Why Davina McCall will never regret her ‘invisible wedding’

Victoria Young, The Independent

When I read the news that Davina McCall had ‘secretly’ married her partner Michael Douglas in a ceremony in front of immediate family and her closest friends, I had one thought: “Yes, Davina!” No doubt they could afford a lavish wedding filled with hordes of their many fabulous showbiz pals. So their decision to have a tiny, invisible wedding speaks volumes. They kept the focus firmly where they wanted it to be: on each other. I’d love to say that I started my wedding journey in a similarly clear-headed way. Unfortunately, it was not until I’d invited most of my fairly large extended family and everyone I had ever worked with to a giant beast of a wedding that was going to require a loan to pay for that I realised that I had made a grave and terrible mistake.

Not about the man I was marrying — my only doubt about him was that he didn’t like dogs (although thankfully he’s seen sense on that issue now). It was more that, with each additional name that we added to the invitation list — compiled very much out of some sense of how things “should” be done, I had a dawning realisation that the day we were planning sounded... actively awful. Fundamentally, the idea of a “big day” was muddying the waters. Each venue we visited, just mentioning the words “getting married” whacked on an additional 35 per cent wedding tax to the price. Our financial adviser warned us that borrowing money to pay for something that was going to vanish in the blink of an eye, was extremely bad planning. And while that was a helpful wake-up call, the realisation that all the eyes — including many relatives, whose faces I had not seen for years — would be on me as I swept down a winding staircase, in a dress I wouldn’t normally be seen dead in, made me borderline hyperventilate.

I realised the only thing that really mattered was my relationship with the man I was marrying. I was so deeply and absolutely in love with my husband-to-be, despite or perhaps because of a comedically rocky series of false starts before we managed to get together, all I really cared about was...him. Yes, it was a nice idea to share our love with the world and ask them to witness our vows, but it wasn’t as important as the vows themselves, nor the person I was exchanging them with. I felt that too many people in the room would dilute the potency and importance of the day. A small, scaled-back wedding would feel more meaningful somehow. It’s just a shame that it was only after the invitations had been sent out that I had this epiphany. “Your face is on the tea towels – it’s too late to back out!” joked my best friend when I shared my doubts.

And, just like that, having removed the burden of how things “should” be done, we were liberated. We didn’t want or need to wait until summer for our big day, so we booked Hackney Town Hall on an almost invisible December day in the middle of Twixmas, which seemed perfectly apt for our “invisible wedding day”. We would still have a few guests, of course, but no more than would fill a long table at the pub around the corner, which had an excellent chef and delicious food.

What was lovely was how understanding everyone was, and how supportive of our decision. The Lock & Co hat was overseen by an infallibly stylish friend who couldn’t bear the idea of me not looking the part, despite the lack of audience.

I remember the glorious moment of being taken up by the bellboy in the rickety old lift to our room at Claridges. “We’ve just got married,” I said to him, feeling like a heroine in a black-and-white film who had eloped. I could not believe my luck at the perfection of our magical small day. And, despite generally being powered by FOMO, I had absolutely no regrets about the Big Fat Wedding that might have been. And that is still the case nearly 15 years later.