I had this discussion with my other half about 4-5 months ago. At the end of the day, I am not against the idea of marriage and she is very much wanting to live out her childhood dreams of the white dress, the onlooking family and friends etc., so I'm OK with it but, as I told her, if we weren't to tie the knot it wouldn't be a problem for for me.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea but with the average wedding costing (I think I read) £15,000, and potential divorce proceedings proving costly and stressful if things went awry later down the line, logical reasoning would promote the idea of non-marriage. Add to that the fact that even for general wedding services such as car hire, venue hire, photographers.... you mention the 'W' word to them and suddenly quotes triple!! It's extortion and does make you really wonder whether it's worth all of that. In fact, for a day that is always labeled as 'the best day of your life', with all of the extortion and commercial aspects of the event, it's easy to get overwhelmed with the stress of it all - hardly the best day of your life!

The fact is, if you both know you love each other, what does it matter if you don't have a bit of paper to prove it?