In Jackie and Neil’s case, it was the groom’s speech. Jackie, a 26-year-old advertising executive from West London, remembers, “He said that when he had first seen his wife he thought, ‘Wow!’. I realized that I didn’t go, ‘Wow!’, when I ?rst saw Neil, and had always felt that he was the one who was more into me.”
Although she and Neil had been seeing each other for four years and living together for one, Jackie knew things hadn’t been right for a while. She admits, “I’d already started worrying, and was looking forward to the party side rather than the romantic side of going to the wedding.”
The death knell sounded when Jackie overheard the mother of the bride urge Neil to “get a ring on that girl’s singer.” She called it quits the very next day.
Family weddings can up the ante even more. Jennie, a doctor who lives in Devon, and Martin*, a Royal Air Force pilot, had been together for four years when Martin’s brother got married. At the event, “I was being considered part of his family,” Jennie remembers. “I felt as if I could be married to Martin already, which felt very scary.”
Martin was affected, too. “They looked completely in love,” he says of his brother and sister-in-law. “I always thought that everyone had some issues, but this made me think that maybe issues were just a part of my relationship! The vows really made me realize that marriage is all about loving forever unconditionally. I didn’t know if that was Jennie and me, or not.”