Planning a Mustachian Wedding

[41_swish]

Are people being a little superficial when they need a big fancy wedding just because it's supposed to be this sacred?

In my admittedly limited experience, the less religious weddings tend to be the more elaborate. My theory is that if the religious ceremony itself holds a lot of meaning, you don't need a flashy party to make the day feel important.

I hadn't thought of Diana as the spark of the wedding-industrial complex, but now that you say it it's obvious. I'm just young enough that I hadn't thought about weddings at all until after Diana's.

Very fair point when it comes to religious vs. non religious weddings. IME, the more religious weddings, especially catholic, tended to be pretty modest in comparison to the non religous weddings that I have been to.

[Metalcat]

Are people being a little superficial when they need a big fancy wedding just because it's supposed to be this sacred?

In my admittedly limited experience, the less religious weddings tend to be the more elaborate. My theory is that if the religious ceremony itself holds a lot of meaning, you don't need a flashy party to make the day feel important.

I hadn't thought of Diana as the spark of the wedding-industrial complex, but now that you say it it's obvious. I'm just young enough that I hadn't thought about weddings at all until after Diana's.

Oh yeah, royal weddings are essentially the basis of the entire commercial wedding industry.

Wedding photography, for example, comes straight from royal weddings, no one had staged, professional photos. Look at wedding photos from the 60s and 70s, they're clearly taken by family, often in the family home.

Even celebrity weddings, if you look up old weddings, the photos are all candids. Formal, posed photos with different selections of family members is a royal protocol thing.

Almost everything in the wedding industrial complex is derived from mimicking royal weddings, which became wildly internationally popular with Diana who made royalty feel accessible.

My mom got married the first time in the mid 70s. She came from a wealthy and they could afford a lavish wedding, but it was a modest church service, a lunch hosted at their home, she wore a beautiful sheath dress, and her sisters did her hair and makeup. The meal was mostly a buffet of cold cuts, and I'm pretty sure their wedding cake was simple and made by her mom.

Fast forward to her 1988 when she remarried, but was much, much less wealthy on her own. It was a huge wedding, she had a ballgowns custom made and matching dresses made for me and my cousin, and she had her hair and makeup professionally done. There were formal flowers everywhere, she arrived in a limousine, there was a formal plated meal, formal photos, speeches, a professionally decorated cake, etc, etc.

It was all to mimic Diana and Fergie. Her dress even looked A LOT like Fergie's.

Most of what has been socially encoded as "traditional" for weddings is from the 80s, which is why so much of it is so incredibly frivolous and often really tacky. We're just used to it after 50 years, so it seems really normal for middle class woman to wear corseted, bustled gowns, travel by limousine, have intricately decorated cakes, and plastic crystals and Christmas lights strewn about.

None of that is "traditional" unless you consider the 80s to be the definitive decade for tradition, taste, and sophistication.

Note, I'm not trashing anyone who embraces a Princess Diana, 80s style formality. I did, I had 3 dresses, 2 of them corseted gowns, and a limo. I totally get the fun of it, I had a great time at my princess party, but I wasn't lying to myself that it wasn't just me blowing money to have a princess party for the fun of it.

For a lot of middle class folks, a wedding is their one chance to get away with royal cosplay. And have at it if that's your thing.

But let's not pretend it's anything except expensive cosplay, and not buy into any of this nonsense as being necessary because of "tradition."

Half the guests at my mom's '89 wedding were openly doing cocaine and she was divorced a year later. Huge dresses, limos and ornate cakes aren't about marriage, they're about run of the mill, 80s style conspicuous consumption, self-indulgence, and cosplaying as aristocrats.

[sonofsven]

I went to a wedding of my ex's cousin that was wildly over the top.
The couple was in their mid 20's and definitely in the consumerism mindset.
Dad made some money excavating for suburban shopping malls and was footing the bill.
It was at a fancy resort with an incredible view in the Columbia River Gorge.
The nuptials were given outdoors and completed with a volley of costumed trumpeters and the release of a flurry of white doves, to the amazement of all assembled.
Luckily the sound covered the guffaws and snickering from myself and my sister in law, since we had snuck back to the parking lot to get stoned, it was all we could do to not cry out in laughter at the absurdity.
The couple jetted off to Hawaii. They were divorced within two years.

[iris lily]

I dislike over the top formal and in fact dislike most of the weddings I’ve been to in the past several decadesL

But I learned my lesson in one of them. I was dreading it and the only reason I went was to take my mother who had dementia to this wedding, where they really wanted her to attend. OK fine. I drove eight hours, stayed all night, went to pick her up at the nursing home, and then we drove out to small town America where I expected the wedding to be in a church with the reception in the tacky Legion hall. That’s how small town weddings go.

Boy was I wrong! The wedding was held in the bride’s  own Victorian house that was pretty and charming, and also was in a state of renovation so man, I was right at home. Yeah, I could relate to all of it.

The reception was in their yard under tents and they had great catered food. Really, pretty posh for small town stuff.

The whole thing was a whole lot classier, and yet homey-er than I expected it to be. I am all about settings so avoiding ugly small town legion halls is always a win for me.