WE’VE a wedding in our family in August, and rarely does a wedding in our family go off without a hitch.

At family get-togethers, we’ve already started staring at each other gimlet-eyed, wondering who will be the perpetrator and what form an “incident” might take.

It’s my nephew who’s getting married, the first wedding in my family since my own in 2007.

That was an afternoon affair on a glorious July day in the historic garden of Anne of Cleves House in Lewes.

The “incident” at my wedding has since gone into family legend.

The perpetrator was a cousin of mine several times removed who – unbeknownst to me before the wedding as I hadn’t seen her in some time – was going through an acrimonious divorce.

As my husband and I gazed adoringly into each others’ eyes, happily married guests enjoyed the ambience and children frolicked gaily.

But my cousin-several-times-removed became more and more inebriated and embittered, wrapping her arms around male guests rather lasciviously – and female guests very weepily.

Her coup de grace came after the wedding was over.

Guests began crossing the road outside to get to the nearby car park, a few yards down a little side road.

Suddenly word reached us, via a mobile phone call, from the car park, where she had begun screaming obscenities at her parents and was rolling around in the gravel, skirt hitched up to her knickers.

My husband and I, with our children, were waiting outside Anne of Cleves House for the car that was to take us on our one-and-a-half-day honeymoon to Rye, and began to set off towards the car park.

Urgent hands held us back, warning, “You really don’t want to go there – she’s gone crazy.”

Of course, I was dying to see the action, but had to rely on bits of news relayed on mobiles.

Then, dramatically, an ambulance arrived.

It headed for the car park and a few minutes later drove past us, lights on, sirens blaring, followed by a car in which her grim-faced parents sat, eyes stonily fixed forwards.

Her parents later apologised, blaming their daughter’s divorce. We haven’t seen any of them since.

It didn’t ruin my wedding, thank goodness, as it happened immediately afterwards and out of sight of most of us.

But this illustrates how emotions run high at weddings. They provoke strong emotions, as they are life-changing events, and the combination of the blatant romance, the alcohol and the current state of a guest’s love life can prove explosive.

So now, eight years later, we are looking forward to another family wedding.

Rumour has it that, as the date gets nearer, issues between the bride-to-be and groom-to-be range from smaller details, such as the choice of cutlery, to bigger ones: “Why do I have to do everything?”

I wish the organisation of weddings could be more carefree – more often than not, tension over trivia causes strife even before a couple become man and wife.

And I wish couples would cut down on spending. Weddings tend to become a showcase of the couple’s taste and income but they really don’t have to cost the earth – all it takes is a little bit of restraint and research, far easier now with the internet – and couples shouldn’t start off married life in debt for an event that has long been and gone.

I have a friend who was in debt by £12,000 after his wedding. He ended up having three jobs for months to pay it off. He looks back at that wedding 12 years later as a great day, but it’s still a big shame he had to get into so much debt.

I firmly believe weddings should be for the benefit of the couple, not the guests, who should put up with anything that’s provided for them with good grace, no matter what.

And wouldn’t it be wonderful if, just for one glorious day, families on both sides could put aside any differences out of love for their son/daughter and pull together for the sake of giving the couple a good start to their married life?

Weddings can be very emotional affairs but that should always be in a positive way.

For many of us they are remembered as absolutely fantastic days to savour and remember. As guests we can all help to make sure that is the case.

They are often gloriously funny affairs with long-lost uncles embarrassing themselves for the entertainment of all of us.

I can’t wait ‘til August.