PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 70: Weddings

It’s wedding season! Well, in theory. People think weddings spike in May and June, but the effect isn’t really all that dramatic. It seemed like a good time to talk about weddings anyway. This episode is about the event itself … not the 85,000 other things you could talk about when you talk about weddings. Those may come later.

• The wedding industry: some similarities to things we talked about r.e. De Beers in our diamond episode, but without some of the more nefarious things De Beers has been accused of.
• Weddings are serious dollars.
• The 2011 Brides American Wedding Study, which was my source of data for most of this podcast.
• We talk lots of dollars: Cakes, ceremonies … lots of money.
• Southern ladies and their wedding snark.
• What it means that “bridezilla” has become such a thing.
• The history of the big white wedding, which is newer than you might think.
• The wedding industry: $70 billion.
• My very most favorite reality show wedding: “Frontier House.”
• What “wedding clothes” means in Jane Austen books.
• Who pays for what, in terms of the ceremony itself.
• Weddings’ dual role as family reunions.
• Anniversaries! The day we recorded this was my brother’s wedding anniversary and the anniversary of the day Brian proposed to Holly.
• Ladies as best men and men as maids of honor.
• Cruise ship weddings.
• Other wedding locations: Hometown, current city, destination. Sometimes more than one of them.
• Toasts: Never ending awkwardness or heartfelt well-wishing?
• The division of labor in planning a wedding: It’s unequal in straight couples! Aren’t you shocked?
• The things you think of as happening at weddings, like cake-cutting and first dances, really do happen at most weddings.
• Things to do with bouquets beside throw them.
• Trends in things we might think of as archaic, like asking the bride’s father for permission or giving the bride away.
• The preponderance of Pinterest boards for weddings that don’t exist.
• Listener mail! It’s from our listener Tamzen on our episode Diamonds are whose best friend? She asks a very astute question involving Anne (of Green Gables fame), and we clarify.
• Episode link: Weddings

My research:

• 2011 Brides American Wedding Study
• Howard, Vicki. “Brides, Inc.: American Weddings and the Business of Tradition.” University of Pennsylvania Press. 2006.
• Mead, Rebecca. “One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding.” Penguin Books.
• Ogletree, Shirley M. “With This Ring I Thee Wed: Relating Gender Roles and Love Styles to Attitudes toward Engagement Rings and Weddings.” Gender Issues. 2010.
• Sniezek, Tamara. “Is it Our Day or the Bride’s Day? The Division of Wedding Labor and its Meaning for Couples.” Quantitative Sociology. Vol. 28. No. 3. 2005.

Holly’s research:

• How much does an (average) wedding cost?
• 63 Interesting Facts About Marriage
• Is there a link between wedding cost, divorce rate?
• Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces
• The Wedding Business: A Method to Boost Food and Beverage Revenues in Hotels
• Wedding Prices and Marital Success
• Signs of a Divorce Ahead?

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