I was at a wedding at the weekend. This is not too unusual for me: I’ve reached that time of life and I’m averaging three or four a year now.
But something’s been bothering me and perhaps someone could help me out here.
A wedding is the most important day in just about anyone’s life. Not only is it one of the few days dedicated purely to the happy couple, but it marks the beginning of a whole new life for them both. Then there’s the enormous expense of it all, with thousands of pounds being spent to make the day as enjoyable and as memorable as possible.
So answer me this: why is it that there is a peculiar class of person who attends weddings and thinks, “No, of all the people here, I am actually the most important of you all.”
I am, of course, talking about parents who bring their infants to weddings.
They’ve received the invitation. They’ve looked at their months-old child. Then, instead of booking a babysitter or deciding to stay at home, they’ve decided that in actual fact, their attendance is so important, so vital to the bride and groom, that they must be there, even if it means bringing their children with them.
Have they perhaps not noticed that their mewling spawn can’t keep quiet for more than five seconds? Maybe they’ve never been to weddings themselves and observed the little scrotes screeching away for the duration. Maybe the idea that the bride and groom, ten years on, will be saying to each other “I wish I could have heard you say, ‘I do’, but unfortunately Jonnty and Jemima’s little Tarquin was registering 120 decibels at the time” doesn’t occur to them.
Let me disabuse them of those notions and provide them with the following additional useful information:
- Your child will scream, talk incessantly or run up and down at any given wedding. I have observed this to be true of all children six years or younger. Your child is no different.
- People will not stare at you admiringly. They will stare at you, wondering why, instead of smiling indulgently as it knocks over the flowers, you’re not clubbing your kid and dragging it outside, apologising quietly but profusely the whole time.
- Your child is not invisible or inaudible to anyone except you. Believe me.
- The average cost of a wedding in London is £16,000. Is the cost of a babysitter/nanny/armed guard less than this sum? Yes, it is – amazingly even on a Saturday. Therefore, you should hire one of that particular group of professionals to look after your child in your absence if you absolutely have to go. That way you can enjoy yourself at the wedding and so can everyone else. Not really a very difficult concept, is it?
So parents, if you cannot guarantee your child is going to be as silent as a Trappist monk for the entire length of a ceremony, do not take it to the wedding. If you absolutely have to, because you’ve signed some contract in blood with either the bride or the groom that you will bring it with you, stay out of the ceremony itself. Spend your time thinking sadly about how since you’ve sprogged up, you’ve been ostracised from all social gatherings, a pattern that will repeat itself until your children are teenagers or you invest in a babysitter and wonder if perhaps it was all some big mistake.
You can tell I don’t have kids, can’t you?