Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Bridal-Industrial Complex

If you are applying your cultural lens, as Rebecca Mead does for The New Yorker, and train it on the industry around weddings, and you write a book about it, what exactly does that make you?

I'm not really sure who Rebecca Mead's audience is for her book, One Perfect Day, the Selling of the American Wedding. Buyer beware? Cultural critique? All you have to do is walk to a newsstand to see an entire section devoted to wedding magazines to know that the selling of the wedding, not marriage, has become an institution itself. But so has the stuff around babies, tweens, Gen Y, cats, Hispanic 16-year-olds, I could go on. We are, after all, a logo nation. So I'm curious to know what Mead can say that hasn't already been said.

I'm skeptical that readers of Mead's book will be surprised to learn that when you plan your wedding there are -- you may want to sit down -- people who will try to sell you stuff. Heck, they may even try to rip you off.

I won't bore you with the details of my wedding. But you can always find ways to save -- and ways to spend. We went the morning of the wedding to the flower market and bought our buds wholesale. And got friends to arrange them. We bought cupcakes instead of wedding cake from a local bakery. We hired a really, really expensive band. And it was so worth it.

But if you step carefully, do your research and avoid the cheesy temptations of the wedding paraphernalia that will try to whip you into a spending frenzy (we turned down the "fable cable" limo, complete open bar and party favors), you should be OK. Even if you're not, you'll still end up married.



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