Richard Baum

It’s nearly the weekend, which is a relief because today’s early morning pre-work ascent from bed was probably the most difficult thing I’ve had to do since my IKEA bookcase arrived with no instructions.

There is reason to repeat the “getting out of bed” trick over the weekend though. The new St Mary’s Focus is written (by me), designed (by Cllr Mary D’Albert), printed (by us), and now ready to go, and so that’s what we’re going to be doing with our collective Saturdays and Sundays in the main.

However, I am of course recently betrothed, and wedding plans stop for no man, even at the weekend and even with leafleting to do…

I am reliably informed that there is a “wedding fayre” on at the Trafford Centre this weekend, and so I will troop off there on Sunday to weep quietly in the gigantic foodcourt at the spiralling costs of my recently-agreed nuptials.

Preliminary research into the world of weddings has been both very illuminating and hugely alarming. Rather like the flash caused by the detonation of a nearby hydrogen bomb.

By the time I’ve rented a room, hired an officiant, bought the necessary clothing, and then fed the bare minimum number of people I can get away with inviting without it seeming positively rude, we’re looking at the thick end of more thousands of pounds than I enjoy thinking about spending. There will have to be some significant ground gained between now and “I do” for it to top Bury FC’s 1997 Division 2 championship victory as the happiest day of my life.

All this wedding lark has though awakened a potential solution to wider financial woes. I think the nation’s way out of this recession / depression / almighty economic shake down is simple. Rather than talking about “quantitative easing” as a coded way of asking to print more money, the Bank of England should just set itself up as a wedding venue, since this seems to be an actual licence to print money!

I thought I’d found the ideal website to plan my day. It’s called “frugalbride.com” and would, I assumed, provide me with a handy list of ideas to reduce the height of the rapidly increasing money mountain that will be my wedding. All of a sudden I am feeling mild empathy with Gordon Brown, as both of us see debts growing exponentially and seemingly beyond our control.

In these challenging times, perhaps frugality is the way forward, wedding wise. A frugal bride gets married in front of a dozen friends and relatives, somewhere where the primary material used for decor is unadorned concrete. She wears something from off a peg in Debenhams, and doesn’t quite manage to hide the crushing disappointment that financial circumstance has robbed her of a big church and a castle reception, and replaced it with the local registry office followed by vol-au-vents in the upstairs room of the Lamb and Flag.

Not that I want this for Tam and me, obviously. For one thing I don’t like vol-au-vents. In an ideal world I would like our wedding to eclipse Charles and Di’s.  But I am not heir to a throne of any kind, and so our budget is slightly more constrained, and thus I would like to rein in the expenditure a little. In essence I would like to focus less on the types of words that have been banded about this week, like “fireworks” and “harps,” and more on words like “home-made” and “Holiday Inn.” Basically I want all the glitz and glamour of Posh ‘n’ Becks, but with all the expense of cheese ‘n’ onion.

Unfortunately, the good folk at frugalbride.com and I disagree on the precise definition of a frugal bride, it turns out.  Having wandered around the site for a bit I came upon the “wedding checklist,” which lists everything that the (apparently) frugal bride needs for her big yet frugal day. It contains ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY items! One hundred and twenty items that I have to make sure are prepared, pre-ordered, and of course paid for, prior to the big day. One hundred and twenty! Twelve alone to do with flowers, and twenty more to do with stationery!

What, pray, is a “bouttoniere”? I need one of those, apparently. Oh, and “toasting glasses.” Toasting glasses? The bloke I’m paying for my glasses better not turn up and say “Toasting glasses? Nah mate, that’s not me. Ooooooh no… I’m just regular glasses. If you want to toast anything, you’ll need the toasting glasses man. I could get my hands on some I suppose, but it’ll cost ya…”

The truly frugal bride would make do with just the traditional type of glass. She’d pour any remnants of the wine from dinner into the father of the bride’s top hat, and re-fill with Tesco Cava for the toasts. And she’d smile as she did it, too.

Toasting glasses? Frugal my eye.

“Gifts for each other” is another one. For each other?? How about the gift of eternal togetherness? Will that not do? Is that not gift enough? Is the permanent sacrifice of man’s natural lustings for the female form, a commitment to eternal monogamy and a solemn vow of lifelong fidelity not suitable? No, apparently not. The truly frugal newly weds need to get each other something from John Lewis as well.

My list of needs for the frugal bride is thus:

-          1960s brutalist Registry Office

-          Something old – the wedding car (1978 Austin Allegro or similar)

-          Something new – the wonderful idea of marriage

-          Something borrowed – the rings

-          Something blue – Roy “Chubby” Brown Live at the Tower Ballroom DVD, inside the best man’s suit jacket pocket

-          Dress from Debenhams

-          Suit from wardrobe

-          Flowers from graveyard

-          Sandwiches from petrol station

-          “Disco” courtesy of pub stereo and my copy of “Number 1’s of the 80s”

-          Home in time for Match of the Day

I may float some of these ideas to Tam later on, and whilst I won’t insist on them, I think if we start with those and work up, it might lead to a happier scenario than starting with us riding in on bejewelled elephants and working down…

In the meantime, I am going to lie down.

Rick