As marriage becomes more meaningless, weddings become more extravagant and bizarre. The wedding day is now a chance to display originality and defy tradition with ironic gestures and theatricality.

I thought I had heard it all until I read this about a couple who got married in a former prison. Eastern State Penitentiary was built in the early 19th century and is famous for its creepy architecture and its system of placing inmates in solitary confinement. It housed as many as 1,700 convicts at a time and was closed in 1971. It is now open for tours and an annual Halloween haunted house. The couple thought it would be neat to get married in the central rotunda overlooking crumbling cell blocks such as the one below.  “Kevin entered the rotunda to the theme from Shaft. Lori walked in to “Time” by Pink Floyd.”

They’re both 43. He’s divorced and has four children. They intend to live hundreds of miles apart until his youngest child graduates from high school. Judging from the description of the wedding, which involved decorating the prison with strips of celluloid film, this was a typical extravaganza in the range of $20,000 to $30,000. I think Anthony Esolen would call this a case of “pseudogamy.”   It would be wrong to think there was anything symbolic about this couple’s choice of a prison (even though the groom was a state trooper.) The point was originality and I think they succeeded. The problem with marriage is that inherited form, not novelty, is what keeps it going. 

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  Here is the story of one recent wedding ceremony. The details are not typical, but the effort at originality is. The couple not only penned their vows, but their English bulldog walked up the aisle in a collar that matched the best man's vest. Each of their 125 guests went to the microphone and spoke. Weddings are now widely viewed as theater, occasions to display a couple's production skills.  Couples today don't just worry about the dress, the tux, and the party. They often feel the need to write their own wedding vows too.  Unfortunately, a bride and groom usually succumb to vanity, romance and amateurism when they throw out traditional vows. Most prefer to do away with the whole "for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health" business. Who really wants to think about poverty and illness at one's own wedding? It's only the stern wisdom of convention that added this gloomy stuff to the festive day. The truth is couples struggle to make weddings a good show. In an age of sexual license, weddings just aren't exciting. They make for great parties, but the thrill is gone. Often, the marrying couple has been living together for years. Their daughter may be the flower girl or the bride may be pregnant. There's an after-the-fact tone to the whole thing that no amount of novel staging can take away. As Anthony Esolen put it, "where there is not much to celebrate, we can only distract ourselves from the lack by throwing big parties, getting drunk, spending a lot of money, or, what is more likely, causing a lot of people…