the train fare and encourage them to run away together.