In the last six weeks of 2011, I attended six weddings. Week after week I found myself donning a suit to spend the day eating, drinking, making merry and dispensing presents like it was Christmas. And then I did it all over again, because it actually was Christmas. Well, except for the suit.

Now, I’m not mentioning this marital marathon to boast about my popularity — after all, if I was a boastful person, I wouldn’t be so popular, would I? I’m raising it because while each individual event was delightful, the cumulative effect was bizarre. I felt like I’d overgorged on joy, much as I also overgorged on wedding cake.

Now, each wedding was entirely lovely. Each featured heartfelt, sincere vows and lovely music, and I’m even counting the couple who walked down the aisle to the theme from Star Wars. There were funny, moving speeches, with the one I made a particular highlight, for me at any rate. And each event gave me the chance to catch up with lots of old friends, most of whom I was surprised to learn I still quite like.

My summer of weddings wasn’t exactly a unique experience, of course. We Aussies like to cram our nuptials into those precious weeks when the weather’s warm and expatriate friends are in town to update us on how much better life is in London and New York. One couple chose a date a week before Christmas only to discover that both sets of parents had gotten married on the very same day. Which was a lovely, romantic coincidence, despite suggesting that both kids had forgotten their parents’ wedding anniversary.

But what I found odd about this smorgasbord of smorgasbords (buffets are still ‘in’ for the 2011-2 wedding season, apparently) was this. If you’d asked me at the age of twenty, I’d have predicted that my generation wasn’t going to get hitched at such a furious rate. I thought we were going to discard these old social norms, and live blissfully in sin, begetting children without concern for marital status. I thought we understood that a promise made between two lovers didn’t need ceremony and cake to last forever.

It certainly makes sense to marry for religious reasons, whether or not the religious reasons themselves make sense. But since de facto couples enjoy essentially the same legal rights of married couples, there’s no longer any practical or legal need. And yet, very few of the couples I know have chosen to remain unmarried. They’re making it official. In droves, like lemmings. Although those of you who are happily married may prefer the ‘group behaviour’ part of that simile rather than the ‘plunging over a cliff’ bit.

Who knows, perhaps I just have really conservative, conformist friends? Hey, groovy, fun-loving de facto couples, drop me a line and we can totally hang out! Oh god, that sounds like I’m trolling for a threesome. I’m not, honestly. Anyway, where was I…

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it’s not just my pals. There were more marriages registered in 2008 than in the previous twenty years. The institution has adapted seamlessly into our secular society, borne aloft on the shoulders of hundreds of kaftan-wearing civil celebrants. Marriage is proving to be approximately as resilient as the cockroach.

The other convincing proof of the enduring nature of the institution is the campaign around the world to extend marriage to same-sex couples. I’m not going to go into the rights and wrongs of gay marriage other than to note that it’s right and its opponents are wrong. But while some gay couples have rejected what they view as an antiquated institution, the eagerness with which same-sex couples have rushed down the aisle in places like New York has shown how meaningful it remains for many people.

Perhaps the simplest explanation for why weddings are thriving is a mundane one: they’re just nice. For the vast majority of married people I know, the decision to marry followed a similar template. After a number of years together, the last few of which were spent living together, each couple decided to make a public commitment and throw a big party, simply because they liked the idea. It was something they freely chose to do, and there’s something delightful about that.

Most of the newlyweds I know have taken on the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ with great relish, and most have found that the change of status had a positive impact on their relationship. Knowing the formal commitment is there seems to have made things more comfortable for them somehow. I suspect it’s an excellent antidote to insecurity — and why wouldn’t it make you feel good about yourself to know that another person has publicly promised to be with you for the rest of their life?

One of the great things about all these weddings, apart from helping me to recoup my investment in a suit, is that they gave me so many chances to reflect on love and life. And I reached a number of important insights that I’d like to share with you. Unfortunately I can’t, because I forgot them as soon as I’d sobered up. Which is a pity, because over champagne I’m pretty sure I worked out both the meaning of life and the ideal composition of the Australian cricket team. Still, that gives me a different insight to offer — when you get plastered and find yourself talking immense quantities of shit at a wedding, make notes.

Thinking back on my Weddingpalooza 2011 now, though, it occurs to me that if anything, the secularisation of marriage has strengthened it. People used to get hitched because they had to, in order to be respectable. Now it’s moved from a must-have to a nice-to-have for most couples, and that’s made all the more romantic. It’s an experience that brings couples closer together, like getting matching tattoos or surviving a horrific natural disaster. And from what I’ve gathered, any couple that can jointly bear the agony of organising a wedding are likely to rise to any challenge life can throw at them.

It’s probably obvious that I’m not married myself. But I’ve always assumed I will be someday, because it seems like something you just do when you grew up, like having kids or getting a mortgage or becoming boring. I’ve certainly done the last two of these things, and I guess I’ll get around to the other grown up stuff eventually, right after I finish that new PlayStation game where you get to be Batman.

The major downside of attending multiple weddings is that you can start to feel like the odd one out if you’re unmarried. I’m sure Batman feels the same way when he attends friends’ nuptials. There used to be singles tables where they stuck all of us misfits in the hope that they’d hook up and thank the bride and groom at their own weddings, but now there aren’t even enough unmarried people left for that, so I’ve recently found myself sitting with couples and approximately two other single people, who will almost certainly go home together.

Consequently, I suspect that the phrase “if you can’t beat them, join them” was invented by someone who was thinking about weddings. And after conducting all of this extensive research, I certainly can’t think of any good reason not to do it if the opportunity arises. There’s nothing particularly worthwhile that you prove by choosing to remain unmarried on principle, and you get to have a party with all of your friends and say nice stuff about your lover. When the question is popped, then, it’s little wonder that so many people end up saying “I do”.

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Dominic Knight is a novelist and one of the founders of The Chaser. He tweets as @domknight and blogs at domknight.com.

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