Letters to the Editor
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Weird wedding veils
I, too, remember the bizarre "seed weed" headpieces of the recent past. Also the faux-Indian-headband look that was also popular for a while in the 1920s and 30s. (Maybe the recent revival was related to the terrycloth-headband jock-chic look of the 80s?) Today the fad is for rhinestone tiaras that evoke the 1950s. In the 60s and 70s floor-length mantillas were all the rage. (Are they still popular among Latina brides?) Perhaps the best way to "date" a bridal photograph is not so much by the gown as the veil!
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The most fun wedding I ever went to
Was on the the couple's property out in the country. We all wore casual clothes, and the invite said "bring your dog!" The couple said their vows in a barn, we canoed on the pond, played softball, ate make your own burritos and gumbo, and drank beer, and had a great time!
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price tag
I see a few letters questioning the average price tag. Maybe I've lived in cities too long, but I don't think it takes much extravagance to spend 25K. It seems to be there are two factors: Size of the wedding and escalating costs.
Many of my friends come from scattered families, and the wedding is a family reunion whether the bride and groom want it or not. They often also have divorced and remarried parents, upping the number of relatives exponentially.
The other factor is runaway price increases. What used to be $25 per person 10 or 15 years ago is now $50. Then, tack on wedding surcharges -- it seems like the minute you say "wedding" florists and caterers automatically increase the price. Photography has have gotten more sophisticated and respected, so getting someone talented it costs more than it used to. Even simple events can add up quickly when all the components are expensive.
Look at it this way: If you have 200 people attending (a lot, but not at all uncommon), and you hold it even at a modest Marriott that charges $50 per person for an open bar and dinnner, that's 10K right off the bat. (In the cities I've lived in, even the smaller ones, $50 is downright reasonable.) Then add what amounts to a second reception, more or less, because nearly all of the guests are from out of town and the bride and groom are told that it is courteous to invite out of town guests to the rehearsal dinner. Add a florist and photographer, even reasonable priced ones, plus a dress and church fees and it's not hard at all to get to the average or beyond.
I've watched my friends do it and despite all their cost-cutting efforts the costs still balloon.
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Weddings gone wild
So I can afford my career as a science teacher, I am a weekend musician and have played hundreds of weddings over the years. I never even heard of a wedding planner until the late '80's, and many of those pre-wedding-planner marriages are still intact. My informal observations indicate that wedding perfection angst has increased as a result of too much planning. My advice -- get married, hire a band to play music that you like, have food that your reception guests like to eat, and plenty of booze to keep the guests entertained while the bride and groom slip away to do whatever brides and grooms choose to do with each other. Trying to create the "memory of a lifetime" is just a way to make the entire wedding experience less enjoyable.
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unfair comparison?
...in 1939, one survey showed that 16 percent of brides were married in clothes they already owned, a third married without an engagement ring, and roughly a third didn't go on a honeymoon.
It is possible that this is a reflection of the growing marriage industry, as Mead suggests. It seems ikely, though, that it has at least as much to do with the general state of the economy, and the fact that the US in 1939 was still recovering from the Great Depression. That generation of brides and grooms grew up understanding that money was not always easy to come by, and that it was wise not to waste it on frivolities.
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Futhark's Law of Weddings and Marriage
The regularity that I have observed, with an admittedly small sample size, is that the more lavish the wedding, the shorter the duration of the marriage. I think it may have something to do with the unrealistic expectations of continual bliss on the part of those who celebrate a big, expensive, blowout wedding or perhaps it is due to the financial strain of paying the enormous bills or maybe even caused by frayed nerves and tensions attendent on hosting such an event. The huge wedding certainly takes the focus off the continual happiness of the spouses and puts it on the once-in-a-lifetime(though often not)celebration.
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Keith Chaffee, you're on the right track
Depression-era brides and grooms tended to have low-key ceremonies out of necessity. This trend continued during WWII as ostentatious nuptials would be unseemly during a wartime/rationing economy. But by the late 1940s the wedding "industry" was in full swing, and all those couples who had to delay marriage/childbearing during the 30s and early 40s made up for their deprivations by having lavish weddings - followed, of course, by the Baby Boom. By the time those babies began having weddings of their own, they mostly wanted to out-do their elders by having even more showy affairs - paid for, of course, by their ever-indulgent parents. So we are now in the third or fourth generation of post-war brides who need to keep upping the ante on what is a "standard" wedding. When will it end? Maybe with the next big economic turndown...
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Ben Dover
Love you. And I'm female and feminist.
LOL this time it wasn't until I got to #4 that I *knew* it was you, and it always makes me chuckle. It was at that point that I skipped down and saw your sig. I knew it!
Also, *love* #5 and totally agree. Nice work!
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Awfully wedded
This is an interview (and book!) whose time has indeed come. I'm a newly-ordained clergy person in New York City and have already seen my fill of frenzied couples whose chief preoccupations with regard to their weddings have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual ceremony. I'm amazed how often the church and the priest are actual afterthoughts (we're the last thing on the 'to-do' list, and booked to suit the previously-scheduled reception place and time). The ceremony itself is necessary pain, it seems, for a lot of couples, who ask 'how long will it last, we need to let the caterer know when to uncork the Champagne' or, 'when do we kiss--we want to tell the photographer when to expect it,' and so on. Finally, speaking of over-pricing, a bride and groom can drop $1,500 on a wedding dress, or 1,000 on a Rolls Royce to take them to the reception, but a similar fee for a church on [New York's priciest avenue] is just 'shocking, shocking.'
Great interview, Ms. Wallace and thanks, Ms. Mead, for the matrimonial reality check.