Weddings

Perhaps the most traumatic part of attending an American wedding – much worse than the bridesmaids coming in the wrong way, the proliferation of dinner suits and the tendency of couples to write their own appalling vows – is the tradition of the ‘rehearsal dinner’. This, an event the night before the wedding, is where the United States of America gets to play out its full psychotic breakdown in the context of a couple’s nuptials. It seems unfair to expect Home Counties dads to be masters of oratory Anyone, and I mean, anyone, is allowed to stand up and make a speech. Meaning that Uncle Robert E. Lee IV from

Once a week, my husband and I have the same argument about AI. His position is the popular one: we’re all doomed. There’s nothing humans can do that AI won’t do better. Might as well prostrate ourselves at their articulated feet. Oh, and writers will be the first to be made redundant. Obviously, this is rubbish – at least where the written word is concerned. Yes, the bots can write best man’s speeches and thank-you letters, but have you ever read those speeches and letters? This week, a great piece of supporting evidence landed in my lap. After having a surprisingly good set of passport photos taken at a printing

For many of our clients we are a dirty secret. Phone calls regularly begin with variants of: ‘Can you guarantee discretion?’ But there’s not a dealer, pimp or even a Botox clinic in sight. We write speeches. Traditional taboos are fast disappearing. Personal trainers, moisturising creams and therapists are shared between friends. It is socially acceptable to plan your wedding with a professional and outsource every-thing from the flowers to the invitations. But the groom is about as likely to reference his speechwriter as his affair with the chief bridesmaid. Our client meetings are arranged in dimly lit pubs and distant cafés, far from the prying eyes of spouses and

My diary has been filled with dental appointments, reflecting a truism that American dentists pray for British teeth. The tally in this past month is one root canal, three extractions and two bone grafts, which more or less equals the cost of putting one dentist’s child through a year of college. The epic began almost a year ago with a mild toothache, which my usually excellent dentist in Charleston, South Carolina, insisted needed the attention of a specialist. I rejected her advice with the confident assurance that I was getting old, the pain was mild, and it was a race between the tooth and death, a race that death would

Arts journalism, like crime, doesn’t pay. So I’ve been thinking of getting a side hustle. ‘You know about books and stuff,’ say friends who are getting married. ‘What should we have for our readings?’ If I can advise friends, why not strangers? By the laws of wedding economics — pick a number and add some noughts — I could make a marital mint. We’d start with a couple’s questionnaire. No good my offering Rainer Maria Rilke if they’re more of a Purple Ronnie pair. Then a consultation over Zoom, before proposing something old, something new, something sonnet, something haiku. It is, tentatively, wedding season again. Boris and Carrie kicked us

I had a lockdown wedding. A 30-person, socially-distanced, sanitised church service was organised in under two weeks. Restrictions meant no hymns, no wind instruments and no speaking too loudly. A disappointment for a musical family. Not what we’d envisaged, but a more intimate and special day than we could ever have imagined. Imperfect yet perfect — a day we will never forget. Four days before the big day, I marched up and down Oxford Street on the hunt for a wedding dress. Finding nothing, I remembered an old Whistles dress I once wore for a James Arthur music video. I went home and found the dusty frock at the back

Scottish hearts and heads Sir: Alex Massie ignores the evidence when he espouses the assumption that economic concerns no longer matter in great political decisions (‘Scottish horror’, 15 August). Compare, as he does, a future Scottish referendum with the 2016 Brexit vote. Then, around two thirds of the British electorate held ‘Eurosceptic views’ (so Sir John Curtice of Strathclyde University tells us). But the barest majority voted to Leave. The cause is plain: the largest single motive for Remain voters was that ‘the risks of voting to leave the EU looked too great when it came to things like the economy, jobs and prices’. A Eurosceptic two thirds was whittled

I didn’t realise how attached I was to the traditional British wedding — the whole messy, pricey, drunken business — until I discovered it was under threat. The new fashion is for elopement, just the happy couple, one or two friends and a photographer, all perched on the edge of some picturesque cliff or on a mountain top. It makes sense while we’re all social distancing, but I suspect the elopement trend is set to continue — and I think it’s dismal. I first saw the signs when I asked a friend what he was up to this Saturday. ‘Oh, I’m just off to an elopement,’ he said. My immediate