Liverpool dressmaker Thelma Madine is the travellers’ designer of choice. “From the minute these girls can walk and talk all they’re thinking about is getting married and getting the dress of their dreams,” she says. “And they all want their dresses to be the biggest.”

I hadn’t previously even heard of that T-shirt. For the first time, I’m glad that nowhere I visit regularly has a market.

I can regretfully confirm that I *have* seen that shirt on a fair few passers by and passing acquaintances, although thankfully not on any closer friends. Criiiinge.

Yeah, like that T-shirt I have (mercifully) never actually seen anyone wear, but which has a certain ubiquity in market stalls: http://www.teesforall.com/images/Humor_Wedding_Game_Over_Black_Shirt.jpg

I think it must go back to the idea that women want commitment and men want sex, hence no groom’s big day (he’s already had sex, and doesn’t want commitment). With the silent woman, I think a lot of the ‘blushing bride’ stereotype is ultimately originally the idea of feminine delicacy about the wedding night: in Sir Charles Grandison, Harriet Byron (engaged) cannot even bring herself to name the wedding day, for fear of seeming too forward.

Ah man, I did that in my Special Classes at skool, always wanted to hunt it down again one day…

Ooh, silent readers coming out of the shadows! Thanks for your comment – I’m sure direct.gov.uk was a particularly thrilling link. I was rather hoping to spread the word about The Marriage of Maria Braun though – a very strange film all round.

Incidentally, re: P&P, one of the things I’ve always found really interesting about Austen’s perception of the marriage market is how she seems to consider the men as much a part of the great bartering scheme as the women – what are Wickham and Willoughby doing, after all, other than trying to get the best financial reward off their looks and charm?

I think a lot of what we now think of as the ‘traditional wedding’ may be American in origin (the US is, after all, the country that spends the most on weddings): I read an article somewhere (might have been the guardian) positing the theory that modern day weddings are getting ever-more elaborate because the institution itself is no longer the terrifying unknown it was before people started ‘fornicating’ as a matter of course and living together pre-marriage. Therefore, couples need something to panic about in its place.

The laziness of the CoE is absolutely right – so many people seem to get married in church to keep some aged relation happy. I suppose in those kind of cases, you’re using the weight of your family’s opinion as the real ‘witness’ to your vows. A sort of God by proxy…