Send me emails, Patrick at Relevantradio.com.

Here's an email that comes in from Bridget.

What are your thoughts, she asks, about modern weddings, in particular about aspects that I consider to be over the top, not in a good way.

Things like bachelor parties and bride parties taking place in distant places that require in some cases air travel.

And things like the bride hiring a professional to do her hair and makeup,

and things like the couple suggesting that the wedding guests give them money for a honeymoon or a house,

I find these things to be missing the whole point of marriage,

the purpose of it and the true meaning of it.

I'm asking this now because I just received another wedding invitation asking me to give the couple money rather than a gift. It just seems rude and

misguided to me. What do you think? Thanks for answering my email. Happy to, Bridget. Well, I agree

with you. And I realize that, you know, it's the bride's special day, but honestly, it's no more her special day than it is the groom special day. I think the fairy tale princess motif has maybe rather dramatically become exaggerated in our culture.

And our culture has a tendency to exaggerate things to the point of absurdity.

So I'm all in favor.

And as I say this, as a father of five daughters, I've married off most of them.

I know, I understand.

You want it to be a beautiful day, a beautiful dress, beautiful flowers, and there's

nothing inherently wrong with that. My sense of, and this is the way I would answer your question,

Bridget, is that this is an exaggerated form of something that's good. So we know in the Bible that

when Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, completed their

betrothal phase of marriage and they entered into the phase of marriage where they lived together

and they didn't live as husband and wife under these unique circumstances.

But in any case, we know there was a big party.

...