Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
It is wedding season. I have a daughter getting married this weekend. For those of you with young girls: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex.
In I'll Mature When I'm Dead, Dave Barry (who coined "wedding industrial complex") writes:
"If the wedding were a solar system, the bride would be the sun; her mother would be another slightly smaller nearby sun; the wedding planner would be a third sun; the caterer, floral installation professional, photographer, videographer, cake design engineer, etc., would be planets orbiting these suns..."
And Dave Barry had a BOY. All he had to pay for was the rehearsal dinner. Imagine what it is like to have three daughters (one married, one getting married this Saturday, a third to be married soon, no doubt) who not only plan their own ceremonies but have been recently involved in dozens of weddings of their friends.
This is the modern Wedding Industrial Complex: Year-long engagements, websites and facebook pages devoted to the bride and groom and their gift requests, bachelor and bachelorette parties that require their respective teams to fly to Vegas or beyond for nights of high-rent debauchery, showers, still photographers who provide 2,400 photos of the courtship, engagement, wedding, reception, and honeymoon for on-line purchase, reality shows dedicated not only to the ceremony but also simply the selection and purchase of the dress, on and on.
And very little talk, it seems, of what will happen when the klieg lights go off and gritty reality awaits. The marriage part.
If facebook has turned most young people into preening narcisists, their weddings are now an extension of that "look-at-me-and-shower-me-with-love-and-gifts-for-I-am-the-only-person-to-ever-be-married-on-earth" self-reverential credo. Youngsters who have been told since birth that they are special and whose entire lives have been celebrated for major accomplishments such as getting a 'C' in math or swimming the entire length of the pool now see their wedding day with the humility and common touch of Marie Antoinette.
My wife and I attended a wedding a few years ago where the young couple created a website of themselves with hundreds of photos, including a hideous series of them cavorting in a hot tub. They were not small people, and the photos recalled safari shots of hippos in Botswana. Why would they "share" that?
After another wedding, we cooled our heels along with all of the guests for two hours while the bride and groom finished up their photography session and finally deigned us with their presence at the reception and the eating and drinking could begin. I still resent them for that.
Don't get me wrong. I'm for marriage. My wife and I have been wonderfully married for 28 years. And our daughters have kept their weddings dignified (if expensive!) for this day and age.
But at what point did the average wedding process morph from something wonderful and important to a vulgarian cross between the 2,500-year Celebration of the Persian Empire and a scene from Cleopatra?
Or am I the only one who now cringes in horror when a fancy invitation arrives in the mail?
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Comments:
May '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
The overseas weddings slay me. I'm very happy that I got married over a video phone while I was mobilized for Iraq and saved all that money that is so easily wasted.
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
Fred Cole: Yeeesh. Cringe at a wedding invitation? Hells no!
C'mon, man, the nicer the wedding, the nicer the reception. The nicer reception, the nicer the chow. · 56 minutes ago
If the guests have to wait two hours for the chow until the wedding party arrives to bless it with their celestial presence, well, it's not that much fun.
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
Pilli:
I asked my friend (we're that close) the cost. His answer: He would have to work an extra 4 years before retirement! · 2 hours ago
Is the couple still together?
May '10
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
I've always tended to notice that the more time, cash, and fuss they spend on the wedding the less they invest into the marriage relationship. We were lucky to be flat broke in 1973.
Dec '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
I second that!
Nov '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
C.J. Box
Fred Cole: Yeeesh. Cringe at a wedding invitation? Hells no!
C'mon, man, the nicer the wedding, the nicer the reception. The nicer reception, the nicer the chow. · 56 minutes ago
If the guests have to wait two hours for the chowuntil the wedding party arrives to bless it with their celestial presence, well, it's not that much fun. · 56 minutes ago
That's the reason for a "cocktail hour." If they don't have an open bar at the venue, I'm sure there's somewhere nearby that does have one.
And two hours is extreme, but depends on how extreme the chow is. Some things are worth the wait.
But, if the potential for a two hour wait is too much for you, there are two additional options:
1. Carry a portable DVD player in your car and have a movie ready. Or something similar. Podcasts on an ipod work just as well.
2. Mail me the invitation and I will attend. Be sure to include transportation funds or arrangements and a nice gift.
May '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
By overseas weddings, I meant the people who go to Cancun or Belize to get married and expect guests to go too.
Apr '12
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
I can't believe people would be so self-absorbed to spend that much on a wedding when they could have donated the funds to the Obama campaign.
Jul '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
I suspect that much of this is an attempt to instill meaning into a ceremony and event that has lost much of its significance. To many people, a wedding is a mere formality because they're already living together (marriage is just a piece of paper, right?), and the wedding night is nothing exciting. They compensate with an overblown engagement, gaudy ceremony and reception, and a vacation instead of a honeymoon.
Back in my day (4.3 years ago) we kids weren't focused on the engagement, cerem0ny, or reception, because we were thinking about the wedding night.
Maybe I come from a weird breed. I designed the invitations that we mailed using photos that my dad-in-law took, and my sister played the baritone sax at her own reception.
