Before landing back in Belfast, a wedding mania swept across both family and friendship groups. As we edge towards the next Assembly and council elections, I wonder, can the public spot the same mania at play? With no agreed budget and less than eight months until polling day, election mania is now underway. A wedding lasts a day, but a marriage, like a mandate, is lived with long after the confetti is swept away. For us, a failed marriage would be a private grief, but a failed political union takes the schools, the hospitals and the waiting lists with it.