The big day just got smaller: Forget the fleet of limos, cancel the 12-tier cake. Instead, take your lead from Keira Knightley and opt for a low-key wedding

PUBLISHED: 18:01 EST, 25 May 2013 | UPDATED: 18:01 EST, 25 May 2013

Kerry Potter on the rise of the bijou wedding

Opt for a low-key big day a la Keira and James Righton

You’d have to be particularly stony-hearted not to have smiled at the photographs of Keira Knightley and her musician husband James Righton following their Provençal wedding earlier this month. Just how happy and carefree did they look? The 28-year-old Atonement actress and the 29-year-old Klaxons keyboard player were pictured skipping out of a town hall in the South of France, after saying ‘Oui’ in front of a handful of family and friends.

The ceremony was officiated by a registrar who later admitted he’d never heard of Keira. The bride wore a Chanel dress that looked suspiciously like one she’d debuted at a party five years ago, flat ballet pumps, sunglasses and a garland of tiny flowers around her head. Guests wore jeans and trainers, and the newlyweds were driven away in a Renault Clio to a party for just 50 guests at Keira’s family villa nearby. You couldn’t get more laid-back and less Hollywood. The public’s reaction? ‘Awww.’

High court judge and family law expert Sir Paul Coleridge praised the couple for going against the tide of ‘glittery celebrity-style weddings’, which he believes can foster unrealistic expectations of marriage – you know, the long bit after the big day.

Mr and Mrs Righton are not the only ones keeping it real – the coolest celebrity weddings these days are the ones for which you never see the photos. Even Kate Winslet’s parents didn’t know that she’d married Richard Branson’s nephew Ned RocknRoll in the Catskill mountains last December, in front of just 12 guests. When Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz tied the knot secretly in New York State in 2011, only four people were in attendance: his daughter, her son and two friends.

And Ashley Madekwe, British rising star of US TV show Revenge, proved it is possible to have a celebrity-packed congregation and still keep things on the down-low. We only know that fellow actors Mischa Barton, David Schwimmer and David Walliams were at her wedding to Iddo Goldberg last summer after the guests tweeted about it. It feels we’ve come a long way from the Beckhams resplendent on their gold wedding thrones in 1999; that finally we are released from attempting to ‘out-wedding’ one another.

‘The lavish, OTT, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses wedding is out of favour,’ says Kat Williams, who runs alternative wedding website rocknrollbride.com.

She also notes that the DIY, bunting-in-the-garden affair, which until recently provided an antidote to the big wedding, is also losing some currency. ‘There’s a bit of a backlash. In the last few months I’ve seen more low-key, detail-free weddings – elopements, weddings in bars. People are thinking, “Sod that, we actually want to have a life!”’

A recent survey by You & Your Wedding magazine shows that the average length of an engagement has fallen from 21 months in 2008 to 17 months in 2012, which suggests couples are spending less time planning big productions. They’re also plumping for more intimate ceremonies, with the number of guests invited down by ten per cent over the same period.

‘Low-key weddings mean the couple have more flexibility and can insert their personality into their day by choosing unique locations or arranging activities that would be impossible with a large number of guests,’ says You & Your Wedding editor Maxine Briggs.

There's nothing cool about being a Bridezilla...

‘They can spend money on particular elements they love, such as food and drink, without having to spread the budget over lots of people.’ The rise of the low-key wedding isn’t so much about reining in costs (average spending on weddings is actually up), but the couple having the kind of day they really want. ‘Weddings are increasingly defined by their individuality,’ says Sophie McCorry Day, editor of The Secret Quintessentially Weddings Guide. ‘No couple should feel pressured into having a lavish affair if it doesn’t feel like their style.’

As an experienced wedding guest (I once had eight – eight! – in a single summer), I’ve noticed a move towards more modest nuptials. One friend arranged her entire wedding in three weeks flat – she organises complex fashion shoots for a living, so this was small fry. Another friend is an events planner and spends her professional life knee-deep in glitz and celebrity guest lists. ‘I wanted something different for my wedding, so it wouldn’t feel like work. I didn’t want to be running around with a clipboard and headset,’ she recalls. The ceremony and reception was at a riverside pub, we all drank pints and the Australia-based best man made his speech via Skype. It was fabulously relaxed.

Another friend works in the music industry and is no stranger to glam events. Her wedding, however, was the epitome of laid-back: we ate pie and mash and stayed in the local Novotel – including the bride and groom, who hosted an all-night mini-bar-raiding party in their bedroom (bridal suite it was not). OK! may not have been impressed, but we had the best time.

What’s behind our new love of low-key? For a start, there’s nothing cool about being a Bridezilla – I’m sure we’ve all worked with the woman who can’t possibly meet that deadline because she’s busy colour-coding her wedding folders. Although it should be said that there’s nothing wrong with a big wedding per se – just don’t let it take over your life.

The days of weddings being solely funded by the bride’s parents are gone: most modern nuptials (89 per cent, in fact) are paid for by the couple.

As a result, people are thinking hard about what they spend their money on. And, if you have a glamorous job, as celebrities do, you want to make your wedding feel special and different. ‘Celebrities like a laid-back wedding because it’s real,’ says Sophie. ‘After all, they spend their lives in a pantomime of fashion, preening, camera flashbulbs and film sets.’

The days of the meringue dress seem numbered...

Sophie also points out that the days of the meringue dress seem numbered, with designers such as Roland Mouret, Alexander McQueen and Lanvin now offering bridal lines. ‘Most brides just want to look like themselves, but a bit more fabulous,’ she notes. Hence Keira in a beautiful, understated dress that she could move, dance and, crucially, be herself in. 

Most importantly, the low-key wedding suggests the couple recognise that a marriage is about so much more than just one day. ‘It becomes all too easy to get sucked into the loopiness of it all,’ says Sophie. ‘Sometimes the very essence of a wedding –

the fact that it’s two people pledging to stay together through thick and thin – gets obscured.’ Divorce lawyer Amanda McAlister of law firm Slater & Gordon says a staggering 80 per cent of couples who split within five years of marriage cite overspending on their nuptials as a factor. ‘Young people are already under financial pressure and the prospect of a lavish wedding is a huge added strain. The example set by Keira could prove essential to ensuring a successful partnership,’ she says.

Something that a certain Hollywood star I once interviewed perhaps should have pondered. She had recently held a huge bells ’n’ whistles wedding that she had sold for silly money to a celebrity magazine. I, meanwhile, was fresh from my somewhat smaller-scale nuptials. I thought this would make for nice small talk…

I was wrong. ‘You got married in a BARN?’ she sneered, incredulous. Then, with a smirk, she put her diamond-laden ring finger next to my modest gold bands. Charming, hey? Several years later, her marriage broke down. Sometimes it pays to play it cool.