Harry's Blog

There are plenty of ways that companies take us for a ride. My holiday at Spring Harvest showed me that some companies (and authors) will sell any old crap to you dressed up as "Christian" if you're the captive audience. What's sadder is that many of the books they peddle cause harm and at best are badly thought out tripe preying on the vulnerable.

So it is too with weddings. It seems that as soon as you decide you're getting married then it's commercial open-season on you. I'm sure that if we were organising a birthday party of a similar size then the costs would be halved.

But just because it's a wedding, companies feel they can charge the earth. Now I can understand spending money on things like a wedding dress (though I still have no idea how they can justify the prices) because they are emotionally important to the big day.

But looking at the prices of invitations makes me genuinely feel physically sick. These companies expect us to bend over and take this? I've just been looking at a selection of wedding invitations and it's actually made me feel unwell. I have to admit, I wish I was in that business, it's legal theft.

There's very little I've looked at yet for the wedding that has seemed remotely reasonably priced. About the only thing that's seemed reasonable is the cost of the reception venue hire, which doesn't seem that unreasonable next to the astonishing cost other places seem to think is realistic.

The decision to get married is a wonderful one. But making decisions about things like invitations and the like makes me feel like we're just leaving our door open to be burgled. It feels like we're being violated just because we want to be married.

I found a jacket I'd like to wear on the big day, the but the price has put me right off. It's not the matter of whether we can afford it or not. What bothers me is the obscenity of paying hundreds of pounds for something like that when it was most likely stitched together in a sweatshop in China. Wedding companies may want to exploit the developing world, but I've no wish to help them do it.

And here's the thing. It's not the total budget we've set that bothers me. I will quite happily spend any amount of money to give L the princess day she's always dreamed of. I'd love to spend all that money and get value for it - getting all we wanted and more besides. What is really beginning to make me furious with the whole thing is the way everything is clearly a complete and utter rip off.

The companies know it, we know it, and they know we know it. But they don't care. Their catalogues are just a "Congratulations on your wedding oh and Get Stuffed!"