Emails and castles

Amidst pensions strikes, Greece's disaster, and ongoing problems in Libya, we have one of this week's biggest news stories - an email sent to a bride-to-be from her fiance's stepmother, criticising her manners, or apparent lack thereof, and generally causing a bit of a rucus.
Thanks to the speed with which emails can "go viral" these days, everybody knows and has an opinion on who is right or wrong in the saga. Should Carolyn Bourne have sent the sharp-tongued, harsh email to her stepson's fiancee Heidi Withers, or did Ms Withers in some way deserve it, if the way she is said to have behaved is true? The story's sparked a debate across the globe, and I guess we'll never know exactly what the truth is, as only that family knows the history, the behaviour, and the reasons behind this rather public argument.
But there was one line that seemed to stick out to me - perhaps not in the delivery, nor completely in the sentiment, but for the underlying issue it seems to raise. Mrs Bourne suggests to Ms Withers that the couple should not hanker after a celebrity-style wedding in a castle, but perhaps "have a modest wedding as befits both (their) incomes". Wow, what a controversial thing to say. With the average cost of weddings at at least £20,000, with people inspired by the excesses of the rich and famous, it seems a "modest wedding" that befits your income is the last thing on anyone's mind.
Weddings for many in our generation are no longer about the concept of marriage, it seems to me. In fact planning for a lifetime together is pretty low on the agenda when there's a huge party to outdo all parties to be planned. There's the dress, it's got to be as great as Kate's, but not an obvious copy, a venue that will be the envy of all your friends, food to die for, a guest list that includes absolutely ALL of your Facebook friends, whether you can afford it or not, and of course a party that people talk about for decades to come. After organising all of this, sparing no expense, the commitment part is just a given - not something to be thought about, taking account of, given real time and effort to - it's just a small part of a complex military operation.
Yes yes, this is all rather cynical, I know. Not everyone's like that, how could I say that! But Ms Withers' desire to get married in a castle (apparently, of course we only have Mrs Bourne's word for it) despite (again apparently) not being able to afford it, is a fairly good example of this.
Of course, a bride's day is supposed to be one of the most special of her life (I wouldn't know, haven't got that one down yet!), but surely the special part is supposed to be committing to the person you love, to sticking with them through thick and thin and trying your damndest to make it work, even when times are hard. Not spending tens of thousands of pounds you don't have just to throw a party that is the envy of all your friends.
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but even if much of what she says is cruel, unnecessarily critical and potentially untrue, I think on this one small part Mrs Bourne may have a point.
We all take great delight in mocking the travellers on My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding for their need for the "biggest" and the "best" - but are the rest of us any better?