I ATTENDED a wedding last weekend. Nothing remarkable about that, I can hear you say, but give me a chance. Read on. For a start, you would be mistaken in concluding that there is nothing remarkable about weddings as most couples these days seem to side-step matrimony and merely set up home, or to be more accurate, enter into a conjugal arrangement with shared domestic bills, without the band of gold.

Now I'm not going to be drawn into the relative merits of marriage and "living over the brush" as it was termed in my long-ago youth.

People's personal arrangements are their business, not mine, but the only comment I will make about society, circa 2003, is that relationships, whether blessed in church or merely set up outside wedlock, don't seem to last very long compared to, say, those entered into half a century ago. So much have times changed that anniversaries have changed with them. For example, Silver Weddings used to be celebrated after 25 years; now its 25 weeks! Contrast that with a couple of my friends who recently celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows in church and then hosting a marvellous party.

Staying together was what people did after making a commitment, or being committed as my wife says, stressing the double entendre. She and I passed the 45 year mark on September 10 and celebrated by sobbing uncontrollably into a pillow (her) and with a visit to the bookies (me).

However, back to the wedding at the weekend. Deborah and Gareth were tying the knot after 12 years together -- including back-packing in the Antipodes -- so there can't be a great deal, if anything at all, that they don't know about each other. That's as good a grounding as is possible for marriage.

It was the lavish reception at a posh hotel which confirmed my suspicions that the expense involved in staging a "proper" wedding could be one reason why so many couples elect to just live together. There are cut price ways of going about matrimony but, as I discovered when two of my daughters entered into holy wedlock, the tills never stop ringing once the planning gets under way.

The bill for last weekend's shindig was in the region of £9,000 when everything was paid. I can well believe it as nothing was left to chance and we, the guests, had the best of everything in the way of reception, food and complimentary drinks. The wedding party were resplendent in frocks and suits which much have cost the equivalent of purchasing a small Caribbean island.

The only downside of a thoroughly marvellous day was the price of the drinks. My wallet had a heart attack when it was my turn to buy a round. At the time of writing it is still in intensive care at the Blackburn Royal Infirmary.

When I told the father of the bride that for the same money at a supermarket I could have bought enough booze to last all night, he said perhaps we should have held the reception at Asda. Now there's an idea for anyone planning a bit of a wedding do!