-E
Feb '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
My wife & I were engaged for 3 years (we were both in school and wanted to wait until at least one of us was getting a paycheck). Her parents offered us the chance for a small wedding and to cut us a check for the rest. We decided that the memories would outlast the cash, and are very glad we did.
Sep '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
The industrial weddings are distinctively forgettable. The weddings I enjoyed the most, and remember the best, were also the cheapest. Two, in particular, stand out: both were church weddings, both featured a church potluck as the reception.
The wedding industrial complex tells these girls that this is going to be the "most important day of your life"--if that's true, I pity you.
Mar '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
My dear man, you let slip a fatal confession:
After the first, you should have learned your lesson. You should have conditioned your daughters to the marriage equivalent of primogeniture, which is the right of the firstborn to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings. Had your daughters grown up to understand that the first one got the fancy wedding, you'd not have this problem. Of course, you'd have to suffer a few weeks in the doghouse, but what's that when compared to a bank account with more than 3 digits to the left of the decimal point?
Of course, I have but one daughter, who has gone through 2 weddings. They do learn after the first.
Best wishes to your daughter.
Apr '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
In one month it will be our 50th. We had a church wedding in a small farming community between grain harvest and potato harvest! Now our two girls want to have an old fashioned church 50th reception for us. This is unusual in a big city. Our kids asked us where we were going to take them on our 40th? I said an old fashioned car trip to Yellowstone and the Black Hills. C.J. Box would appreciate that kind of trip. The highlight, a full breakfast fixed for us by friends after a short hike in a huge valley just outside Yellowstone. Simple is wonderful and as you can see nothing beats "old fashioned."
Mar '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
Yikes, I've got 4 girls to save up for!
My wife and I would have eloped except that our families would not have forgiven us. Any occasion where the booze is flowing, be it wedding or funeral...
Mar '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
I've seen that done and it's just crass.
May '10
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
What I wouldn't give to see video of my parents wedding! To hear their best man's speech or stories of their courtship would be awesome! Even just more pictures would be great. The "all about us" stuff may seem like an exercise in narcissism, but what a gift to their decendants! I do hear what you are saying C.J....racking up debt or acting like someone you're not is just silly...but I'm still glad weddings are a big deal. We have six wedding pictures around a mirror in our house...my parents and grandparents and my husband's parents and grandparents...anyone in our family who looks in that mirror knows where they come from...those where pretty big deal days for us!
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
I loathe the wedding industrial complex and am so grateful to be happily married and past the wedding planning (those few months of my life six years ago were the worst). And yet I love a good wedding. Being with friends and family to celebrate such a solemn occasion is a wonderful thing. My whole family is making the trip to Colorado next month to send off one of my younger cousins. I've missed a few cousins' weddings and I hate it.
Also, am I the only person never to have printed up my wedding pictures? Where does one find the time?
Apr '11
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
Best wishes to the bride and groom. Best wishes to Diane. And congratulations to those who are celebrating big milestones. Thanks to Mollie for making me feel better about my wedding photos. I have been married over six years and have not had my photos printed either.I love weddings. From the simple BBQ at a church hall to the chateau wedding in the Loire Valley, I get misty-eyed in them all. For how often do two people enter into a covenant so special that they invite their family and friends to come and witness?I don't know about other churches and religions but the Catholic Church requires all wedding ceremonies to be conducted inside a Church. In some ways, this requirement keeps most of the frivolity at bay, or at least separate from the solemn sacrament. It also puts a stop to requests for unusual wedding venues like on top of a flagpole or underwater. See http://www.prodiveusa.com/uwweddings.html
Apr '12
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
The hard truth I learned when I got married was that, no matter how hard you work to make your guests comfortable, no matter how relaxed your attitude, no matter how reasonable your tone, people will still be either patronizing (as though you're a 5-year-old preparing for a ballet recital) or huffily brusque (as though you've committed some faux pas), and feel virtuous for acting this way because as the bride, you are the personification of the Wedding Industrial Complex whether you like it or not. I was so happy when that was behind us.
A church potluck reception is allowed if it is the custom at your church. But it's not permissible just to personally decide that your guests are going to supply the food, especially if they've traveled long distances to be there. Sometimes you have limited control over these things.
I assume in this wedding, however, that donations will be made to the Obama campaign in lieu of gifts?
Apr '12
Re: Beware the Wedding Industrial Complex
I used to sing at weddings when I was at school. Girls' choir for hire. We got to attend the wedding receptions which we loved for the food and to get wedding cake to put under our pillows and dream about our future husbands. When I got married, my in laws had the big expectations and I had zero budget. My mother-in-law sent me to cake designer who wanted $1,000 for a cake with sugar flowers. I went to The Wee Scottish Shop bakery and told my mother in-law story to the Scottish owner. She made me a simple cake for $20 and delivered it. At the reception, I saw she had placed the most remarkably delicate sugar roses on each layer and I was astounded by her artistry at such a good price. It was only when we cut the cake that I realized she had used real flowers. Now that is innovation and my kind of wedding cost.