It wasn't always this way. We like to think of the white wedding as "traditional," but in fact, it is not. In Europe and North America just a few centuries ago, wedding ceremonies looked very different. There were different versions at different places and times, but none approximated the spectacles that are showcased today.
Histories of courtship and marriage often highlight the differences in the relationship between the two people who are marrying. Was the pairing arranged or freely chosen? How well did the two know each other before the wedding? What was the nature of their courtship? Did they marry within or across the lines of class, religion, or race? And now, of course, we ask whether a wedding ceremony marks only the coming together of a man and a woman or whether two men, or two women, can marry too.
An equally important change, I think, is the relationship between the couple and their friends, family, and community. Before the nineteenth century, the ceremonies marking a marriage were more likely to underscore the links between the couple and the other people in their lives than the specialness of the couple apart from everyone else.
That the newlyweds were part of a social network and a community, rather than above it, was evident even from their attire. The newlyweds did dress up for their wedding, but often no more so than their guests.
The customs of gift-giving were even more telling. People in the community contributed what they could afford so the new couple - especially if they were of modest means - could have what they needed to start a new household and thereby take their place within the community. Historian John Gillis noted that in Wales, "each gift would be noted and paid back in due time." At first, it was only among the wealthy that wedding presents took the form of glittering luxury items with little practical value. The china, the crystal, and the silver tea sets would be set on display atop a white woven tablecloth in a special room. The baubles spoke for the couple. "We do not need the community to help us," they said. Most newlyweds, though, did need the help of the people in the community who were in a position to offer it.
The honeymoon, too, was once a time for underscoring the reciprocal ties between the couple and the important people in their lives. It was commonplace for the couple to the visit friends and family who lived some distance away and who were not expected to make a special trip to attend the wedding. The couple's closest companions often joined them in these travels. The trip was not a time for the couple to be alone.
Once the couple arrived back in town, they would take their place among their neighbors. It did take a village to maintain the village, structurally and interpersonally, and couples, singles, and children were all part of it.
The historical perspective helps us cut through the mist of the contemporary lavish wedding to recognize what a profoundly self-centered and self-celebratory ritual it has become, especially at the hands of its most out-of-control practitioners.
First, the attire. Today, no one could mistake the bride for a random guest.
Second, the gifts. All guests are expected to make offerings, and substantial ones at that, no matter what their own personal circumstances may be. These contributions to the couple are especially remarkable at a time when the bride and groom are at such a different place in their lives than newlyweds were in the past. The age at which adults first wed is trending ever upward. The two people who are coming together often have their own jobs, and a household that they share. Their joint household may well have been created from the merging, in the past, of their own individual households, already well stocked with linens and demitasse cups.
Some observers have acknowledged that the showering of gifts on well-off recipients does not always sit well with guests, but do not find that troublesome. The authors of Cinderella Dreams explain that "the most dissatisfied guests seem to be nontraditional women." In contrast, "the satisfied guests are recent or future brides who recognize the reciprocal nature of gift-giving and understand that when it is their turn they will also ‘pick up the loot' from all of the brides whose showers they had attended."
What the authors do not mention is that the "dissatisfied guests" (translation: the bad ones - the women who are single and intend to stay that way) do not "recognize the reciprocal nature of gift-giving" for a reason. For them, it doesn't exist. For life singles - especially those who live alone or with dependents - showers and weddings are occasions for the redistribution of resources from those who have one paycheck to cover one set of household expenses to those who have the same one set of household expenses but two paychecks to cover them. When the bride and groom are serial remarriers, the inequities are greater still.
Discussions of gift-giving at showers and weddings tend to focus on presents and cash. But couples receive far more than that. They also enjoy the gift of their guests' attention, time, and validation. For no other event in a person's lifetime do so many people show up at your side at the appointed time and place, regardless of whatever else may be happening in their own lives.
The guests who come from near and far to attend a wedding have a new role to play at the ceremony. In the past, wedding guests welcomed the new couple as part of the community. They would all be neighbors and friends. Now guests at weddings serve as fans who look up to the couple as the stars of their own show. They subsidize the twosome emotionally as they ooh and ah at the choreographed spectacle.
In one of the ways of upping "the wow factor" that USA Weekend so admired, the people closest to the bride and groom - the members of their wedding party - are literally hidden away so that more stunningly beautiful actors and actresses can play their roles for them and give the guests a greater thrill. In one of the other wow factors, community members with no relationship whatsoever to the couple are inconvenienced for the sake of the couple's show. That's the one in which the newlyweds are encouraged to get a permit to shut down a city street. In the orgy of self-celebration that some contemporary weddings have become, no gesture is a bridge too far in setting the couple above everyone else in their lives, and above so many others who should not have to go out of their way, literally, to accommodate the wedding of a pair of strangers.
