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Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, attends her first garden party since her marriage to the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace in central London on July 19, 2005. The wedding costs in Britain have soared in the past 50 years. [Reuters]

BEIJING, Aug. 24 -- There used to be a decent, British way of marriage: quiet, demure and necessary. Until the 1950s it was ubiquitous and basic. In the words of Andrew McCarthy in the 1980s film St Elmo's Fire, marriage began as "a concept invented by people who were lucky to make it to 20 without being eaten by dinosaurs."

    The global nuptial cauldron steamed and belched and, eventually, produced the humble English wedding. It took place in church, starred a vicar and some hats, the congregation retired to the village hall to drink tea and eat sandwiches.

    In 1950, the average cost of such a happenstance was, in today's terms, about 600 pounds (US$780). Objectively, it was only faintly offensive. No more.

    Although our desire to marry started to plummet in 1972, this blessed trend is over. We are beginning to get married again and the privilege is swallowing more of our cash than ever before.

    When you have finished admiring Monday's pictures of BBC newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky's happy day (lucky fellow: Justin Bower, a banker; fabulous gown: crystal embroidered cream satin by Dana and Liliana Kruszynska), pause to consider that it costs on average 17,000 pounds (US$30,600) to wed today.

    What about those of us who happen to have gone to college with them, or to work with them, or be related to them, who are obliged to take out a small mortgage on account of their "happy day?"

    It emerged now that the average wedding guest - just guest! - spends 300 pounds (US$480) attending a wedding. They will spend 55.60 pounds (US$100) on a gift, 32.75 pounds (US$59) on alcohol, 9.2 pounds (US$16) on underwear and exactly the same amount on a hat. It now costs almost as much to marry as it does to get divorced (as about 39 per cent of the newlyweds currently shagging contentedly on Bermudan sandbanks will, inevitably, do).

    Liz Savage, the editor of Brides Magazine (circulation 68,000), confirms that the wedding beast is swallowing us all. The British bridal industry is worth 5 billion dollars (US$9 billion) a year and growing, and Savage cites a faintly nauseating buffet of factors.

    First, people are increasingly paying for their own weddings, thus unleashing a torrent of Personal Romances-style fantasies on us all. "Fathers of the bride are no longer automatically footing the bill," she says. "Couples have more money to spend and they want the wedding to be an expression of their personal style."

    In the magazine section of most British newsagent they are all there, smiling happily: the bestseller "Brides," but also "Wedding," "Cosmopolitan Bride" and "For the Bride."

    They all offer a pornographic array of treats for your big day: polyester dresses so vast that if you dropped a match on one your bride would explode; silly hats; bouquets run mad with self-importance; insurance; diets for brides; ice-sculptures in the shape of dolphins; shoes (stiletto or pump); groom chic, best-man chic, pets-invited-to-wedding chic. And there is one, great theme pounding through.

    Modern British brides, even the ones approaching the mid 40s and the high teens, want to be forever a princess. Most of the dresses in these magazines would not look out of place on Queen Victoria, who had an unfashionably downbeat wedding to Prince Albert at the Chapel Royal, St James, with only family and friends invited.

    One vicar, who asks politely not to be named, has tied the knot for nearly a hundred couples and he thinks he knows who to blame for these atrocities: the inventor of the video camera.

    "The focus of the marriage should always be the love of the two people and not the spectacle," he says. "I don't allow videos and flash cameras during the service because it turns everything into a performance. A wedding ought to be the living experience. Filming it is as daft as having a video record of your first kiss. But weddings are becoming mini media events - everyone flashes their cameras and people get hooked on the fanfare and the colour rather than the actual commitment. Loving creatively should not be expensive."

    Is there a tiny pocket of hope in this smothering sea of tulle? Savage mentions one faint, but perhaps growing, new trend in the world of wedding hells, just sticking its head over the parapet: an urge for smaller weddings.