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Well, yes, obviously

Yes, the fact that Pippa Middleton’s forthcoming nuptials may be attended by members of the public is clearly a bit of a shock to some. All that meticulous planning, all that co-ordinated designer garb, all the calculated ingratiation in which various hangers-on have indulged to get an invitation – what’s the point if the pristine picture is sullied by a bunch of locals who may not be wearing quite the right clothes, who may not have quite enough money, who may not have quite enough connections to A-listers or aristocrats, who may, you know, smell a bit?

To which the reply should be: you clearly fail to understand quite what a Church of England wedding is. Exasperatingly as the institutional C of E can be, much of what it represents is worth cherishing – especially at a time when our society grows more divided and our lives become increasingly corporatised and privatised. And nowhere is this more evident than in the church’s view of celebrity marriages – or, to use the correct ecclesiastical jargon, “marriages”.

This reminds us of something deeper, too: people are part of our lives regardless of whether we invite them in
It actually has an official policy on such things. It begins with the observation that “the same law applies to the weddings of celebrities in Anglican cathedrals and churches as it does to the weddings of any other persons”; the fact that this needs spelling out tells us something in itself. It is splendidly dismissive of “exclusivity” deals: “A marriage is a public ceremony which at the least all parishioners are entitled to attend.”

The actual point of the marriage ceremony being that it is in public. Oi, you lot, we’re going to be shagging each other, alright?

7 thoughts on “Well, yes, obviously”

  1. Bloke in North Dorset

    Shouldn’t that be ” Oi, you lot, we’re going to be shagging each other, anyone got any valid objections?”

    Which is why is has to be public, so that valid objections can be made.

  2. While shagging is a big part of marriage, shagging in marriage is subject to the same rules of consent these days as it does for the unmarried. The man therefore has lost the inducement that he doesn’t need seek consent. In fact, in a year of marriage, only a small percentage of it is spent shagging. Even a super man with just under an hour a day, and right through the bleeding, gets 4%. For normal humans, it’s less than 1%. Sor what fills the remaining time?
    Well, the poor bastard has to listen to her incessant whine. Perhaps the unemployed are the only ones who tolerate that – the rest of us go to work to escape. another part of marriage is signing away your right not to be asset-raped if it doesn’t work – and for that, chum, you don’t even get a vaginal wank on demand. Then, if you procreate, you have years of hearing how the rugrats shat today (or didn’t). They may not even be yours.
    It’s public, so you know that you are in for the full treatment. By the way, it’s the last time she’ll wear sexy underwear for you – but then she only wore it to impress her mates, right?
    My advice: get a Phillipina or a Ukrainian via the Internet. You weren’t getting a virgin, anyway.

    PS. This wasn’t meant to be entirely serious.

  3. Let us commoners at least harbour the hope that the TV images of the wedding contain a decent number of views of Pippa’s bum

  4. Sounds like a great reason for separation of Church and State to me. Me and Mrs Ltw had our wedding 18 months ago, yes, of course the regular congregation got a general invite to the ceremony. So it was in public. But at the end of the day it was private property, and unwelcome guests could have been refused it it had come up.

    “A marriage is a public ceremony which at the least all parishioners are entitled to attend.”

    So, ask them to provide some evidence of being a regular parishioner, and not just a celebrity spotter. 99.9% of problem solved.

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