They will tie it differently

By the time you've read this, we - that's me, my husband and our children - would have been to our first wedding together as a family.

My eldest daughter likes to say that she's been to two weddings: ours (which she attended in utero, and looked fetching) and her aunt's (which she attended as a baby, and looked even more fetching). The others have not been to any.

The oldest is now eight with a strong mind of her own, and a very particular dress sense, and is going to the wedding of two of our very good friends.

It's been a long time coming, this wedding.

The couple got together in the same year my husband and I got together. Since then, we hurriedly became pregnant, rushed through a large, ill-thought through wedding ceremony, had three children, borrowed a very large bond, and settled down to work, raise our children and pay back the bank.

Our friends, on the other hand, have settled down to travelling the world and pursuing noble accomplishments. They don't have children.

This is a novel idea for my offspring. For them, some newly attuned to the ways of the birds and bees, it's fascinating that two people could be together and not want children, especially now that they are getting married.

This is the fault of the little book we've been reading. When you have a baby, he or she is "usually" the product of consenting adults, a man and a woman, who have sex. And that's "usually" - I like them to believe for now - the only time they have sex.

Their conventional fantasy of marriage was reinforced by the two recent royal weddings broadcast on TV. The first was that of the virile British Prince William and his young wife. The second was an awful, sombre one between a South African swimmer and Prince Albert in that "sunny place for shady people". Both couples are expected to hurriedly reproduce.

So it's been all a bit confusing for my offspring that the first wedding of their conscious young lives is one between two men, who will not be reproducing. Not because they can't have children, but because they don't want to. They are marrying for love, not for heirs.

And "who will be the princess?", my little one asks before the big day.

"Neither. Don't be silly. They are both princes," snaps my son.