What Price a Wedding?
by Giulianna LamannaI was planning on getting married, but now I think I’ll save myself the trouble and just throw all my money in a dumpster. Don’t get me wrong - I very much want to be married. It’s the getting married that I’m starting to really resent. And it’s not because I’m a cheapskate, either: my mother’s generously offered Jason and me $6,000 to pay for the wedding. It’s the mere concept of spending $6,000 on a party. It’s the fact that, compared to the average cost of wedding nowadays, $6,000 - which is twice as much as my first car cost - is a drop in the bucket. Almost a year ago, CNN reported that the average cost of wedding was nearing $30,000. In 1983, your average wedding cost anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 (in 2006 dollars). By 1991, that had risen to $19,000. And by 2002, a wedding cost $24,000. Now that it’s ballooned out to $26,000, the cost has risen $2,000 in less than half a decade. In the 80’s, an era famous for lavish, sequin-intensive weddings, my $6,000 budget would have been perfectly reasonable. Now you can find books like How to Have a Fabulous Wedding for $10,000 or Less. Along with the rising cost comes the length of time required to plan it. People routinely put a year or more between engagement and wedding. Anything less than a year, in some cities, is considered impossible.
There are a number of reasons for this. Obviously, increased affluence is a factor. There’s also the fact that, with quicker and easier travel available, people have wider networks of friends (which necessitates larger weddings) from farther away (which means your guests will be putting more effort into coming, which makes many couples feel like they have a responsibility to “wow” them). All this adds up to more people attending weddings, which puts pressure on the bride and groom to make their wedding unique. But by and large, this growth has been fueled by an ever-growing wedding industry which some have taken to calling “The Wedding Industrial Complex.” It consists of jewelers, caterers, bridal salons, and a whole host of other businesses determined to use your upcoming nuptuals as an excuse to part you from as much of your money as they can. As Dave Barry once said, the motto of the bridal industry is, “Money can’t buy you happiness, so you might as well give all your money to us.”
Let’s face it: an engaged couple is easy to take advantage of. For most people, getting married is a one-time thing, as is planning a party of this size and scope. If you’ve never hired a caterer before, or bought fine jewelry or a glamorous gown, then how do you know how much things are supposed to cost? You just heard the word “tulle” for the first time five minutes ago; who are you to say that a tulle veil shouldn’t cost $200? (By the way, your average veil can be easily handmade in less than half an hour using products bought at Michael’s or Jo-Ann’s Fabrics for about 5 bucks.) The one-time customer also means that businesses that cater exclusively to brides don’t have to worry about good customer service because repeat business is not a huge concern. Bridal salons are well-known for driving their customers insane.
It’s nerve-wracking for someone unaccustomed to throwing grand parties to try it out for the first time while going through the complicated emotional process of engagement. So many things that you just found out about could go wrong. The Wedding Industrial Complex plays on these fears by pushing “the perfect wedding” on you. Not a nice wedding, not a fun wedding, but a perfect wedding - one in which, by definition, nothing goes wrong. After that, of course, comes the fire-and-brimstone sermon about how awful the wedding will be without This Wonderful Product, followed by the Good News of the wedding’s salvation by check or credit card.
Throughout planning my wedding, I’ve tried to avoid the Complex - and the spirit of conspicuous consumption that it helps promote - as much as possible. Jason and I have managed to keep our guest list in the double digits. My dress is not a wedding gown, but a dress that happens to come in white. My veil comes from eBay, and back to eBay it will go once I’m done with it. Jason and I skipped the diamond engagement ring, opting for two recycled gold bands from GreenKarat, which we’re wearing on our right hands and will switch over to our left hands after we’re married. And we’re completely ignoring the “save-the-date” cards, the vital necessity which the stationary wing of the Complex recently invented. But however simple we try to make our own wedding, we still have to deal with the residue left by the Wedding Industrial Complex. Because everyone else starts planning their weddings 14 months in advance, that makes it more difficult for us to find vendors that aren’t already booked for the date we want. Because everyone else is spending $26,000, I have to work extra hard in order to avoid the artificially inflated prices. Add to that the fact that my politics are making it impossible for me to feel comfortable renting out a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall, or getting my flowers from a grocery store, or wearing a veil without contemplating the sociopolitical implications for weeks on end. All of this is making eloping look pretty sweet.
