We like ceremonies and celebrations. We scoff at ceremonies like coronations, inaugurations, society weddings and other public celebrations, but only after we had watched them, so that we can ridicule the detail. We silently place ourselves in the place of the main characters in the celebration, and wish for our own turn.

I remember when Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married. At the time I was working as a civil servant in South Africa. For one day, we were allowed to break all the rules. I had a portable television set in my office, and we gathered around it all day so that we would not miss even a tiny detail of the broadcast. This was years after South Africa became a republic, and we had no official ties with the royal family. It did not matter. We were caught up in the magic.

I recently heard about a man who spent that entire day in bed with his girlfriend, now his wife of many years. They obviously had their own magic going on that day.

In England the expression "getting a hat" means that a couple has decided to get married and it is time to prepare for a celebration, part of which is to buy a hat to wear to the ceremony.

Nowadays a wedding is preceded by months of planning and huge expenses. Everything has to be just right, and there are even mock weddings before the day so that every participant can remember their steps for the big moment.

Sadly, the cost of a traditional wedding and the emphasis on the legal aspects of the wedding put people off the idea of marriage. Add to that the high divorce rate and the negative emotions that go with divorce, and marriage becomes a lot less attractive.

A website that i refer to on my blog contains a lot of amusing and eye-opening information about the various traditions that go with the modern Christian wedding ceremony. Virtually nothing of the ceremony has anything to do with being Christian - or belonging to any other faith group.

Considering that marriage is not even mentioned in the Bible, it is interesting how much emphasis the churches and even some governments place on the institution of the Christian marriage as a means of controlling relationships.

Among all the fuss, we miss the point. Does it really matter what style the wedding dress is or which side the groom stands on? What difference will the honeymoon destination make to the ceremony, except to cause stress when the couple are probably already not quite keeping up with expectations?

What is far more important is the celebration of joy and happiness when two people find each other and decide to be a couple. And that does not need to be celebrated with pomp and ceremony.

There is the modern practice of dating many people and having no-strings-attached sex with various partners. As a friend of mine once put it, there is nothing wrong with good, happy, healthy sex, no matter who your partner is. That would not work for me, but who are we to judge one another? I once read somewhere a very cynical definition of love: when two people wake up together in the same bed in the morning and neither wants to leave, they have found love. Such occasions probably call for a minor celebration, but I wonder.

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