LOVE IS the only essential requirement for a good wedding. Everything else comes second, and when the plans for your big day tax your wits – or your pocket – as they may do from time to time, love will carry you through. You’re worth it. But just as your love for each other is like no one else’s, so can your wedding plans be.

Whether a man and woman make their lifelong pledges in a registry office, with wild flowers and a reception in the country, or in a cathedral with an elaborate banquet and dance to follow, there is a wedding package to suit their budget and every unique couple.

In the 21st century, couples marry because they choose to, even though they could live together without making that commitment, and that makes a wedding an even more significant event. The ceremony, the reception and the honeymoon are the statements that set the seal on the main goal of marriage: staying together.

The couple who have thought out their future together know that the romance and the grandeur of a traditional wedding is not an end in itself, but the framework for a bond that has been sealed many months before. The church bells ring, the horse and carriage slowly draws up, the radiant bride descends so gracefully… These days we can opt to be married almost anywhere we please, and every religion has its own traditional service.

A wedding is not arrived at half-heartedly: it has taken time to get to love and understand your partner and you now wish to cement your relationship legally, in becoming husband and wife. What more honourable or joyous event could there be to celebrate with beautiful sights and sounds, generous hospitality and in memorable surroundings?

Tim Saunders