But it’s easy to focus on the problems. I can almost hear Linus scolding me: “Giuli Lamanna, you’re the only person I know who can take a wonderful thing like a wedding and turn it into a problem!” Ultimately, whether it costs a million dollars or nothing at all, it’s still a wedding, and you’re still married at the end of the day. Too many people get caught up in the trappings, whether it’s mistaking perfect flowers for the perfect man, mistaking the misogynistic add-ons of our culture for the concept of marriage itself, or mistaking the demands of a materialistic society for the sacred ritual that is a wedding. Every once in a while, I manage to remind myself what the purpose of this party is: to celebrate my lifelong commitment to Jason and his commitment to me, and to thank our loved ones for joining us in celebrating it. For this to occur, I don’t need a giant cake or lavish centerpieces or engraved invitations. I don’t even need $6,000. And I certainly don’t need to focus on the orgy of excess that this misguided culture tells us a wedding must be. I’m not going to let all this commercialism ruin my wedding! It’s not an ugly tradition; all it needs is a little love.
Over the years, I have known some truly annoying people. These are the ones who announce their plans to hold their wedding in some far away place. Think Paris or Hawaii. Then they expect the rest of us to attend. Asking me to put a suit on, or a tux, on a weekend to attend a local wedding is already pushing it. Asking me to take half a week off to attend a wedding in Cabo is sheer bloody arrogance.
Conversely, I have known a few couples who fly off by themselves to Vegas and have a quick, yet romantic, wedding at the drive-thru Church of Elvis. Then when they return there’s a party with friends. I much prefer these couples because they have no need to try to impress anyone with the tab for their wedding.
Comment by Peter — 21 March 2006 @ 1:56 PM
I agree with everything in your comment except for this:
You seriously view it as an unwelcome burden to celebrate your friends’ union? To even be asked to celebrate your friends’ union? Especially seeing as how you get free food and alcohol out of it?
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 2:19 PM
I’m not big on crowds or chit chat being an INTP. After about 30 minutes in a crowd, I am ready to call it a day and go home.
Over the years a few weddings have been mildly fun, most were simply an ordeal to get through. That’s not to suggest that I didn’t wish the newly weds the best in each instance.
Comment by Peter — 21 March 2006 @ 2:26 PM
I’m not one for parties or crowds, either. But to say that even asking you to come celebrate their nuptuals is “pushing it”? You do realize that “no” is an acceptable answer, right?
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 2:28 PM
This brings up a business idea. Someone needs to create a website for online weddings. Webcams would allow the rest of us to attend from the comfort of our homes. We’d be there in spirit if not in body.
Comment by Peter — 21 March 2006 @ 2:29 PM
Um… or you could just attend the ceremony and not the reception if it’s such a huge deal.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 2:31 PM
You can’t say “no” to a friend’s wedding invitation. It will poison the friendship.
The only exception is one of those far away weddings in Bali. Then you can explain that you can’t take the time off from work.
Comment by Peter — 21 March 2006 @ 2:31 PM
“Um… or you could just attend the ceremony and not the reception if it’s such a huge deal.”
True dat.
Comment by Peter — 21 March 2006 @ 2:32 PM
Do you really care about poisoning the friendship if it means that little to you that coming to their wedding is a burden you resent having to endure?
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 2:36 PM
Sing it sister!
My lovely wife and I just got married last September, and it was a serious struggle not short of an epic campaign against the tyranny of the W-I-C. All in all, we got it done for about $7K, and a fancy-schmancy one at that. If you’ve got lots of family with tons of cash you can actually come out ahead in the end (we did), but of course that isn’t the goal at all.
By far the most expensive thing is the photographer. My lady didn’t want to skimp on that, so we went totally cheeseball in that regard. If you can go with a buddy who knows their stuff then you’ll be way ahead (but you do want the pics to be good).
As far as the “officiant,” get a buddy to get ordained on the internet (I recommend Universal Life Church) and have them do it. Write your own stuff too. You probably are already doing this. I got a buddy to get ordained and I got ordained as well just for kicks. Now I’m actually going to do (”officiate”) a wedding in NY this weekend for some agnostic buds that were at mine and thought it was a great idea. As long as you wear a dark suit/dress and act smart no one will know you aren’t some flavor of christian (unless they listen closely to the “sermon”). Even my mega-right wing Catholic father was fooled by my pal!
Make the cakes yourself. We bought the main super-cake but made the “grooms cake” (read: wimpy cake) ourselves. I crafted it to look identical to an 8-bit nintendo because I am a mega-dork. Moral is though to make it yourself (preferably by getting some friends to volunteer to do it for you).
The location is going to be the stickler, you’re right on the nose for that. Remember that besides “Community Centers” and “Churches” there are American Legions, Dance Halls, big parks for outside weddings, and occasionally Masonic Temples (not the actual lodge, just the “churchy” front bingo-area) will let you rent them out for cheap (especially if you are/know a Mason), and those multi-use buildings usually aren’t all booked up a couple months before.
