Sceptred aisles... why weddings are more about riches than romance

They just don't get it that for some people big, fussy and bank-busting is about as appetising as one of those nasty sugar-coated almonds you can find in a frilly bag beside your plate, and that it is possible to object to the so-called "fairytale wedding" because you'd rather spend your money otherwise, and would prefer to gouge your own eyes out than ride in a horse-drawn carriage with flowers woven into the horse's mane or plight your troth in front of a crowd of people who are rather more "contacts" than much-loved friends.

Why is it that so many feel they must meet certain minimum levels of opulence, ostentation, razzmatazz and general conspicuous consumption on their Big Day? It's as if they fear they and their marriage might not be taken seriously unless it is given the heft of fireworks, goodie bags and a two-day binge at a country house hotel.

The average UK wedding now costs about 20,000. It's amazing how the price of a lily, rose or gardenia, cake, balloon or hair-do is suddenly ramped up when the word "wedding" is attached to it. The excesses of the wedding industry really took off in the Dynasty-inspired 1980s, but more latterly they've been aided and abetted by the fairytale nuptials of celebrity princes and princesses. Of course many celebrity weddings featured in magazines are paid for by those publications, not the well-heeled bride and bridegroom.

When a couple in question decide to forsake the vagaries of British weather and have their wedding on a beach in St Lucia or Grenada, it's hard to know whether guests' heart leap with joy or sink in dread that, in return for a picture postcard Caribbean sunset as the backdrop for the video and snaps, the bride and bridegroom are inflicting horrendous expense on their loved ones, who have little choice but to shell out and perhaps worry about the debt later.

Last week, the very private and (as far as we know) quiet-living Chelsea Clinton married her prince at an exclusive venue in upstate New York. It was never going to be a very low-key affair for a woman whose parents Bill and Hillary probably have the world's most high-powered address book. We were told, however, that guests would be people who had a close personal relationship with the bride or bridegroom.

There were 500 of these good friends at the $3.2m do, where the cake (who ever cares about eating wedding cake, by the way – doesn't it exist just for the photos and therefore might as well be made of polystyrene?) cost $11,000. Oh, and Chelsea allegedly asked her father to lose 15lb so he'd cut a dash in the photos. He did appear to have complied, and ended up looking rather scraggy and several years older in the space of a couple of months.

The chasing of perfection seems to have become the name of the game with so many weddings... to the extent that brides and grooms, not content with how much they've spent on the clothes, the shoes, the hair, make-up artist, jewellery and even the teeth to look their tip-top best, in some cases ask to have the photographs airbrushed to thin down faces or arms, narrow the waist and whiten teeth. Perhaps Bill's C's jowls will be electronically reinstated for aesthetic reasons.

Some weddings are so complicated in terms of the music, the speeches, the acrobats, fire-eaters, magicians, snake charmers and the like, that strict running orders are imposed and a rambling, indiscreet and

hilarious best man's speech is cut off before its prime – and may be vetted beforehand. If the father of the bride stutters because he's not used to a video camera being pointed up his nostrils, well that's okay, because everything will be edited to preserve only the pristine, tightly-spun version of events.

One musician who spends weekends accompanying weddings recently said he often notices how the bride and bridegroom barely speak to each other once the vows are over, and one or other or both at some point will "throw a stressed-out tantrum behind the scenes over something they have failed to control, such as children making a bit of noise". The average wedding insurance premium of 110 probably doesn't cover children doing what children naturally do...

Giles Fraser, the chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, who has presided over more than 100 weddings in his time, has voiced concerns that many modern weddings "have lost their way", to the extent that they've become a threat to marriage itself because they celebrate "me, me, me". In other words, the wedding is about narcissism rather than the celebration of the love that should be at the core of the marriage and the married life that comes afterwards.

That's a tad harsh. It seems unkind to imply that true feelings and serious intentions don't usually exist behind all the fa-la-la and preening. There's no cast-iron equation relating MGM-style weddings and divorce, however we all know without doing any maths that after producing and starring in your own high-budget movie the everyday realities of marriage might well feel like a complete let-down.