Two weddings

2004

Brighton in February is a curious place. Without the sun brightening the Regency architecture like nature’s Photoshop, without the tourists clamouring through the Lanes or stumbling along the pier, it seems somehow bereft. The creak of seagulls in the sky cuts harshly through the cold air.

We trundled into town on a slow train, laden with bags and anticipation. The day is spent wandering through familiar alleys and shops, posing awkwardly for photos, enjoying the fact that the city is completely unaware of the significance of us, of our plans. In the hotel room we try on our rings for the last time. They have been sitting in little white envelopes, and every few weeks we have got them out and put them on.

It feels sneaky, as if we’re pretending to be adults.

We go for dinner in the hotel. We talk about the plans for tomorrow, though we don’t really have many. Our sleep is sound and dreamless on our last night of freedom from freedom.

The day dawns and we walk through the North Laine to the station to pick up our first witness. She’s almost as excited as we are, but the whole thing has an eerie calm about it. We don’t really know what we’re doing, what it will look like or sound like. How much it will be like the ones we’ve been to, or the ones we’ve seen on the television.

We go to lunch by the Pavilion. Our second witness arrives. I have never met her before, she has only heard about me in emails and telephone conversations. My heart genuinely swells with gratitude that she can be this happy, that she could so want to be part of this. We all have gin and tonic. It seems like the right thing to do.

Back at the hotel our witnesses check in and coo at the rooms. We change into something more formal, more suitable. I have never worn this suit before because I bought it for this occasion. Somehow I feel like I’m dressing up in a way that dwarfs my first day at school, my first day at work, my last exams. This is the only concession to formality, to conventionality, that I will make that day. I omit to wear a tie.

The four of us meet in the lobby and walk along the seafront. The witnesses jokingly make me get down on one knee and propose. I do it willingly but it’s plain odd. There has never been a proposal, never been an acceptance. We both always knew it would be like this. Not start like this, not end like this, just be like this.

We have been together for seven months. We have lived together for two. Practically nobody knows we’re here.

When we get to the town hall, they separate us from our witnesses. They are taken into another room and we are completely alone with the registrar. That’s the point where money changes hands. They don’t tell you how jarring that is – or how, more than any of the vows, it makes you realise the irrevocable change you’re about to effect. I don’t understand how this doesn’t deter people who don’t love each other from going through with it, but it doesn't, every year.

Our witnesses are already seated when we go into the beautiful oak panelled room. Row upon row of gorgeous chairs lie empty as we make our way to the front. There are six people there. The two of us, my best friend, her best friend, the registrar and another lady. I assume she isn’t the registrar’s best friend. We are rattling round this opulent chamber like a pea in a whistle.

The words we say are short and sincere. Somebody picked them for us, but I marvel at how true they are. I don’t understand why people write their own vows when these are so perfect. It is done in minutes. The registrar’s friend has to leave the room and come back with tissues because both of our witnesses are crying.

“I do a lot of these.” says the registrar afterwards as we are signing something irrelevant at a big desk. “I’ve got a good feeling about you two. When you were exchanging vows it was like there was nobody else in the room.”

I want to tell her that there wasn’t, but I keep that thought to myself. I know my wife of two minutes is thinking exactly the same.

We are shellshocked and ecstatic as we leave. There are photographs by the beautiful white pillars at the front of the building. Photographs in front of the pier. Photographs on the seafront. We are gleaming with happiness and everything and nothing has changed. We go back to the hotel and text messages fly from our mobiles like bubbles of pure joy, bursting with a jubilant splat on the screens of the phones of our friends all over the country.

I call my mother from the balcony of the cocktail bar. She is walking home from work. She cries with happiness and has to stop to compose herself. I hand the phone to my wife and they talk for a long time. When she returns, we have run out of cocktails and my phone has run out of credit.

I can’t envy people with big weddings though I respect their choice. They’re all in lovely big houses, with special readings and a riot of friends and distant family. Pimms on the lawn, professional photographers, discos and fights and cake and camcorders. Pay attention, all the guests tell the happy couple, the day goes by in a flash. Who you spoke to, what you did, it will all be forgotten the next day.

But I remember mine. I remember everything.


2009

We are at The Vyne, a beautiful old National Trust property in the middle of the Hampshire countryside. The rain everyone was so worried about has stayed away and the long cool stone room is filling up with guests. More guests than anyone anticipated, as the air is thick with thunderbugs. They land on my hands, on my face. We give up trying to swat them off. Busts line the walls, a succession of withering expressions peering at the seated guests. They will be the only stony faces I see today.

Our friends John and Nish are getting married.

When the registrar asks if anyone knows of any just cause or impediment Nish glares into the crowd like a pantomime villainess and the room echoes with laughter. Minutes later the parents take the screaming children outside and everything is perfect. I like their wedding a lot. For such a stunning, historic building the ceremony feels informal and quick. They’re in too much of a hurry to be married to worry too much about getting married, and that’s a feeling I can identify with.


And I feel like they too have realised the simplest but most hidden thing about all of this. Marriage makes no sense. People do it to change everything and stop things from ever changing, and they are all missing the point completely. Forget all those tax breaks and ticking different boxes on a form. Getting married is plain silly. If it made sense, nobody would do it. It’s one of the few great adventures you can have nowadays. For people like me, who don’t ever want kids, it’s pretty much the only one left.

Kelly looks over at me.

“What are you grinning about?”

“Nothing.”