You Only Wed Once

If you want to hold more than one wedding, Miss Manners would think that decency required you to hold a divorce in between. Quite a number of people seem to disagree with her.

These are not even bigamists. These are couples who propose to get around the law by marrying those to whom they are already legally married.

The amount of time they allow between weddings varies; it may be days or decades. Their explanations also vary, but not as much. They are:

"We never had a real wedding, and now we can afford the wedding we've always dreamed of."

"We have friends on both coasts who won't make the trip, so we thought we'd have two ceremonies."

"We have a big wedding planned, but" -- because of taxes, military orders, company policy, travel deals or whatever -- "we have to get married right away, and then we will go ahead with the wedding as scheduled."

"With so many divorces around, we'd like to set an example by renewing our wedding vows."

The one excuse that is no longer cited, Miss Manners notices, is that of getting married sooner than expected because a baby is expected. On the contrary, the questions she is asked in that connection concern postponing the wedding so that the bride will appear slimmer in her wedding dress.

Miss Manners hates to be a crank about all this. She is as moved by love as anyone, and more lenient than most about sentimentalizing over weddings that follow unsentimental courtships. She is never the one you hear telling the other wedding guests, "He finally realized he wasn't going to do any better" or "I suppose she finally wore him down."

But, dear people, a wedding ceremony is a legal and/or religious ceremony. (Yes, a couple is allowed one of each, but in that case, the two quickly follow each other, and only one has a party attached.)

It is not a play to be performed for the glory of the actors, the niftiness of the costumes and the amusement of the audience. If it is to be treated respectfully, it should actually be happening. You should not be inviting guests to watch reruns.

That said, Miss Manners will admit to being not quite as much of a killjoy as she likes to pretend. Her objection is to the repetition -- and therefore dilution -- of the ceremony, not to the celebration.