As a blind date couple start their honeymoon and two Oxfordshire four-year-olds stage a mock wedding for charity, writer George Frew takes a look at the institution of marriage at the end of the Millennium Predictably, much ado has been made of the marriage of Carla Germaine and Greg Cordell. But it's really much ado about nothing.

Carla and Greg, you may recall, are the couple who got hitched to each other in a "Strangers Wedding" competition organised by a local radio station. Until they stepped in front of the registrar, they had never clapped eyes on each other.

Churchmen have - surprise, surprise - condemned the wedding as a mockery of the sanctity of marriage. This is rich, when you consider that we have clergy in this country who are prepared to marry people of the same sex to each other. Where's the sanctity in that?

True, the wedding of blonde, 23-year-old promotions model Carla and lantern-jawed, 27-year-old closed-circuit TV salesman Greg was a tacky stunt indeed. It generated lots of lovely free publicity for the radio station involved, as well as a nice "buy-up" for a Sunday newspaper (which is paying for the Bahamas honeymoon) and a documentary for Channel 4. And Carla and Greg also get a year's free use of a luxury apartment and a Ford Puma. There's no such thing as a free wedding, you see.

The bridesmaids looked sullen and the father of the bride stony-faced, but what business is it of theirs - or anyone else's, come to that?

Some might regard Carla and Greg as The Odd Couple, but are they really any weirder than most couples who tie the knot? One out of every three marriages ends in divorce in the UK, which makes you wonder how well any bride and groom know each other, even if they've been together since the days when they believed that a swift smooch would result in their milk teeth dropping out.

How many times have you heard estranged couples complaining that "he/she changed the minute we got married"?

Or husbands and wives who have been married for years and still don't know how many sugars (if any) their partner takes with their tea, or whether they prefer their breakfast eggs boiled for three minutes or five? Surely, if you "know" someone, you must be aware that they are either the sort of people who are likely to change or not, as soon as the last notes of the Wedding March have faded and the last peel of the church bells has died?

Looking at Carla and Greg's nuptials from a (subjective) male point of view, there's no doubt she's the better-looking half of the union and he's got the better half of the bargain. But the bartered bride looked happy enough with the hubby she'd just met, nonetheless.

There are those who consider the whole stunt to be monstrous, but getting spliced to Greg had hardly transformed Carla into the Bride of Frankenstein. And let us not forget that so-called "shotgun" weddings happen with depressing frequency, but no-one was holding a gun to either Carla or Greg's head. So what if the whole thing was more circus than sacred and more suited to Las Vegas than Lourdes?

The Church still likes to think that marriage is a God-given thing, but it would be good to know how many couples continue to attend church after the banns have been read, the rings exchanged and the vows solemnly uttered, and how many are BMD - birth, marriage and death - churchgoers.

Marriage should be a solemn and serious business but often isn't, no matter how long the couple involved have known each other.

As that notorious "is he or isn't he" married man, Mr Mick Jagger once wrote - and let's face it, he should know - "One thing ain't said too much, but I think it's true/ They just get married 'cos they've nothing else to do." Mind you, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Greg had taken his first look at his bride-to-be and discovered she was a dead ringer for Olive from On the Buses, or if Carla had lifted her veil only to find the bloke she'd agreed to marry, sight unseen, was in fact a direct and obvious descendant of Quasimodo.

Of course, this was always going to be the sort of story to produce knee-jerk reactions of both the sacred and the secular kind.

All the old jokes were given a dusting down and wheeled out once more. Q: "What will you give the bride and groom?"

A: "About six months."

This sort of caper has been done before in Australia. And guess what? The couple split up. After two months.

So it may well be that Carla and Greg's story ends up as more of a Brief Encounter than A Marriage Made in Heaven. But so what? These days, the statistics show it's no longer a case of "Marry in haste, repent at leisure", more a matter of "Marry in haste and get a quickie divorce".

I just hope the band played an appropriate tune at Carla and Greg's reception.

Strangers in the Night, perhaps. Or better still, Getting to Know You... The young ones Two four-year-olds will be walking down the aisle in a mock wedding for Valentine's Day.

Holly Stevens and William Reedman will 'tie the knot' in a ceremony just like the real thing at the village church in North Leigh, near Witney.

More than 100 guests, including their friends, will hear vicar the Rev Ross Collins read out the marriage vows.

The mock wedding is being staged to help raise £60,000 for a new pre-school building. Guests are being invited to pay for a different aspect of the work as a 'wedding' gift.

For £9,500 one will be able to donate flooring, walls and roofing, while for a fiver they can cover the cost of a light switch.

William's mum Gill said: "He's the sort of child who loves to role-play. He's been practising all week, he talks of nothing else."

Both youngsters are members of North Leigh Pre-School which has dreamed up the novel way of launching its fund-raising by inviting The ceremony is set to take place on Friday February 12 with a reception at the church's Turner Hall. Over 100 guests are expected to attend.

It is hoped that Tony Blair might find time, although according to publicity officer Mrs Joanne Cox the school is not banking on it.

"I doubt he'll be free, but you never know," she said. "It's an opportunity for the children to dress up and make hats and flowers.

"We'll be having a couple of dress rehearsals before the big day. Role play is an important part of learning for the children and they will be dressing up and playing the parts of bride, groom, bridesmaids, ushers and guests."

The Pre-School is also planning to make an application for a lottery grant, and hopes to raise £13,000 through local councils.

Story date: Wednesday 27 January

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