As we get older, we see more and more of our closest friends tie the knot. Marriage, in Australia at least, has always been largely traditional and extravagant. You’re celebrating love — why not put on a big, fancy event? You deserve it.
However, as time goes on, we’re seeing the idea of traditional marriage evolve. Now, it’s more inclusive and allowing of more freedom. Once upon a time, a wedding was a man in a tux marrying a woman in a big, flowing white dress. Now, members of the LGBTQI+ community can wed, and more people are ditching tradition. They’re doing away with the ceremony and opting for something a little more intimate, private, and low-key.
Comedian and writer Aurelia St. Clair is someone in that new school of thought when it comes to marriage. She sat down with POPSUGAR’s Love Rants. Speaking to host Melissa Mason, Aurelia spilled all the details about her recent marriage to writer Tamara Natt.
The couple has resisted tradition as much as possible, and it started with the proposal.
Rather than some of the elaborate proposals you see on social media, Aurelia and Tamara got engaged in the grocery store shopping aisle.
Aurelia St. Clair on Marriage and Micro Weddings
When it comes to weddings and marriage, there can be a lot of outside pressure. Whether it’s from family, friends, or social media, everyone has an opinion. Aurelia says that what’s important is doing what’s right for you and your partner, even if it means bucking tradition.
In the past, Aurelia has seen friends “go through the being engaged for several years” or spend over a year planning the wedding.
They’d be “stressing about guests, guest lists and menus”, she recalls — all the traditional things.
“I didn’t want any of that,” they say. “And also Tamara had been married before, so she’d done the big wedding.”
The couple got engaged at the end of June 2022. By the end of August, they’d eloped in Las Vegas.
On “Love Rants”, Melissa notes that “micro weddings” are very on-trend right now. Still, she was also curious to know if Aurelia ever regretted not having a big wedding.
“Eloping or just these far smaller and less taxing weddings, I think they’re great, but then sometimes I wonder, do you wish that your friends were there, or something like that sometimes?” Melissa asks.
Aurelia says that the couple are “still kind of planning on maybe having a big party at some point”. However, it will be something they do once they’re in more of a “financially stable position” to do so.
“We would like to celebrate with all our friends and sort of have a party,” Aurelia says. “But again, sort of in the micro setting.”
This party, Aurelia says, would be “maybe 40-to-50 guests, rather than something huge” — a vibe they call “recession core”.
Another reason to keep the celebrations on the smaller side of things? The boom in the wedding industry, and the inflated price tags that come along with it.
“You know, the fact that when you say ‘wedding’ anything, the price goes up because people know they can charge more,” Aurelia says. “I don’t think it was like that, you know, 30-40 years ago.”
Melissa agrees, noting that one of the “biggest hurdles” she has about marriage is the exorbitant cost of the wedding.
“I had a friend who was like, ‘I did a really small wedding and it was still $10,000’,” Melissa recalls. “And then I’m like, ‘Oh, but if I had $10,000, I’d want to go overseas. Or I’d want to buy… property, or start to think about it… costs just are going through the roof.
“It’s this celebration,” Melissa acknowledges. “But then if it’s actually costing you so much money, is it worth that whole experience?”
Aurelia agrees, and notes that the size of the wedding or ceremony “doesn’t take away” from the celebration of love.
“That’s just for you,” she says, adding: “You don’t have to celebrate everything with everybody, you know? I love my friends, but ultimately the wedding is about us, not them.”
Listen to Aurelia’s full episode of POPSUGAR’s Love Rants below.
