Me too, neither of my marriages have had any benefit of clergy, they are civil marriages.

Marriage is between people, but it's also between the people on the one hand and the community on the other -- it's not just "Chris loves Pat" it's "we all recognise that Chris and Pat are a family now, yay!" It used to be perfectly reasonable that this was marked with a religious ceremony at the church door in communities that all shared a religion and place of worship. These days this makes less sense.