My unhealthy obsession with weddings

Your 'big day' is my Fifty Shades of Grey

Your 'big day' is my Fifty Shades of Grey

I am obsessed with weddings.

Not in that "fairy princess" dreaming of my "big day" - gross.

I could not think of anything worse than attending my own wedding. (Don't think the narcissistic irony of putting myself into this story about weddings as I rail against the expensive anxiety festivals is lost on me).

No, I am what you call an enthusiastic wedding creep.

I don't want to crash your wedding, I just want to watch. From afar. And most definitely not from your "hen's party". 

I just want to hear all about how your grandmother gave you the best sex advice ever and how your maid of honour got it embroidered on the fake tan streaked, Prosecco stained #bridesquad robes. There's just something really moving about: "Women, we may be lambs in the kitchen, but we are tigers in the bedroom" in cursive.

I enjoy the narrative of weddings, the love story between a bride and her bunting. How a groom chooses his men, how a same sex couple incorporate faith and how "mother of the bride" energy is more potent that fossil fuels.

Give me all of the details.

I admire people wanting to commit to a wedding more than an actual marriage. No matter how "low key" a couple appear, weddings, since the advent of social media have become swol, OTT and Moments™. They're works of art. Events of Mount Everest proportions. No matter the budget, they're always special, quirky and sentimental.

I blame my want for BTS on watching my Aunt Pauline prepare for her wedding back in the late 1980s.

No bride will ever hold a candle to how beautiful she looked.

Her white, long sleeved, high neck chantilly lace frock with hoop skirt, complete with a floral garland bursting with baby's breath and white roses atop of her freshly permed bob, and paired with champagne coloured satin ballet shoes.

She was breathtaking. 

Her two bridesmaids in hot pink column dresses with sleeves puffier than profiteroles (and matching garlands) were equally as glorious.

It all stepped up a notch when the Venn Diagram of my interests - comedy, Diane Keaton and rom-coms that resemble Norman Rockwell paintings - became a circle in the cult classic film, Father of the Bride. Where the bride wore sneakers to her nuptials produced by Franck the wedding planner (played to perfection by Martin Short).

It continued with Jane Hall. Revered actor and broadcaster sure, but she also fronted one of the greatest shows ever produced for free-to-air television (in 1996).

Hall once hosted Weddings. It was pre-reality TV, post-Muriel's Wedding Australia.

I still remember a groom (with a mullet) called Wayne who took an esky full of beers to the ceremony, got told off by the priest so drank alone outside while progressing getting more emotionally lubricated with ever sip. "I just cherish the ground she walks on," were his parting words before his bride arrived on the back of Harley. 

Then of course we've had more royal weddings than Royal Commissions in recent times. The former actually achieve something positive, but cost tax payers more than the latter.

Kate and William - flawless. Meaghan and Harry - the symbolism! But it's Fred and Mary for me.  I watch their big day from 2004 at least once a month. Her bouquet infused with eucalyptus. His trembling lip when he caught the first glimpse of his Aussie bride. It was a cultural chef's kiss.

Which brings us to the weddings of today. Celebrity and less "glittery". There are so many genres - royal-esque like Brooklyn Beckham and Nicole Peltz, Cool Girl like Chloë Sevigny, Coachella Lite like Emily Clarkson's or sponsored like Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker.

One thing that hasn't changed is the "wedding report". Which, let's be honest, celebrity weddings now are becoming brand extensions so media coverage is going to be required for labels, "partners" and commercial "friends" involved to get their ROI and, old mate Esme Watson here, is not mad about this next wave of them.

Take the Peltz-Beckham union. We haven't seen a celeb wedding that ostentatious since, well, Brooklyn's parents. When David and Victoria married in 1999 and had more costume changes than the Moulin Rouge stage show. Brooklyn was there. Dressed as a miniature cowboy.

"Happy Tears, Midnight Fries, And Fatherly Advice From David: Inside The Peltz Beckham Wedding" was the headline of the essay written by society king, Derek Blasberg for British Vogue. 

"The wedding of the year"

Pulled together by a stylish SWAT team, the details of the young couple's big day were so minute it was borderline Communist.

