So a pop star married the Taoiseach's daughter and the pair of them sold coverage rights to a glossy magazine. As a result, the Taoiseach has been subjected to unprecedented condemnation in the press, writes Mark Brennock.
What did they expect the Taoiseach to do? Not turn up at his daughter's wedding? Or maybe instruct his daughter to organise it in a different way so as not to embarrass him?
Reportage and commentary on the wedding of Ms Georgina Ahern to Westlife's Nicky Byrne has suggested that the anger of the media and some of the people of Gallardon at their exclusion from the event marks some sort of turning point in the Taoiseach's political fortunes. The Taoiseach is accused variously of having sold himself and his office to a glossy magazine; exposed himself on some ethical issue or other by virtue of his daughter having received wedding gifts; and let the country down in front of foreigners.
This is all nonsense.
The Sunday papers got in first, suggesting that Mr Ahern was party to the deal with Hello! magazine whereby the couple got an enormous amount of money in exchange for keeping the rest of the media away.
There is no evidence for this. He did indeed keep away from the press - it was a family wedding and he was perfectly within his rights.
What was he to do? Come out on his own for a photo shoot with the photographers at the gate? Maybe answer a few questions (what was the bride wearing? Do you support Micheál Martin's smoking ban?). Tell his daughter he was sorry, but he had an image to look after?
He didn't. He went along with her wishes. He knew the damage he might suffer for this at the hands of an outraged press ("We are going to be murdered for this thing at home," he is reported as having predicted accurately during his speech) but chose not to put his own political image first.
The idea that he was in some way legally obliged by the Hello! deal to avoid cameras has not a shred of evidence to support it. He did it because he wanted to, and he wanted to because his daughter wanted him to.
Then there was the suggestion that perhaps ethics legislation might mean he would have to declare his daughter's wedding presents to the clerk of the Dáil, or that if any business seeking to be associated with a glitzy celebrity event had given them free or cut-price salmon, cutlery or Red Bull, Mr Ahern might have to list these in an annual declaration of interests.
If any "freebies" were given - and the only evidence concerning this is a straight denial from the wedding organiser - it was surely because marketers want to associate their products with celebrity, not because they want to influence the Taoiseach to make some future decision benefiting manufacturers of salmon, cutlery or Red Bull. And is it credible that they would have fallen over each other to associate themselves with a politician who, according to some of this week's hyperbole, is the most unpopular man in the State?
However, the tone of some of the coverage of this matter suggested that there was something dodgy about this, a nascent "Weddinggate" waiting to erupt.
The less specific criticism has concerned a belief by many that this style of wedding is "tacky", and that the Taoiseach's presence at the wedding in some way let Ireland down.
Some of this comment bears more than a hint of snobbery, a sneer at the nouveau riche swanning around in a posh French chateau. Some of it bears a hint of a post-colonial inferiority complex too: how dare they let Ireland down with their tacky display in front of sophisticated foreigners? (Nobody in the British press suggested Posh and Becks had let England down when they held their "tacky" wedding behind closed doors in Ireland courtesy of a glossy magazine's cheque book.)
The cult of celebrity is tacky. Major and minor pop stars and actors package personal aspects of their lives and sell them as products to glossy magazines. Most of us who haven't got loadsamoney like to think that if we had, we would choose not to sell our weddings and new baby pictures to magazines.
However, Nicky Byrne and Georgina Ahern did, just as fellow Westlife member Bryan McFadden did, just as another band member may be preparing to do, judging by the appearance of his full-page engagement photo in this week's Hello!
Had Ms Ahern decided to marry a nice accountant instead, this whole thing would not have arisen. But she didn't: she married a guy she had known since she was 15 who has since joined the celebrity set that tends to sell its weddings to glossy magazines.
In going along and (apparently) not seeking to have the event relocated to, say, the Skylon Hotel on the Upper Drumcondra Road, Mr Ahern was loyal to his daughter's choices. He is reported to have referred honestly and emotionally at the event to the difficulties caused by his separation from his wife Miriam when his children were quite young. He had not been the best role model as a father, he said, but his daughters remained his best friends, and this was due substantially to the way his wife had brought them up.
Particularly in this light, he did right by his daughter and her fiancé, especially in an event which he knew might not do his image any good. It was her day - the day she married a pop star and sold coverage rights to a magazine - not his day to control and spin to make himself look good. And he behaved as a decent humble father should.
There are many things to criticise the Taoiseach over. But there is no wedding scandal.
A toast to the bride and groom.