According to a quick online search, in the last decade or so, the average cost of a wedding has sky-rocketed. It may have decreased considerably since the dizzying heights of the years immediately preceding the pandemic… but it is still a lot higher than it was. Yes, inflation is responsible. Yes, things cost a lot more now than they did then. But if we are completely honest, were we really spending quite as much on our weddings before Instagram existed? And was it for the same reasons?

Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a land of reading books and watching Saturday night telly, there would be a wedding. The friends and families of the happy couple would all go to the wedding and everybody would have a lovely day together celebrating their love.

A professional wedding photographer would take photos of the ceremony, the families, and the bridal party. The couple might have bought a bunch of little black disposable cameras and left one on each table at the reception. Once those had been developed, there were probably a few hundred blurry, grainy, overexposed snaps of drunken guests with red eyes to sift through. A handful of amateur photographer guests might have taken a snap or two on their snazzy little digital cameras, or film cameras, proudly presenting them to the couple once they’d been printed or developed. Maybe, during Facebook’s reign as social media king, a handful of albums would have appeared entitled, “Tom and Amy’s Wedding 2009”, packed with photos which never would have made the cut on today’s social media.

But other than that, your wedding and the photographic evidence of it, would have remained yours, stored in a gorgeous album, brought out at Christmas to show your nan, while you hoped your sister’s toddler wouldn’t get his sticky fingers all over the protective acetate covers.

NOW, LISTEN! Before I go any further! The message of this article is not “stop spending money on your weddings”. Please God DON’T stop spending money on your weddings!!! The wedding industry is a magical, joyful, unique, creative, glorious realm of independent, small, often female-led businesses, which should be supported and celebrated! Your wedding day is beautiful and remarkable and should be treated as such. It is not just a big party that lasts one day. It is an investment in all the good things in life. In joy. In memories. In love and family and friendship. DO NOT STOP SPENDING MONEY ON YOUR WEDDINGS!  Just make sure you’re spending your money where you want to, not where you feel you ought to, because that’s what social media has taught you.

Once upon a time, only your friends and family saw what your wedding looked like. Nowadays, EVERYONE YOU HAVE EVER MET is ready to scroll through the minutia of your day, judging every inch of it. Your ex can see it. That girl who was mean to you in school can see it. That ex-colleague you couldn’t stand can see it. Nowadays, it honestly feels like EVERYBODY is going to see your day. The pressure for photogenic perfection is on. It’s no wonder we fear being judged or snickered at, for getting it wrong.

But! Please! Remember! There is no “getting it wrong”. As long as you and your partner love your wedding day then you got it right. Repeat after me: Your wedding does not have to look perfect on social media in order for you to enjoy it.

There is no one size fits all when it comes to a wedding. If Rock n Roll Bride magazine has ever had one message to put across it is surely that – despite what parts of Instagram and its judgy-wudgy popular-group sister-platforms may have made us believe.

Do we really think that the insta-gorgeous, grid-gasmic weddings of the last ten years were happier occasions than all those that preceded them? Do we think that, just because every single square foot of a reception isn’t perfectly Instagrammable, the party didn’t go off? Do we think that our parents’ Taffeta-and-Town-Hall 80s knees ups weren’t brimming with raucous laughter, hilarious anecdotes, gorgeous speeches and touching moments, just because they look a bit cobbled-together in comparison to what we have come to recognise as a wedding day now?

No. None of us think that. Because it is stupid. I bet those parties were off the chain.

Celebrate yourselves and your love as you deserve and desire to. Spend the budget available to you without guilt. Have a great big party, invite everyone you know and dance the night away. Elope and go on that spectacular safari you’ve always dreamed of. Get the dress. Buy the flowers. Spend that extra grand on the band you really want…

Just do it all for you. Don’t do anything on your special day because social media made you feel like you had to. Rejoice in the blurry photos, it means whoever took them was probably busy dancing the night away. Celebrate the smudged lipstick you can see on your face in your photos, it means you were probably going around smooching all your most beloved pals, because you felt comfortable and confident and you were having so much fun you didn’t care what you looked like.

Let’s be honest – who can truly say they look great when they are with their best friends, throwing their heads back and laughing so hard they can’t breathe? No one looks good doing that. No one. But nobody cares! That’s what makes it beautiful. I’d rather have a wedding that felt like that in the moment than one that looked perfect on social media.

Be so grateful for every little imperfection on your wedding day. It means your love is real. It means your day was yours. It means that being there at your wedding, and living in the wonderful, romantic moment of it, was more important to you than the photos that tried to capture it. Don’t spend your hard-earned money designing your day to please a bunch of people who don’t care about you on social media. Do it all for the two of you.