Comment by Cory — 21 March 2006 @ 2:39 PM
The best weddings I have attended were small intimate affairs with a few close friends and family members. The couples had no need to be ostentatious.
Why spend a small fortune to have people you hardly know attend? It makes no sense.
Comment by Peter — 21 March 2006 @ 2:39 PM
I should mention that our goal was to keep it under $5k but the open bar and prime rib got us in the end. Have a cash bar and don’t go crazy on food and you’ll be golden!
Comment by Cory — 21 March 2006 @ 2:43 PM
Awww, those pictures are so sweet!
Jason’s dad has already volunteered to take the pictures (huzzah!) and he is professional quality.
We’re currently considering going with the pastor (?) of my mom’s Unitarian Universalist church. Because my mom’s a member, I don’t think it should be too expensive.
As for the cake, Janene’s already volunteered to make a paleo one.
The food will probably kill us too, as I’m trying to get all-organic. Stupid morals.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 2:51 PM
Jason’s dad just saved you $2k at least. Well done.
Comment by Cory — 21 March 2006 @ 3:00 PM
I’m not sure I want to make my dad work through it … we’re already making him drive all the way up to New York from Pittsburgh (Giuli’s family outnumbers mine by a margin of about two to one, so, it’s in NY), and I’ve done plenty of wedding photography before–it’s work. It was fine when it was my cousins, but c’mon, he’s my father for Chrissakes. Let the man enjoy the day!
I did long ago lament that I wouldn’t be able to photograph my own wedding, and though my brother’s as good with a camera as my father or myself, he has other duties to attend to that day–namely, best man.
But I don’t think we need to despair all the way to professional photography just yet. I know some other good photographers I might be able to call on….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 3:05 PM
:::shrug::: If he doesn’t want to do it, he doesn’t have to. He seemed excited about it, though, so I just assumed…
In any case, pictures aren’t particularly important to me. I was envisioning something like Angela’s wedding, where anyone who wanted to could bring a camera and take whatever pictures they liked. More of a family reunion-style “okay everybody, say cheese!” kind of thing.
But maybe this is a discussion we should be having off-site.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 3:13 PM
I love taking photos at friends weddings - it means you get to send some time with the couple rather than the usual 5 minutes that everyone else gets - especially if the party is big. The important thing though, is not to be the only photographer otherwise you’ve got all the pressure and then it really is like work. Get a 2 or 3 friends to team up - it can be fun.
Something we did at ours was get a photograpaher who doesn’t want to own the negatives and charge you for every single damn print you get. We paid about $400 (about US$270) for our photographer 5 years ago, we had control of the negatives. The photographer was young, enthusiastic and creative rather then old and jaded and she took good pictures. We also bought someone along to supply the wedding party with food and drink during the photo shoot. It was a good part of the day rather than a chore in the end.
Comment by Aaron — 21 March 2006 @ 3:29 PM
I’ve been to my share of backyard, pig-on-a-spit affairs - and I think they’re more relaxed, honest, and less pretentious. However, there are folks that mistake the pomp for the meaning & ritual, and they are the type that can feel under whelmed by “homely” events.
I cringe at weddings when people pony up piles of cash for the whole WIC package - either they are immediately digging themselves into a deep hole, or their values are bent out of wack. 10 years ago, our wedding fell somewhere in-between sane and unsane - leaning toward the excessive. It’d be different now… but we never dug into debt to make what we wanted of it.
No matter what route you choose, you’ll be up to your ears in planning, compromise, and anticipation - compression & release - and I think that’s all part of the buzz. I hope I make the list - I think it’ll be a great day.
Comment by JCamasto — 21 March 2006 @ 3:32 PM
Yes, but you’ve met him before. Sometimes you just have to tell him, “No, bad!”
I was raised Catholic. I need my rituals with a certain amount of pageantry. I don’t need conspicuous consumption or thousand-dollar spreads, but I do need my rituals to feel like actual rituals, know what I mean?
You’re in the “On the list, but don’t be too surprised if a wedding in upstate New York is asking for just a wee bit too much” crowd, i.e., on the list, and we understand perfectly if you can’t make it.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 3:47 PM
Prioritize! We had over 200 people at our wedding, and it cost well under 10K. We really just wanted a nice party to have fun and spend time with people we don’t see very often, so we had it in my wife’s grandparent’s backyard (free). We had an open bar for all 200 people, and spent very little–we went to the discount liquor store and bought many cases of beer and wine, borrowed some large tin tubs for ice, and paid a guy $50 to be bartender all night (no mixed drinks). Total for drinks was about $1000, and the variety, quality and quantity was great. Otherwise the open bar can kill your budget. Our ceremony lasted all of 5 minutes, with vows that we wrote and a judge ($100), and was at the same location to minimize cost and logistics. Then on to the party… yeah, we spent most of the money on the food…
Comment by Jeff Vail — 21 March 2006 @ 3:47 PM
:::sigh::: When I was little, I used to dream of having my wedding in my backyard. But then my mom moved to a smaller house with a postage-stamp backyard. It couldn’t possibly fit everyone comfortably, even with our guest list.
