One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding

It's the bits of wedding trivia that I liked. Like how many people know that pre WW2 most brides didn't have diamond wedding rings. Then DeBeers discovered they could sell rings and link them to love and marriage. Now I knew that brides of the past rarely wore a fancy white dress. One need only look at wedding pictures from before 1950 to see this. Who knew how much most marriages cost these days and how short a marriage it often turns out to be. All to show off to people that you have more money than you do, or show off the fact that dispite all odds, someone actually wanted to marry you. No doubt all those who make big bucks off couples who marry, like wedding planners, florists, cake makers, rental places and a plethora of other businesses wont like this book one bit. But those who will are those with some common sense and feet planted firmly on the ground. Parents who may secretly hope their daughter doesn't get engaged. Or the bride and groom who have better things to do with their hard earned money than blow it on one day, that can never live up to the fantasy they have created in their heads. I also want to note how bad I feel for so many men who are hounded by the bride to be about how the wedding day is HER day. Run men run ...is my advise because any woman who is more concerned about HER production and not your feelings may mean divorce down the road. I really hope more men read this book. As the mother of a son who married a lovely woman in a small ceremony with just family, I am so pleased that their money went into buying a home they can afford. And yes I do agree with the author when it comes to women who wear white even if its their second or third etc wedding. And I find it refreshing that the author even touched the delicate subject of what weddings were and what they have become. That until the last 10-20 years the holiness of marriage and a true sense of commitment is so often lost. And BRAVO to the author for reminding straight on, Americans brides about the cheap labour that is producing the labour intensive goods that the bride wants for her wedding. Often in sweat shops. Something the wedding industry doesn't want you to know about. The book is excellent about discussing the domino effect that spending big on a wedding, may mean bigger money problems down the road or big money issues that need to be discussed BEFORE a guy even buys an engagement ring.

As we stagger into the third millennium, nothing is what it once was. That goes double for weddings. Once, weddings were a celebration of the transition of young people from parental control to their own control under the watchful eye of a beneficent Deity. Now, with the loosening of parental control, with the rise of cohabitation, the decline in church attendance, with the separation of sex and baby-making, and with the rise of a self-oriented consumer culture, the stage has been set for massive change in the way couples view marriage and the ceremony that kicks it off. Actually, the stage is far past set: we are well into Act II. Author Rebecca Mead could have taken a number of approaches to this new culture. She could have been censorious about its narcissism, or applauded its liberation from its ancient anchors. Instead, she adopts a somewhat bemused, slightly aghast tone that allows her subjects to speak for themselves. And speak they do! Mead's main focus is the wedding industry, which is at an enormously-profitable dream machine. She obtained her information from a close reading of bridal journals, interviews with the industry's visionaries, attending trade shows and visiting sites from Wisconsin to Las Vegas to Aruba to China. What she sees is either refreshingly or depressingly the same all over. Brides (and an increasing number of men) are being sold on the idea that they must stage a dream wedding with all the "traditional" touches that expresses their personal sense of style. And the more money spent the better. Mead makes it clear however, that many of the features considered traditional are not all that old. Only since the 1920s, for instance, have the majority of American brides been married in white silk gowns. Some touches are plain obsessive, like the need to match the attendant's vests to the napkins. Mead calls these faux-ancient touches "traditionalesque"-- shallow imitations of tradition sold by people who have interests at heart other than launching couples into married bliss. Mead takes us behind the scenes of the wedding industry and unveils the techniques that bridal planners and others use to keep their customers buying, buying, and buying. We meet low-paid Chinese workers laboring for pennies per gown in enormous factory settings. We meet the faux-ordained who tailor their services to their customers' desire for a churchy setting with but a veneer of religiosity. We meet the good people of Disney, that most profit-generating dream machine, who evolved from providing a few shots of the couple with Mickey and Minnie, to providing the entire princess package that includes a rented Cinderella coach ($2500 for a half-hour) with footmen and horses for brides who want to identify with their favorite character. We meet photographers whose repertoire of "iconic" not-so-candid shots varies little from wedding to wedding and videographers who slioce and dice their product into finely-edited packages that the couple must purchas

I think some of the reviewers are missing the point. Mead's book is not an instruction manual in helping brides avoid manipulation. It is a sociological examination of how we choose to celebrate marriage and what this says about American culture. I mean the book wasn't shelved in the wedding section at the book store where I purchased it. It was shelved under socoiology. "One Perfect Day" offers fascinating insight into how the significance of the ceremony has increased as the differences between pre-married life and married life has decreased for many couples. While looking at this cultural shift, it explores the role of the industry that has sprung up to maintain it. None of the vendors and industry representatives come off looking like bad people. But they are business people and businesses exist to make profit. I would, however, have liked to see more about the role that parents play in pushing their daughters into the role of bridezilla. In my experience, both parents are usually the primary drivers behind the more, more, more philosophy of wedding planning -- and often push girls who wanted to have a simple wedding into an elaborate affair. I would have especially liked to read an analysis of parental interactions with the bridal industry.

Its no surprise that anyone with financial links to the wedding industry would resent Rebecca's well-written expose. The basic message of the book seems to be that many women and their families are hit by an unbelievably hard commercial sell at one of the most susceptible stages of their life. To say that these women, and those close to them can always say " No!" is unrealistic. Decisions made at this point in peoples' lives are too often based on emotion rather than realism; the industry realizes this and hones in on it. Rebecca's book is not a manual for how to run a wedding; its a cautionary message suggesting that the true meaning of being married should not be lost when exposed to the industry's pitch. Rebecca leavens her hard-hitting message with fascinating examples and good humor. Its an excellent read.

I read and enjoyed this book, I would have given it 4.5 if possible. The first few chapters are entertaining and well written, but I felt like they were mainly capturing the material details of weddings and the wedding industry. The first few chapters are kind of like Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, but not quite as funny. However, I think in the later chapters the author really gets at the heart of the matter, which is that some of the wedding culture is an attempt to substitute for a more general loss of meaning and community in an increasingly materialistic society. In that sense, I think the book has more in common with Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community. In the final chapter, the author asks "What is a wedding for?" If I were planning a wedding (which I am not), I think reading this book might help me step back and come up with my own answer to that question, rather than one that was marketed to me. If you aren't planning a wedding, the book is still an interesting snapshot of how our relationship with love, marriage, religion and community are changing.