Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage – or so the song goes. But these days it seems marriage ends up being a draining experience both financially and emotionally. I bet Paul McCartney regrets the day he ever went down on one knee…and asked Heather Mills to marry him. Even with the religious element being largely ignored now, churches still host large and lavish weddings, full of sobbing mothers, proud fathers and, to quote Philip Larkin “uncles shouting smut”. Followed later by the embarrassing best man’s speech, which usually proves him to be anything but, and then finished up with a rather lame disco. Is this what marriage has become?

And now even the pre-wedding is a potential minefield of badly chosen words and legal traps. Pre-nuptials are the preserve of the Hollywood elite – just ask Catherine Zeta-Jones (if you really can ask her then say hi from me) – but perhaps they could become another, admittedly less romantic, tradition amongst us “normal” people. You never can legislate for the future – you don’t expect to have a car crash but you take out insurance anyway, so why not for a marriage? This report suggests it is already becoming standard practice. But it does seem rather loveless.

In these cynical days perhaps standing up in front of all your friends and family and declaring an undying love is one of the few remnants of a noble and chivalrous notion of love that remains untouched and untainted, even by celebrities. And while men wouldn’t openly admit it, most would probably acknowledge the idea of being chivalrous is still something which retains a true sense of masculinity in these metro-sexual times.

Oh and you usually get hot bridesmaids at a wedding too…