Marriage – the perfect way to say “I love you so much, I want to get the government involved so that you can’t leave”.

Every year thousands of people get married, contributing to what has become a massively lucrative industry. Show up at a supplier with a visible engagement ring and, before you know it, everything in the catalogue has doubled (at least) in price.

Why? Because the pressure to create the perfect day means that people will spend every penny they have on a bespoke rustic seating chart.

Now, in the UK, brides are even hiring their bridesmaids. Here’s The Telegraph:

Tiffany Wright, 34, (below) has created a profitable sideline career with her company The Undercover Bridesmaid. In the nearly two years since she opened for business she has acted as a surrogate bridesmaid for over 30 brides. And while her services include online consultations and pre-wedding admin, she’s very different from a traditional wedding planner.

“I’m there just specifically for the bride,” explains Wright. “I don’t care about anyone else. I’m a bit like their therapist if they have a meltdown, a bridal PA. I do all the boring bits like making sure the invites are sent out or arranging the seating plan and a lot of what I do is bridesmaid management.”

But for around a third of her clients she will actually inhabit the role of bridesmaid at their wedding. She wears the dress, walks down the aisle, steps in to solve any crises, even developing a whole back story to explain why she’s the bride’s best friend no one has ever heard of.

How kak are your friends that you have to pay someone to put this kind of effort in?

Actually, the popularity of destination weddings means that a lot of brides’ friends can’t be there. You know the type – the friends who plan a wedding in the middle of nowhere or in a different country and then get upset when you can’t spend your life savings on a plane ticket and accommodation.

They’re called Bridezillas – you might remember this shocker from last month.

Anyway, back to renting a bridesmaid:

Then there are brides who feel uncomfortable issuing instructions to their bridesmaids, so hiring Wright means they can delegate all the dirty work without feeling bad about it. And it seems no request is too big, which must also be an attraction for the true bridezilla.

“I’ve got one bride at the moment who is trying to convince me to dye my hair brown for her wedding,” laughs Wright. “The rest of her bridesmaids are all brunettes and she thinks it’s going to look better in the photos. I had to say to her, ‘of course I will, but you’re going to have to pay for my hair to be highlighted back because I’m definitely not a brunette’.”

Here’s Tiffany with more of what it’s like to be an undercover bridesmaid:

Other weird things that you can hire include a professional best man if your actual friends are a bit crap, and you need some help.

Then there’s a professional #hashtag creator. No, seriously that’s a thing. People hire people to hashtag stuff.

You can also hire a wedding creche where people can deposit their kids. Alternately, you can specify no kids on the invite. It’s cheaper.

There are a million new ways to monetise romance. My advice? Stop drinking the kool-aid people, because your wedding doesn’t have to rival Cirque du Soleil in production value. People only really remember the music, whether or not there was an open bar, and if anyone got naked at the reception.

Just chill and enjoy – that’s what it’s all really supposed to be about.

[source:telegraph]