I really wanted to ask Judge Fudge to officiate, but he’s probably too busy being delicious.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 3:59 PM
sorry that should read SPEND some time with the couple
Comment by Aaron — 21 March 2006 @ 4:01 PM
My parents’ wedding cost them $50, and I think that might have been to rent the church. My grandmother and aunt made my mom’s dress, my other grandmother baked the cake, my uncle was the photographer, and the reception was a potluck at my dad’s folks house. There were no gifts, as everyone’s participation in the wedding was their gift. I was not able to attend (having not been born yet), but the best weddings I have been to have been potlucks. The food was so much better than some stuffy, caterer-prepared meal. And everything has meaning when it’s the members of your community who are creating it.
Comment by Anonymous — 21 March 2006 @ 4:16 PM
In lieu of the overarching theme of this website, I must add my two cents. I, too, was floored when my bride-to-be started talking in the 5-digit range when we were budgeting for our wedding. We did the best we could to keep the price down - we went with locally produced products, we found hostels and campgrounds for guests to stay at, we minimized the paper used, etc. In the end however, the event was transcendent regardless of $ - not due to any particular decision we made, but due to the combination of true love and the co-gathering of clans in celebration of our life together. If there is any event which can be joyous and celebratory and fill our lives with community and love, it is a heartfelt wedding of two souls. And this event may be extravagant, but so are many celebrations stretching far into the distant memories of families, tribes, etc. The question is not how much to celebrate, but what to celebrate.
In defense extravagant weddings, I must assert that depending upon the circumstance, many weddings are created by the parents, with the children just attending. For this reason, wasteful habits created in wasteful times are changing only slowly. I can attest that my wife and my unconventional vows, or simple decorations, our non-denominational service, and our inclusiveness of friends and family in celebrating our vows with us under the open sky were all details picked up by friends who are getting married after us. So habits and conventions change with time and through subsequent iteration.
I congratulate you on your effort to help us all do the same…
Comment by Ethan — 21 March 2006 @ 4:17 PM
You can elope, then throw a party!
Comment by APerson — 21 March 2006 @ 5:01 PM
Isn’t this exaggerating the point just a little bit? Let’s face it. It’s not as though anyone is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to buy a $200 veil. People spend that much on their weddings for one of two reasons. Either they’re just bad shoppers and can’t be bothered to educate themselves about the choices they have, or they actually want to spend that much.
And it’s not that absurd to suggest some people might actually want to spend $200 on a veil for the most important day of their lives. The so-call “Wedding Industrial Complex” may profit off of the demand, but they don’t create it. They wouldn’t be able to sell their products at the prices they do unless the demand was already there.
Obviously, any salesman would prefer that you buy their most expensive package. But any salesman worth his salt knows better than to try to push that package on every customer who walks in the door. The negative word-of-mouth that that generates ends up costing the company far more than they gain from the sale.
People should have perfect weddings. But the “perfect wedding” doesn’t mean that everyone should have the same wedding or that nothing can go wrong. The “perfect wedding” is the wedding that the bride and groom want. The various industries involved in the wedding business are merely a response to that demand.
That’s quite a moral stance. It’s about time someone stood up to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. They’re just a bunch of bastards. How dare they campaign for veteran benefits and provide community services? And why do they have to get shot at so much too? Why can’t they just decide not to be shot at like the rest of us? I mean really. Screw those guys.
And don’t even get me started on what I think of veils. For indeed, it is inanimate objects for which I save my true rage.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 5:08 PM
Errr … no. You’re right that there is a psychological component there that they create the demand out of. There has to be, doesn’t there? You can’t create a demand for knives in your forehead, no matter how slick your marketing is. But the demand is most certainly created. The prices are inflated to decieve the gullible. You’ve seen the cost, vs. the price, of wedding photography. It most certainly does create its own demand–and it builds a small empire on fools, their money, and how quickly they can be parted.
So you’re saying that 99.9% of all salesmen are not worth their salt, I guess.
