In March, on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday, in between a dentist appointment and school pick-ups, my partner, Mark, and I will say, “We do.” No seating plans. No caterers. No hen do. Just us and two witnesses. The ceremony will take place in the new Fitzherbert Room in Brighton Town Hall, where a maximum of four guests can see loved ones get wed. The celebrant will be a neighbor. I’m yet to choose a dress. Once our three young children are in bed we’ll go out to dinner. And I can’t tell you how happy I am about it.
According to figures from wedding venues, demand for tiny weddings and elopements has tripled, so we’re not the only ones shunning a large, formal celebration.
cost is a significant factor, of course. Who has £30,000, the average 2019 wedding spend, to save these days? We expect to get hitched for under £1,000 all in; the real indulgence will come from focusing on just the two of us for once.
It’s not just money that put us off a large wedding. The planning would overshadow family life, which, with house repairs, the near-constant ping of school emails, even party invitations (our children have better social lives than us), involves quite enough admin already. Most important, the idea of celebrating our love but barely getting time to chat to each other as we catch up with all our guests feels illogical.
Wedding venues nationwide say they are seeing couples rewrite the rules and celebrate the way they want. Partly this comes from the rising age of couples tying the knot: on average women are 32 when they marry, compared with 26 in 1972, according to the Office of National Statistics. Consequently more couples pay for their own weddings, rather than parents footing the bill — and having a say in the guest list. There is also a rise in second marriages, which make up a third of heterosexual ceremonies—and is the case for Mark and me. We both went more traditional first time around. Perhaps that makes it easier for us to shrug off convention now.
Alastair Brown, head of marketing at the Gretna Green wedding company, has seen a 20 per cent rise in elopements over the past year, with couples marrying with only two witnesses comprising almost half of weddings in the Scottish border parish. Big weddings, he says, take “huge amounts of planning and keeping people happy, which can take away from the couple’s experience. An elopement is about the couple themselves.”
We both enjoy a party and truly loved the weddings that dictated summer plans through our early thirties (I love a good speech; Mark has made three as best man). But while I might be denying friends the chance to catch a bouquet, I’m sure most will be grateful they won’t have to give up multiple weekends and fork out three-figure sums for hen dos, outfits and hotels.
Mark and Genevieve have opted for just two guests at their wedding — the witnesses
GENEVIEVE ROBERTS
And although it may seem counterintuitive for us to go small now Covid restrictions have finally been lifted, perhaps we do have the pandemic to thank for the lack of pressure.
Caroline Langham, the founder of Cote How wedding venue in the Lake District, says Covid has given us all “permission” to plan the day we really want, whether that’s a huge bash or a tiny ceremony.
At one point we thought about having a small wedding, rather than a truly tiny one. But if we invited our children and parents, then we’d naturally want to extend invites to our siblings, nephews and nieces, with whom we’re also very close. And what about those friends so close they feel like family? That doesn’t make for a small wedding at all.
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By being brutal we don’t have to make a cut — everyone is left out and no one can be offended (or so we hope). Our two witnesses are friends who I’ve known helped a lifetime and care about Mark nearly as much as I do. Later this year we’ll have a party in our garden with our children — who want to throw petals — parents, family and close friends, but nothing formal at all.
The timeframe for tiny weddings is also a draw for those who, like me, feel their eyes glaze over at the thought of a spreadsheet. “It takes two to four weeks to plan, rather than the average 18 months,” says Nicky Yates, the owner of Woodhaven, a small, eco-friendly venue in Woking in Surrey.
True to form, having only booked our wedding two weeks ago, in less than two months’ time we will be man and wife — with none of the fanfare and a fraction of the bill, but all of the love.
Did you have a micro wedding? Tell us why in the comments