New figures show the traditional wedding ceremony is on the wane. But is there a real substitute for the walk-down-the-aisle wedding? Nicoline Greer looks at some alternatives in a changing legal environment
On a sunny Friday afternoon in July, under the shade of the chestnut trees in Dublin's Herbert Park, Elaine Duffy, in a deep crimson dress and with matching flowers in her hair, walks through a parting in a small crowd of family and friends. In the ceremony that follows, friends and Duffy's sister recite an extract from He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by WB Yeats and from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Elaine and Tony Greene exchange promises and rings. The celebrant of this wedding ceremony is not a religious figure, nor is he a State-registered celebrant. He is Dick Spicer, the ceremonies co-ordinator of the Irish Humanist Association, through which the couple has decided to get married.
The church altar has traditionally been centre stage at Irish weddings and the church aisle regarded as the epitome of a traditional ceremony, but new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that the Irish wedding is changing - at its most fundamental level.
The amount of people choosing a civil registry wedding increased five-fold in the years between 1992 and 2002, according to CSO figures released at the beginning of this month. A total of 3,683 people married in a registry office in 2002, compared to 695 a decade earlier. Duffy and Greene are part of this growing number, as their Herbert Park ceremony is not legally-binding, and they must also exchange vows in the civil registry office. Until a change in the law - due to be introduced late this year or early next year - comes into effect, the registry office is the only place where people can legally marry, outside a church.
"At the moment, you are stuck with your Catholic church, Protestant church or synagogue," says Muriel Walls, family lawyer and senior partner at McCann Fitzgerald Solicitors. Marriages in mosques, however, are not legally-binding. "There are other recognised places, such as Quaker churches, but we are still operating under the 1872 Marriage Act. There weren't any mosques in Ireland then."
Walls says that people should be aware that anywhere outside a legally-designated place to marry will not hold up in a court. "We've just had an enquiry from an American solicitor who wanted to find out if a ceremony on the banks of the Shannon was a legal marriage. In the States people get married when they go bungee jumping and all sorts of things. People think they can get married through these crazy ceremonies and the reality is - here they can't," says Walls. "It's not a marriage. You can call it a ceremony of commitment or something like that but, legally, it is certainly not a marriage."
The new regulations will allow for the marriage ceremony to be performed at places other than religious venues or registry offices. The venue has to be agreed with the person solemnising the marriage, and there may be extra fees involved for doing this. A list of people who can solemnise a marriage will replace the current register of churches and buildings. The list will include the names of civil registrars, and people nominated by religious bodies to be solemnisers. This gives potential for more non-religious solemnisers to be legally allowed to marry people.
The CSO takes into account that a certain number of civil marriages taking place are down to the increasing divorce rate and number of second marriages. But most of the increase in civil marriages and corresponding decline in the proportion of the population getting married in a religious building is down to a changing popular mood: one which no longer sees it necessary to get church approval.
Neither Duffy nor Greene, who have been together for four years and were best friends for a long time before that, are particularly religious, but initially they did not completely rule out the possibility of a church wedding. "We knew we were going to be together forever," says Duffy, "and we wanted to say that in front of our family and friends. We found it hypocritical that people don't go to Mass and then have this huge ceremony in a church," she says. "Why would you start off lying when you are going into something you should be truthful about?"
The more they looked into a church wedding, the more they felt that the things they would have to say would be alien to them. A search on the Internet produced the idea of a Humanist ceremony, and the idea that they could choose their own words was infinitely more appealing than the religious words that seemed "strange" to them.
At the moment, getting married outside the church can be a difficult thing to organise. Saturday is by far the most popular day for couples to get married, with almost 40 per cent of weddings happening on that day, according to the CSO. But registry offices are open during weekdays only, the couple and guests will have to take an extra day off work.
Those getting married in a registry office are also limited to the number of people they can invite to witness them become husband and wife. There are just 60 seats in Dublin's register office beside Sir Patrick Dunns Hospital in Grand Canal Street, Dublin 2 - too few for many modern Irish bride and grooms.
On top of that, if you want to get married outside the district in which you are living, you must prove to the registry office that you have been living in the district for eight full days before you notify the office. And you must notify them at least three months before you get married - Vegas this is not.