Giuli’s experience of the VFW is quite a bit different from yours or ours. For Giuli, the VFW are the people who organize the counter-protest across the street to send kids off to die in some war half-way around the world. For Giuli, the VFW are the ones who harass her and her family for not supporting our troops. As benign as the VFW has been in our experience, we’ve never been the hippies they go after–Giuli has.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 5:20 PM
Photography is a very specialized skill. You can’t just hand anyone a camera and tell them to start taking pictures. Half the time you’ll be lucky to get back photos that contain recognizable geometric shapes. And among those who are able to take decent photos, those who are really good are even rarer.
Most people want high-quality photos for their weddings. And since there aren’t a whole lot of people with the equipment and the skill to take those kinds of photos, the price goes up. That’s not an artificially inflated price. It’s simple supply and demand.
The only area where I could see saying that the prices are artificially inflated is the diamonds. But that’s only because De Beers has a monopoly on the industry.
Now that just sounds suspicious to me. The VFW isn’t the Westboro Baptist Church. They don’t “go after” people. And frankly, I’m not sure they could intimidate someone if they wanted to. They’re like 90-year-old guys at a fish fry.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 5:42 PM
What Jason said. Also…
Actually, yes, they did create the demand. If you like, I could lend you “All Dressed in White,” a book that tells the history of the modern wedding.
If you read advice for people looking to get involved in the bridal industry, you’ll find yourself reading again and again how brides are in a constant state of sticker-shock, and how they’ll try to demand a lower price, but you just have to keep insisting that this is the best price they’ll ever get. It’s rare that you’ll find a couple that actually wants to spend so much money. More likely, they’re convinced that they have to spend tons of money because that’s the only way you can do it.
Actually, that’s exactly how bridal salons work. It’s actually hard to find a bridal salon that doesn’t:
- ignore you for half an hour or more
- accuse you of being fat
- only show you dresses that are $1,000 to $2,000 above your stated price range
- insult your intelligence and your taste in clothing if you don’t buy the most expensive dress
- refuse to let you try on more than two or three dresses
- lie about your dress size so you have to pay extra for alterations when the dress comes in (wedding dress sizes are different from normal dress sizes specifically so they can do this)
- sell you the wrong dress, then make you pay extra for them to bring in the right dress
etc. etc. This is commonplace. Many of them also rip out the tags on their sample dresses (which is illegal) so you can’t find out what the designer and model is and see what the same dress costs somewhere else.
That’s the thing - it’s only recently, with the popularity of the internet, that there’s even been any word-of-mouth about the bridal industry at all. They don’t have to worry about repeat business, and because the wedding industry is so new, there’s very little consumer advocacy related to weddings, so they feel free to treat their customers like garbage.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 5:52 PM
Jason’s exaggerating. They don’t “go after” people or intimidate people. But they are very conservative, and pro-war. (Oddly enough.) I would feel like I was somehow deceiving them if I used their hall to hold the wedding reception, given my political beliefs.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 5:58 PM
That’s true. But ask for a photographyer to photograph an event, and he’ll ask for a given price. Tell him that event is a wedding, and it will quadruple. You’ve seen this as well as I have–both of us have gotten our hands dirty in the photography business, and we both know it’s true.
You might have a point, except that I’m talking about the same photographer, with the same equipment. A regular event could be a few hundred dollars. If that event is a wedding, though, it will be thousands. That is an artificially inflated price.
The demand is created culturally, through TV and movie weddings, books and songs that condition us to think what a “wedding” is. Before Queen Victoria, brides didn’t wear white. That’s how recent even that tradition is. I’ve even heard that the Chicken Dance might be a recent addition….
We’re conditioned to believe that a wedding involves all of these extravagent elements, running the total bill into the tens of thousands of dollars–more than enough to run an industrial complex off of. Add in the fact that you typically don’t have to worry about repeat business, and your customers won’t know any better, and you’ve got a recipe for all your normal economic rules to be turned on their ear. Not that they worked all that well even before.
Wasn’t your mom telling us something about them lurking about her house, sending her threatening letters, or something really creepy like that?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 6:05 PM
I thought that was the FBI?
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 6:30 PM
Huh. I thought she said something about the VFW. OK, then, maybe I exaggerated. I could’ve sworn your family was talking about some kind of creepy intimidation stuff the VFW were up to with them.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 6:39 PM
You might be right; I’ve got a horrible memory. I’ll have to ask my mom.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 21 March 2006 @ 6:42 PM
Well, first of all, it’s not so rare to find someone who wants to spend that kind of money… or at least, someone who wants a wedding that costs that kind of money. The materialist aspects of the wedding may not be as important to you, but to many people they are important. This is the most important day of their lives, and they want it to look like it.
