As every single one of my friends – and their spouses – is a tasteful soul, it goes without saying that every wedding I have ever attended has been the last word in elegance.

You do hear things, though. Of Balham-based chartered accountants behaving like Victorian land magnates by renting stately homes for their nuptials. Of multi-venue events in five-star resorts by the lapping shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Of women having to buy, rent and borrow ten dresses for the summer that makes up wedding season. I could go on.

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So I am not surprised to read that one in three people is now turning down wedding invitations because they’ve become so expensive. The report from Tesco Bank states that, on average, it costs each guest £315 to attend a wedding, which really does tot up if you’re going to four, five, six weddings a year. Weddings abroad can cost a lot more – sometimes more like £1,000, and that’s before stag dos and hens are factored in.

When I proposed to my wife Harriet two summers ago, we had lived together for a number of years and had discussed, on a purely hypothetical basis, what our wedding would be like. Our friends need not have worried: we wanted a smaller wedding, which........

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