KEEPING up with - or outdoing - the Joneses is alive and well and breeding in the younger generation.

It starts with the Gucci romper suits, continues through the designer teens, the driving lessons and very own car at 17, and goes on to the fabulous wedding and dream home.

They want it all and they want it now - before mum and dad get old enough for their second childhood and start spending the inheritance as if there were no tonight, let alone tomorrow.

I was gobsmacked to read last week that the average cost of a wedding is £16,000. If that's the average, what does an expensive one cost?

The beautiful young bride wants a wedding dress costing thousands that she'll wear for one day. Well, Husband No 2 would not appreciate her tripping down the register office in a pre-worn number.

Then there are the seven bridesmaids, all equally expensively dressed; the stretch limo or horse-drawn carriage; and the reception. Nowadays they don't drive off from the church with shoes and cans dragging behind the jalopy, they stay for an afternoon and night 'do' then stay overnight in the same plush hotel into which they have booked all their pals, before jetting off for three weeks in the Maldives.

What a waste. That money could come in useful for a deposit on the house or, sadly in many cases, when they are dividing up the cash for their separation a few unhappy years later.

After becoming a widower, I remarried a couple of years ago and all it cost us was the price of a holiday in Barbados. It was not pre-planned - not by me anyway, I thought I was just going off to relax.

My wife-to-be and daughter had sneakily prepared for it without my knowledge and broke the news a couple of days before we flew out. But that was comforting because it showed my young daughter had accepted a new mum and did not feel a Cinderella.

I should have got the hints when they insisted I take smart clothes and shoes on holiday.

So we arrived at our destination, asked our holiday rep how we got married over there and she said "leave it to me". Couple of days later we were at the Ministry of Information registering our details, and a couple of days after that we were on a beach under a shady tree saying "I do".

It cost only a few quid. We were asked if we wanted a wedding arch, cake, champagne, limousine. My dearest - a practical sort and a first-time bride - declined and we made do with a tree, air-conditioned taxi and Barbados rum. She wore an outfit that she still wears in hot weather.

It was not uneventful, however. The bride had set off early in the morning for a hair-do. She burst in an hour later with hair looking like an explosion in a mattress factory and dashed into the bathroom. The hairdresser had not turned up. She phoned a few minutes later to apologise and said she had been arrested for motoring offences on the way to the salon.

While this was happening, I was pacing up and down the room with a glass of rum and a cigarette.

"What's up dad, you're not nervous are you?" asked daughter. Just a little.

"What," she declared at the tender age of 14, "the number of times you've been through it, you should know it all off by heart!" Thank you my sweet, for making me sound like a serial bridegroom.

On the beach, the Methodist minister looked at us solemnly over his Bible and said: "We have two wedding ceremonies in Barbados. One is two hours, one is five. Which do you want?" When he saw the look of horror he pronounced: "Only joking man."

An English family who had to be shifted because they were breakfasting under 'our tree' watched, took photos, acted as witnesses and joined us for a drink; my daughter was bridesmaid, chief photographer and junior witness. The minister also joined us at the bar and got sozzled. "Hell man, God don't mind if I drink rum on dis beautiful island," he slurred.

And, sadly, I'll never have an excuse for forgetting the anniversary. We got back to our hotel and some people we'd met screamed: "You're from Yorkshire, aren't you. Do you know a place called Selby?"

We live near there, actually.

"Well," they blurted, "there's been this awful train crash..."

The Great Heck rail disaster had occurred minutes before we tied the knot.

Updated: 10:07 Tuesday, July 06, 2004