More importantly, though, what you describe above is just bad salesmanship. There’s a huge difference between an inter-industry conspiracy to artificially raise prices and an industry that just happens to have a lot of shitty salespeople.
Well, that’s just not true. The internet may expedite the process, but word-of-mouth is something that salespeople have had to worry about since the dawn of business. And it effects the wedding industry more than most others. Because even though you may not have another wedding, you probably know a lot of people who are going to have weddings. And you’re more likely to complain to your friends about a crappy wedding than you are about simpler products and services that cost less money.
Besides, these days it’s not that uncommon for people to have more than one wedding.
Because there’s a higher demand for weddings and also because weddings are generally more difficult to shoot.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. The demand comes from the culture. It’s not some sinister plot hatched by the various industries involved in wedding planning. That kind of thing would require collusion on an absolutely unprecedented scale.
There are a handful of examples of the companies inflating the demand for a particular product, such as De Beers’ “A Diamond is Forever” campaign. But that’s nothing compared to the demand that’s created by the culture. And the things that the wedding businesses sell are expensive because that’s the value that society places on those things.
It probably looked something like this.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 6:53 PM
It was the FBI, not the VFW!!! And yes, Mike, it looked exactly like that.
Actually the FBI followed my father when he was a card-carrying Communist. They also tapped our phone, and wrote letters to my mom’s employer telling them that they had a Communist working for them (like they cared). I suspect that in my hippy days the FBI hounded me too. I may find out one day; I’m planning to request my file under the Freedom of Information Act. But Mike I think you’re mostly correct; the VFW is mostly old. And I believe Giuli is also correct that they’re mostly conservative and pro-war. But if you’re going to have a wedding in any hall, why not have it at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship where you can have it for free?
When I got married (as Giuli would barely remember, as she was very young), (no I was kidding about that; she wasn’t born till 11 years later), my father asked me if I wouldn’t rather just have the $5000 and go on a beautiful honeymoon. But no, I wanted my big, “perfect” wedding at a Manhattan hotel — yes you could do that for $5000 in 1975. Later I was sorry. My parents and their friends were old, and not much for partying; most of them went home by 11:00 and most of the liquor was left over. (Well, that wasn’t so bad; we took it home and drank it for the next few years.) It was a good time, though.
But the main thing isn’t the wedding anyway; it’s the marriage. Orthodox Jews have a saying: “Orthodox Jews have big weddings because they know it’s the last time they’re going to get married. Reform Jews have big bar mitzvahs because they know it’s the last time they’re going to go to synagogue.”
Have big wedding, make it the last one, and have a wonderful marriage.
Love,
Mom
Comment by Giuli's mom — 21 March 2006 @ 10:57 PM
OK, I suppose I’m just crazier than usual.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 11:08 PM
It’s the Jason & Mike show, crazy and cranky, tonight talking wedding. Keep on keepin’ it crazy - but I hope the cranky is spent by tip-off…
Comment by JCamasto — 21 March 2006 @ 11:47 PM
Well, yeah. They are that. I guess it’s kind of hard to have an organization for veterans of foreign wars without the foreign wars. It just sounded as though Giuli had some more significant problems with the VFW… like them eating babies or something.
Although, I don’t think you have to agree with their politics to use a VFW hall. It’s not like you’re pulling a fast one on them or anything. Besides, supporting the war isn’t how they spend most of their time anyway.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 21 March 2006 @ 11:51 PM
You know, we could just tie you up in the forest and leave you there until dawn. I won’t even charge for the rope.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 22 March 2006 @ 12:40 AM
Guess that was too much to hope for, eh Jim?
Anyway Ben, I guess you could do that. But then you wouldn’t have anyone to show you the way back out of the forest.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 22 March 2006 @ 1:02 AM
More or less got that part covered myself actually.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 22 March 2006 @ 1:43 AM
No, it’s the end result–not its price–that’s important to people. Nobody wants to pay twice as much for the same thing. At best, they assume that price is a barometer of quality, and that paying more means it’s higher quality. If it’s the exact same thing, just with a jacked-up price, it’s just as deceptive.
Sales is one of those industries with a heavy skew to the “bad” side of the spectrum. By far, the most common kind of salesmanship is bad salesmanship. The specific nature of the bridal industry–a general lack of repeat business, naive customers typically unfamiliar with the market, etc.–provides a systemic incentive for what you call “bad salesmanship.” In the wedding industry, it seems like bad salesmanship is really great for business.
More difficult than, say, a football game? Please.
