{"id":250233,"date":"2025-02-01T12:43:56","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T12:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/?p=250233"},"modified":"2025-02-01T12:43:56","modified_gmt":"2025-02-01T12:43:56","slug":"why-divorce-parties-have-become-so-popular","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/why-divorce-parties-have-become-so-popular\/","title":{"rendered":"Why divorce parties have become so popular"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Have you been to a \u201cdivorce party\u201d yet this season? If you haven\u2019t, not to worry, there\u2019s still time. Divorce season lasts for the whole of January, I\u2019m told, so there\u2019s a couple of weeks left to celebrate. And if perhaps the details of your own nasty separation aren\u2019t yet finalized, or if your lawyer and your ex have between them drained the champagne fund, then why not simply nip into town and crash someone else\u2019s? You\u2019re bound to find one.<\/p>\n

Perhaps in the future there will be un-wedding lists, allowing guests to repurchase things the ex took<\/p>\n

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Divorce parties have become so popular here in London<\/a> that several of the savvier venues have started to offer special divorce-party deals, just as they do for weddings: balloons, cakes, music. An email last week announced that a club called 100 Wardour St had joined the fun. \u201cA bold new trend is emerging among young Londoners to mark the end of their marriages,\u201d it said. \u201c100 Wardour St is embracing the trend of celebratory break-ups with a vibrant experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m cross I didn\u2019t see this coming. Of course divorce is now a cause for unfettered joy. Since Covid, the papers have been full of articles by married women who have \u201crediscovered themselves\u201d by having an affair. It\u2019s not cheating, it\u2019s following your desires and desires are no longer ever wrong \u2014 just so long as you\u2019re female or female-identified.<\/p>\n

Take the newly released film\u00a0Babygirl<\/em>, which stars Nicole Kidman as a married boss-lady whose affair with a hot young intern liberates her from the tedium of a pleasant marriage. There\u2019s nothing wrong with her husband. He\u2019s a decent, kind, handsome man. They have young children. But Nicole\u2019s character has unfulfilled sexual fantasies, so\u2026 sod the marriage, sod the kids.<\/p>\n

In July, Hannah Moore wrote a piece for this magazine about the rise of divorce influencers, in which she mentioned the great hardships they imagine women suffer inside a modern marriage. There\u2019s much made in\u00a0Babygirl<\/em>\u00a0of the drudgery of making packed lunches for kids. The camera lingers meaningfully on the lunch bags the boss-lady has prepared, in much the same way as it might rest on a washing tub or a mangle in a documentary about the domestic drudgery of nineteenth century working-class women.<\/p>\n

\u201cDivorce, Babe. Divorce.\u201d That\u2019s the top line of 100 Wardour St\u2019s divorce-party press release. It only sounds right if you say it in the voice of Arnie\u2019s Terminator, but what does it mean? Is it an encouragement to shrug off your own boring marriage? I think it might be. The text goes on to explain that both men and women are embracing the \u201csignificant cultural shift\u201d in how break-ups are perceived, and 100 Wardour St is keen to help \u201cempower\u201d them.<\/p>\n

This is familiar territory. Everything these days is marketed as political activism. Coca-Cola bravely helps fight obesity. The pants I bought the other day declared themselves to be part of a feminist revolution in underwear. 100 Wardour St isn\u2019t flogging champagne, it\u2019s helping men and women shake off the shackles of the tedious commitment they freely chose.<\/p>\n

The oppressed deserve to treat themselves after their ordeal, and venues such as 100 Wardour St are here to help. The divorce-party package has in this case been created \u201cin collaboration\u201d with the Hummingbird Bakery, and offers lucky party-goers not only a free bottle of champagne (just quote the code \u201cDIVORCE PARTY\u201d), but a special heart-shaped divorce cake covered in what looks like black icing. Gayle Clutterbuck of the Hummingbird Bakery says: \u201cIn the past year, we\u2019ve seen a significant increase in the number of requests for divorce cakes. At the Hummingbird Bakery, we are excited to bring extra joy to these divorce parties. It\u2019s not a proper party without a show-stopping cake.\u201d Absolutely right, Gayle. Bring on the extra joy.<\/p>\n

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Because it\u2019s still a young industry, it seems to me there\u2019s a sizable gap in the market for more divorce-party merchandise. You can already buy \u201cJust divorced\u201d banners and candles that smell like \u201cfreshly signed divorce papers,\u201d but what about tiny boiled-bunny canap\u00e9s? Or pi\u00f1atas printed with a photo of your ex\u2019s face? The happy divorcee could beat the pi\u00f1ata until it released a confetti of shredded wedding photos.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps in the future there will be un-wedding lists in John Lewis, allowing guests to repurchase things the ex took \u2014 half a dinner service, one candlestick. There\u2019s certainly an exciting opportunity here for the Church of England, which might welcome a break from fighting over who they can legally marry and move on to divorce. 100 Wardour St could offer it as part of an enhanced party package \u2014 a consecrated celebrant to officially lift the patriarchal stigma of marriage. Extra joy.<\/p>\n

As I say, I\u2019ve joined this divorce party late, after it\u2019s already in full swing. A piece in\u00a0Marie Claire<\/em>\u00a0magazine<\/a> in June, which I didn\u2019t read at the time, began: \u201cI\u2019m calling it; this is the era of the loud break-up. Divorced Girl Summer, anyone?\u201d The author found the concept of a divorce party \u201ccheekily alluring\u201d but was anxious that she might be asked to cough up for \u201cdivorce presents\u201d having already forked out to buy a wedding gift. It is a real worry. But is it really the very worst thing about an otherwise joyous divorce?<\/p>\n

I called the number listed on the \u201cDivorce, Babe. Divorce\u201d press release just to check that it wasn\u2019t satire and spoke to a nice PR girl who promised that divorce parties really are a growing trend, and told me that several of her own friends had already thrown one. What about the kids, do they attend? I asked her. Can they come to stick a knife in a cake iced with a picture of their dad\u2019s face? What\u2019s the protocol? Perhaps it\u2019s best they stay away, said the PR girl, and though her voice faltered a little she managed to stay impressively jaunty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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