Everything down to how the dust was removed from the suit Nicole's billionaire dad demanded to wear, to her mum wearing "custom Versace...all weekend" and the love note of "All my love, all my life" Nicole had engraved on Brooklyn's wedding band as that was what her dad did for her mum when they wed. 

Nothing was off limits and no budget wasn't blown as it appears there wasn't one to begin with. The welding of the progeny of a Spice Girl and England's best known footballer with the heiress of the Wendy's fast food chain was priceless.

The couple wanted to "match" as much as possible so they had white Dior suits made for one portion of their weekend-long extravaganza.

Then there was the dress.

"The Valentino Haute Couture creation that actor Nicola Peltz wore to marry Brooklyn Beckham, David and Victoria’s eldest son, and new chef, wasn’t just a dress. 'It was a story,' the bride says,'" British Vogue reported. 

It was a coronation of the new young guard but it was also just a young (the groom is 24, the bride, 27) and extremely cashed up couple getting hitched.

The wedding was the passing of the influential baton to the future while still being heavily inspired by the past. 

When asked about Victoria and David's wedding Nicola chimed in: "Their wedding was incredible and those pictures are iconic...but the wedding we were most inspired by was Iman and David Bowie’s."

The rock legend and supermodel were married in 1992 and Nicola’s hair and make-up were inspired by another '90s supermodel, Claudia Schiffer.

"Wedding fashion was a big topic of conversation. On Friday evening, I found Victoria at the bar and asked her about her wedding looks. 'David and I are the first ones out on the runway,' she said, before laughing and correcting herself with, 'I mean the aisle! Well, we are opening the show'," Blasberg noted. 

The couple marked the occasion by Brooklyn taking his wife's surname and having his vows tattooed.

Brooklyn's wedding vows are now even more permanent.

A few days later Blasberg was also a guest at the wedding of the actor Chloë Sevigny.

The epitome of effortless style got married, there was a social media shot and then came the Vogue chaser.

"Inside Chloë Sevigny’s Elegant, Emo Connecticut Wedding," was the headline.

Her wedding celebration was put on hold for two years, as they had a baby, then Covid hit, then eventually happened recently on an "idyllic spring weekend in Chloë’s hometown of Darien, Connecticut."

As Vogue reported:

"'I had always been enamoured by Talmadge Hill Community Church–the white clapboard exterior, aesthetically, I found it very charming,' Chloë says. 'I love weddings that are bursting at the seams, and I always wanted to get married at this church. We met Reverend Carter there, and I just fell in love with what they were preaching, the whole vibe, so we asked him to marry us.

"New Cannan’s Waveny Park is where Chloë always wanted to have her reception. 'I hung out there as a kid doing acid and being a wild child,' she says. 'This [venue] would be my fantasy dream wedding. Unfortunately, we landed on a Sunday so we had to be out of the venue by 10pm."

The bride met her groom, an art gallery director from Croatia named Siniša Mačković, but played it cool.

"She didn’t pursue anything until she eventually crossed paths with Siniša at a Gagosian opening. 'We locked eyes and stared at each other. We exchanged a few words, very coy, and very heavy,' she says. 'And then I went to a Karma after-party with some girlfriends. And we met each other on the dance floor, without exchanging any words. Eventually, he said, ‘Can I see you sometime?’ And I was like, ‘Maybe’. ”

Chloë Sevigny and Siniša Mačković

She had three outfits for the ceremony. A Loewe shift dress for cocktail hour (where The Grateful Dead cover band provided the soundtrack), a Jean-Paul Gaultier couture wedding gown and a Mugler jumpsuit to dance and eat pizza in at 4.30am. 

The bride had three outfits for her one day.

Across the pond and podcaster and daughter of Top Gear star Jeremy Clarkson got married to her long-term boyfriend the same weekend.

Emily Clarkson is fun. She oozes more zest than a lemon and has more fizz than Vintage Dom Perignon.

The bride, 27, who hosts the podcast Should I Delete That? and groom - publicist and Ironman Alex Andrew - made an "amuse bouche" video for their wedding with slow mo vision of them pashing and waving coloured smoke flares.

The main course was even better with the couple both spamming their Instagram grids with love notes and pics from their party.

The best part about all these weddings is how "into it" the grooms are. 

Here's to more love. I'll be here. Watching.