In advance of it, Daughters Number Two and Three said that they had never been to a wedding before: one of those revelations that, at first, is scarcely believable. No, I said. You must have been.
But it turned out that all the formal family events that they have attended were, in fact, funerals. Which isn’t as grim as it sounds. As long as the death isn’t sudden or tragic – for them it was grandparents and elderly relatives – an Irish funeral can be enriching, even fun. There’s sadness, of course, but it’s a ritual that also tends to prompt storytelling and laughter, that works to present a view of the departed’s entire life, not just the circumstances of their death.
Funerals can be low-key, even relaxed. Weddings can be the opposite. The couple can have spent years, and tens of thousands of euro, in an effort to produce a day that is fairytale perfect, that aims to bring everyone attending to a sort of simultaneous emotional climax. But there are so many moving parts – the venue, the music, the flowers, the clothes, the family politics – along with the grinding pressure on everyone to have fun, that it’s close to impossible to get completely right. Sadly, they can turn out to be fraught or disappointing or even dull. I’ve no science to back this up, but I’d bet money that if a statistician compared weddings to other sorts of events, they would find that weddings have a higher-than-average possibility of a fight breaking out.
There’s also a curious incongruity between how people act at a wedding and how they present themselves in their regular lives. Irish weddings can be quite un-Irish. They seem predicated on an insistence that we free ourselves from our usual emotional constipation. The couple at the centre of it are subject to grand introductions, standing ovations, a first dance (often choreographed) and all sorts of other look-at-me moments that they would be mortified to engage in on any other day.
READ MORE
Similarly, there’s a general expectation about how the speeches should go. Opening thanks, then a few funny stories about the groom or bride. But they have to end on a note of bring-you-to-tears sincerity: which, in any other situation, might make your average Irish person a bit uncomfortable.
I’ve been at weddings where the father, already awkward at having to speak in public, was compelled to say that they loved their child: something that (I was told afterwards) they had never said to them in private. I’ve seen grooms declare love for their friends; a sentiment which, if it had been expressed in the pub the week before, would have provoked sniggers and slagging. It’s like there’s been an unspoken agreement that everyone participating has to act like they are in a Hallmark Christmas movie, complete with the wooden performances.
And then, never speak of it again.
I had an urge to warn my daughters about all this, to temper any wild expectations that they might have had. But I didn’t because they would have accused me of being a grumpy curmudgeon. Quite unreasonably, of course.
[ Wedding culture is bananasOpens in new window ]
Anyway, it was just as well that I kept silent, as this wedding turned out to be a unicorn: one that managed to become what it had hoped to be. The weather behaved itself. People comfortably declared their love for each other and had clearly said it before. And the day was filled with considerate touches and clever plot twists that played with the usual ceremony-dinner-speeches-dancing structure. Five minutes after desert, there was a conga line.
Most importantly – and this can’t be manufactured – the atmosphere was warm and relaxed. Which makes me worry for Daughters Two and Three. Their first wedding experience has set the bar impossibly high for any others they might attend: including their own, if that happens. And I’m not being a grumpy curmudgeon about this. I’m not.