Hardly. When culture changes that quickly (we’re talking the past two decades), and so clearly in favor of a particular industry, it’s usually not by happenstance. It’s become par for the course for American businesses to undertake massive cultural reconstruction campaigns, to create a culture more ammenable to its product. I think DeBeers probably did the best with this, and probably did it first, by first claiming a monopoly on the diamond market with absolutely brutal tactics and slave labor, and then mythologizing the diamond to the point where random creepy woman at Giant Eagle told Giuli how sorry she was that I was too poor to get her a diamond engagement ring.
But that’s hardly the extent of it. In fact, we do it most often to other cultures. When American fast food restaurants, shaped by American cultural attitudes of what constitute a “meal,” went to East Asia, they ran into a problem. They didn’t consider McDonald’s to constitute a meal. It was, at best, a snack. Their cultural attitudes also expected the use of the restaurant as a general hang-out with little in the way of purchase, remaining at the McDonald’s for hours on end. The “Napkin Wars” erupted as Koreans saw the free napkins as a limited resource to be collected and hoarded. In response, McDonald’s realized that if they were going to succeed in East Asia, they would need to reshape Asian cultures in their own image. East Asians would need to eat like Americans–and that meant, they would need to think like Americans. McDonald’s began a massive campaign to destroy one of the most basic foundations of any culture: its attitudes towards food. On some points, they had to accede: they offered rice with their meals, thus elevating it from a “snack” to a “meal.” On most points, however, they succeeded in transforming East Asian culture and attitudes on a fundamental level, in order to help their business model.
American businesses have been deliberately shaping cultural attitudes to get us into the situation Tyler Durden described: “working jobs we hate, so we can buy shit we don’t need.” The demand is manufactured. It is manufactured culturally. It is manufactured deliberately.
Advertising is a huge chunk of any company’s budget. It’s one of the largest industries around–enough to support television, radio, and most of the internet just as vehicles to deliver their message. Hell, even this page has Yahoo ads on the side. That’s a force powerful enough to mold culture into whatever shape best helps to move product–and that’s exactly what it does.
Giuli’s funny about her politics. My first criteria for a mate is someone smart enough for me to have a real conversation with. Hers was whether or not I matched her politics.
But yeah, it’s looking more and more like the UU in Poughkeepsie. I have no problem with that–but then again, I have no problem with a VFW hall, either.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 March 2006 @ 10:06 AM
I find it amazing, given the overall theme of this website, that no one seems to be questioning the necessity of the civilized institution of marriage. I think that this belief in the sanctity of marriage is a cultural artifact, a product of civilized culture.
Why not decide to make your relationship sacred, and leave the institution and its attendant ceremony to wither and die along with the rest of civilization? To do this, you don’t need the permission/approval of the church OR the state. Just your local tribe, if you wish.
(sigh) I too find it very difficult to disentangle myself from the mainstream. I get frustrated with my own slow progress.
Best wishes to everyone here.
Comment by mark — 22 March 2006 @ 11:21 AM
Mark:
See:
Love & Marriage
The Sanctity of Marriage (in which we discuss exactly what you’re talking about for a record 208 comments)
Long story short: marriage is not a result of civilized culture. It’s been around since humans have been around, and is found in every known human culture, from band to state.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 22 March 2006 @ 11:29 AM
Then why is it found in all cultures, civilized and uncivilized alike?
It’s not permission, so much as announcement. Civilized folk announce to their church and to their state. We announce to our tribe.
It’s still a marriage.
It is … but this is a poor example of that phenomenon.
Well, as long as human culture has been around. Unless you want to define “humans” in terms of their culture.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 March 2006 @ 11:52 AM
Have humans ever not had culture?
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 22 March 2006 @ 12:01 PM
Oh, yeah. I’m sure you’ll find your way out… some day… maybe.
That’s what I said. They don’t necessarily want to spend more money, but very often they want a wedding that costs more money and are willing to pay price. I’m just saying that just because someone has a $30,000 wedding doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t know what they’re doing.
Well, your measure of what constitutes “the most common kind of salesmanship” not withstanding, there are bad salespeople in every industry. That doesn’t constitute this sort of inter-industry league of supervillains. If your point is simply that there are a lot of bad salespeople, and some of them happen to work in industries associated with weddings, that’s not really news.
Besides, if things are really as bad as Giuli claims, then a certain amount of responsibility rests on the consumer, doesn’t it? You’re telling me that “all salespeople” ignore the customer, call them names, lie to them, and refuse to show them what they want to see, and they’re still buying from these people? Honestly, why should I feel sorry for these people? They obviously don’t feel like they should be treated with respect, so why should the salesperson?
You can blame the salesperson for bad behavior. You can’t blame the salesperson for the customer putting up with that behavior and then make bad purchasing decisions.
