Craig Wing

For some women, getting married is like winning a footy grand final.

This is the scene on a picture perfect Sydney day: the bride, beatific in white; the handsome groom by her side; the sun setting slowly over the harbour, casting an ethereal glow on the small congregation gathered on the sand.

He says his love is like the “undulating waves of the ocean”; she weeps as the ring is placed gently on her finger.

As the marriage celebrant pronounces them “man and wife”, our elegant bride punches her fist into the air, lifts up her train, and performs an impromptu victory lap.

For almost a decade she had waited patiently for her Prince Charming to go down on bended knee, while her biological clock ticked ever louder.

Their on-again, off-again travails took them to every corner of the globe, our heroine visiting soothsayers and shamans to find the key to his heart.

He suddenly woke one morning with a revelation: that size 9 Jimmy Choo shoe by the side of the bed was actually a glass slipper. He had found his Cinderella.

(He later found his car had turned into a pumpkin, but put it down to far too many tequila laybacks the previous evening.)

On the other side of Sydney, another such drama plays out, with a different denouement.

Football star Craig Wing has broken up with his girlfriend of almost a decade, Zoe Foster, amid whispers that she is tired of waiting for him to propose.

The 28-year-old beauty writer reportedly wants to settle down and start a family.

“You go girl! Such a shame he didn’t want to propose but good on you for realising and deciding to move on with your life instead of hanging around until the relationship soured,” writes Helena on news.com.au.

It’s a problem facing many women who are approaching their 30s, when fertility rates begin to decline.

“Society is very focused on individual success, so there’s no pressure on men to settle down,” according to Anne Hollands from Relationships Australia. “Often, the pressure comes from women’s biological clocks.”

Three-quarters of Australian couples now live together before getting married, up from 22 percent in 1978; most only concede to marriage because they want to have children.

When the big day finally arrives, Muriel eat your heart out – too much frou-frou is barely enough.

“We almost feel as though we can defy the one-in-three divorce rate if we do it in the traditional way,” Ms Hollands says.

Witness the popularity of movies like Sex and the City (sassy career chick left waiting at the altar), Made of Honor (beautiful woman can’t get hunky Patrick Dempsey to settle down) and Bride Wars (best friends who’ve planned the details of their weddings since childhood).

“Marriage has never gone out of fashion. Every girl still wants the big, white wedding,” says Barbara Bell, a wedding celebrant for 14 years.

It’s quite extraordinary that, a century after the first wave of feminism, women are still desperate to be given away to a man, like chattel.

Even the blokes are perplexed.

“It’s the 21st century. Women are supposed to be equal. If she (Zoe Foster) wants to be married, why doesn’t she exercise her equality and do the proposal?” writes Dave of Sydney.

About.com is full of stories about sisters, doing it for themselves.

“I just proposed to my fiance a month ago and I loved it!” gushes Alycia. “We went to his favourite band’s concert in Las Vegas and I had them pull us up on stage and I got on the mic and asked him and gave him the ring in front of everyone!”

A recent newspoll found 20 percent of Aussie women support the tradition of proposing marriage on February 29 – the extra day of a leap year.

But in reality, most are still waiting for their knight in shining armor to ride in on his trusty steed (or a banker in a pin-striped suit to drive up in his reliable Lexus).

“We had one bride who sold her car to buy the dress,” says Jill Hulse from Paddington Weddings.

“At every dress fitting, she jumped up and down like Tigger. On her final fitting, she tried to do a cartwheel!” Jill laughs.

Wedding couturier Suzanne Tapp believes many men don’t see the sense in getting married in these tough financial times.

“Why blow $30,000 on a wedding – that’s a home deposit,” she says.

So, if you’re still waiting for your man to pop the question, he could be a) too selfish, b) too frugal c) too scared d) waiting for an epiphany or e) just not that into you.

Or perhaps it’s simply not ‘right’.

Take the case of Lleyton Hewitt and ‘Aussie’ Kim Clijsters, who split up after four years as the glamour couple of the tennis circuit.

This was followed in quick succession by his marriage to Bec Cartwright and the birth of their two children, and her betrothal to basketball player Brian Lynch, the proud father of 11-month-old Jada.

Sometimes, just like a fairytale, everyone lives happily ever after.