I’m not interested in marriage or kids - but weddings? Yes please

"When it comes to weddings I immediately take leave of my senses and transform into the hopeless love child of Richard Curtis and a Hallmark card," writes Charlotte Ivers. Photo / Al Elmes, Unsplash

OPINION:

Look, I don’t want to call myself a hero. That’s for other people to decide. Luckily they already are. Let me explain. On Saturday night I was at a party in southeast London. As I tottered around inelegantly, clutching a bottle of champagne that some unfortunate reveller had mistakenly assumed would be safe left in the fridge, I came across my friend Rosie. Hit by an uncharacteristic boldness — the bottle was fairly empty — I barrelled towards her.

“Rosie. Rosie. Rosie!”

An alarmed look. It had come to my attention, I explained extensively while waving my pilfered bottle in a vaguely menacing manner, that her wedding was coming up in April. And I had not received an invitation by this point. “You can tell me if I’m not invited. I won’t mind at all.” I smiled brightly, with a look in my eyes that added, “We both know I will throw myself off this balcony if I’m not.”

Well, I’m still here, so you know how this story ends. Late the next morning I woke blearily to a message indicating that my invite had been dispatched. Not only this, but Rosie and her fiancé, Andy, had phoned around and several other potential guests had also not received their summons. We had been foiled by the postal strikes. As it turns out, people across the country had been waiting anxiously, wondering whether they had committed some mortal offence against the happy couple. And nobody had been able to pluck up the courage to ask. Emboldened by the fizz, I had taken the plunge and saved the big day. As I said, it isn’t for me to call myself a hero.

I, of course, am thrilled. I am a huge sucker for weddings. This trait is wildly out of step with the rest of my character. In all things I am one of life’s cynics. In a hotly contested field it is one of my least appealing personality traits. But when it comes to weddings I immediately take leave of my senses and transform into the hopeless love child of Richard Curtis and a Hallmark card. I am constitutionally incapable of seeing an acquaintance in a white dress without immediately breaking down in tears.

This is rather odd, since I am particularly cynical when it comes to marriage. I have seen the stats on divorce. I have seen other people’s husbands at closing time. I come from a broken home myself (my mum will not like me calling it this — given all it has meant in practice is that I got double the Christmas presents — but I’ve led a comfortable life and I need to score some sympathy points somewhere) and I am always a bit suspicious of anyone who isn’t. But put me in a church and stuff some confetti in my hand and suddenly I am a mess.

This experience is becoming increasingly frequent as I edge towards 30. I haven’t quite hit the wedding tipping point yet, when every weekend of the summer is spent trekking to a country house to grin politely at a bored photographer, but the first trickle of matrimonies are coming through. And not long behind it the babies. My attitude towards other people’s babies has long been the same as my attitude towards other people’s sex lives. Good for you, and I’m really happy for you, but I don’t want to hear about it. I certainly don’t want it in my own home. But now, of course, some of the people I love are starting to reproduce. Sometimes — and I can’t believe I am saying this — they are doing it on purpose.

I can see the first signs that something new is beginning, but also that something is ending. About a year ago I wrote a column in which I made a throwaway remark to the effect that I think 24-year-olds are pretty much still teenagers. I was fascinated by the comments from many of you, telling stories of being married with kids by 24, and expressing surprise that my experience seemed so very different. It struck me that, more than any other generation in history, my cohort has been given longer to grow up. Compared with my grandmother, I have a whole extra decade — maybe more — of … of … well, of what exactly? I’m not quite sure. Long lunches? Going to parties? Sleeping around and sleeping until midday?

I have an acute sense that my life is the easiest it has ever been, and perhaps the easiest it will ever be. Gone are the chaotic relationships of my early twenties and the temporary insanity of being a teenage girl is now, thank God, a distant memory. The days of real responsibility — of compromise and commitment, child rearing and caring for elderly relatives — are not yet here. Some of these things I could opt out of, of course. Many are inevitable. That is frankly terrifying. But when I think about the future, there is another emotion there: one I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe … excitement?

Written by: Charlotte Ivers

© The Times of London