How many people hire photographers to shoot a football game?
Okay, but we’re not really talking about the fast food industry. We’re talking about industries involved in weddings. Other than De Beers, which is a unique case, can you show me one example of a wedding industry changing the way people think about weddings?
McDonald’s, De Beers, Coca-Cola–these are companies that can do that sort of thing because they’re enormous. The amount of money they sink into their advertising campaigns each year is just mind-blowing. Most companies aren’t like that, though. They don’t campaign to change the culture. Their aim is simply to get people to remember their name.
This is especially true of most of your wedding-related companies, which tend to be relatively small companies. They’re people like florists and caterers, not global conglomerates. They’re mostly on a local level. They’re lucky if they have an ad in the newspaper.
Now unless there’s already a culturally created demand for these products, what will happen is the first time one florist tries to inflate prices, some other florist with lower prices is going to get those customers. And that will force the first florist to bring prices back down. The only other way for this to work would be if all of these guys actually got together and decided that they were all going to raise their prices. That does happen, but in this particular scenario it’s just absurd.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 22 March 2006 @ 12:06 PM
Mike, I already offered to lend you “All Dressed in White.” The history of the modern wedding - and the bridal industry that essentially created it - is well-documented. It just isn’t well-known. Or you could go yourself to one of the conferences where these businesspeople give each other advice on how to do all the tricks I’ve mentioned, and more.
There’s a bit of a backlash happening (like I said, mainly thanks to the Internet) with stuff like IndieBride, Anti-Bride, etc.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 22 March 2006 @ 12:25 PM
Depends on how you map the colloquial “human” to scientific terms. You might have had some Australopithecines sans culture (maybe)–do they count as human?
It does if you could have the exact same wedding for $8,000.
No, I’m saying the nature of the industry systematically rewards bad salesmanship–the same way that the practice of law systematically rewards people who are good at lying with facts.
Doesn’t leave much of an alternative, though. Giuli’s quite proud that we’ve so far skirted that industry–just as you suggest. But even we can’t get away from its effects entirely, as Giuli mentioned in the article.
The NFL, minor league teams, and most high schools, on a weekly basis for about a quarter of the year. The earlier in that list you get, the more photographers they hire. That’s a fairly significant segment of the photography business, too. Demand is fairly high, and it’s an event that’s even more difficult to shoot than a wedding (people tend to move more slowly down the aisle than down the sidelines). Yet they charge less. Wedding photography is completely divorced from all of the costs incurred by the photographer. It’s a price set arbitrarily, because most people don’t know what the going rate is.
I know what a racket like that looks like. I’ve done freelance web design.
That’s exactly what All Dressed in White is about. I haven’t read it, but I can probably give you an outline already: TV and movies form our conception of what a wedding is “supposed” to be like. DeBeers is a big part of the wedding industry. Others lobby popular TV shows to include a high-profile wedding episode, then lend all the catering, tuxedos, the gown and everything else to make sure that we’re creating the proper image of what a wedding “should” be. Exactly the same way American businesses have changed cultures in other industries, both here and in other cultures.
FTD? 1-800-FLOWERS.com? Sure, the middle men are small, but there are large, powerful industries behind them. The designers who make wedding gowns are often powers unto themselves. The boutique where you buy it may be small, but the designer’s name is not.
Absurd or not, it’s exactly what’s happened. Order one set of flowers, you’ll get a price. Let slip that it’s a wedding, that price quadruples. For the exact same flowers.
No, seriously, we did this. We went to a florist, and asked for flowers. We mentioned it was a wedding, and the price quardupled before our eyes. Giuli, didn’t you repeat this a few times with the same results?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 March 2006 @ 12:44 PM
I haven’t repeated it, but others have. There are other factors, too, namely money. If you bring your mom with you, they’ll jack up the price because they’ll assume she’s paying. If you come in an expensive car, they’ll jack up the price. If you have a large engagement ring, they’ll jack up the price. Two friends both went to the same florist and bought the same flowers, but one got charged $1,000 more because her mother came along.
I know of one woman who wanted a low-key reception at a restaurant. She just wanted to bring her family members and close friends to a nice lunch buffet after the ceremony - no DJ, no fancy wedding cake, no limo. Just a buffet. She told the restaurant she wanted that it was a “family event,” and they gave her a certain price. However, when talking with a different employee at that restaurant a few days later, she accidentally let it slip that it was for a wedding. Immediately, they charged her $500 more. She had to argue with them for months; they kept insisting that the extra cost was for flowers and music and all kinds of wonderful stuff that she MUST want because it’