The revised regulations will still require that three months' notice be given. "It's about a balance between allowing people to do what's right for them as a couple, and having some degree of solemnity," says Muriel Walls.
Theresa Byrne, Registrar for the Dublin district, says that they are getting busier all the time. At the moment they are performing up to nine marriages a day. Their job is made all the more pressurised by the current law, which says that there can only be one registrar and one deputy to perform marriages for each civil office. When Elaine Duffy and Tony Greene went to book their civil ceremony, they found the Dublin registry office was completely booked out. With some inconvenience, they managed to get the legal part of their wedding done in Meath.
So when these restrictions are relaxed, and more non-church venues become available, we might to see a more dramatic shift away from the church. And there are other, even more imaginative ways of celebrating the union. Christine McQuillan and Aiden Corcoran opted for "Handfasting", a ceremony that dates back to Brehon Law time and involves tying the couple's hands together to symbolise the union.
McQuillan and Corcoran chose St Brigit's Well just outside Kildare town because, they say, St Brigit was a pagan goddess before she was a Christian one. "We went to the site first and organised the ceremony around the stones," McQuillan says. About 60 people attended the ceremony, which involved the couple washing their feet and heads in the well, walking around the well and tying their hands to each other. "Around the site, we had things such as apples and swans' feathers to symbolise monogamy and fertility and little love charms," McQuillan says. "It was really nice."
According to Brehon Law the ceremony only lasts for one year. It is repeated for the first three consecutive years, then again on the seventh year, and only in the eighth year can it be for life. It makes the three months that must be given to notify the civil registry office seem quite short. McQuillan and Corcoran renewed their ceremony after one year, but after that decided not to do it again.
Humanist ceremonies co-ordinator Dick Spicer says castles are currently the most popular alternative venues, but the most unusual wedding he has presided over was on the cliffs in Baltimore. "That was spectacular," he says.
Humanism is not a religion or theology; it is a philosophy. It is "an ethical system rooted simply in the common condition of humanity; ethics based on reason, compassion and integrity, offering guidelines - not rules," according to the The Humanist Philosophy, a book co-authored by Spicer. The Humanist Association is not getting official recognition under the new regulations.
In order to carry out the ceremonies, Spicer takes time off from his day job, working with teenagers with learning disabilities. He sees the work he does for the Humanist Association as a "community service". Depending on the distance he has to travel and the work involved, his service could cost in the region of €300. Usually people need to give him a few months' notice.
The association has trained celebrants, but Spicer does not know exactly how many ceremonies like Tony Greene and Elaine Duffy's take place every year because many people simply organise it themselves. The Humanist Philosophy includes an Irish guide to non-religious ceremonies, which includes sample ceremonies and ideas for readings. The Association provides a certificate to mark the ceremony if couples would like one. Even though the union may not be legal, the guidelines say it, "certainly is so in the eyes of the assembled company".
Elaine Duffy thinks that some people choose the church not for religious reasons, but because it is part of the stereotypical fairytale wedding. But, she says, "we have created our own version of the fairytale wedding".
What the new rules will say
The Civil Registration Act 2004, due to be fully implemented next year, will harmonise the situation for all marriages, regardless of denomination, and remove inequities in the old marriage laws, which date from 1844 and 1865.
Under the new law, couples will be free to choose the venue for their wedding ceremony. There will, as always, be rules and regulations. Couples will need approval from the local registrar for the marriage to take place. (There are 29 registrars in the country.) Food and drink cannot be served during the ceremony. The venue has to be open to the public. There must be no religious paraphernalia or aspect to the ceremony.
All preliminaries and paperwork, including the fee, must be completed before the registrar comes to solemnise the marriage. Three months' notice must be given in person. Where couples live abroad, they can apply in writing, but must appear in person at a given date beforehand. Full details on www.groireland.ie.
Reasons to say "I do"
You can have the ceremony wherever you want
You can decide who carries out the ceremony
It is more personal - you can choose the vows and the words that are said
It could work out a lot cheaper - depending on what you want
Reasons to say "I don't"
It is not legally binding - you will have no property or inheritance rights
There is potential for upsetting some family members
You will need to also get married in a registry office
Some people may find the ceremony too informal