Anne is going to have fun teasing me about this one. You see, Anne and I both have very different reading styles. If I start a book, I finish the book. Anne has no trouble putting aside a book that she is not enjoying.
I’ve been slogging through Brides, Inc.: American Weddings and the Business of Tradition for at least two months, finding every reason to avoid reading Vicki Howard’s work. When I told Anne that I was bringing the book to Ecuador, she chuckled. “No,” I said, “I’m bringing it there to leave it there.” And I did.
Earlier this year I read and was completely enamored with Rebecca Mead’s One Perfect Day. Howard’s Brides, Inc. can be seen as providing the historical backdrop for Mead’s contemporary observations. (Both books were released more or less simultaneously.) Brides, Inc. is a history and a revised version of Howard’s doctoral dissertation in American Studies. It traces the evolving material history of the American wedding from the early 1800s until the 1970s. An epilogue quickly brings us up to the modern day. Her book traces the evolution of rings, wedding dresses, department stores, caterers, and wedding venues. Unfortunately, it reads like a doctoral dissertation, which it is.
A lot of the information is interesting; it is just not presented that way. In particular, I found the brief digression of a failed wedding innovation—the male engagement ring—to be fascinating. Moreover, I found Howard’s accounting of the power and influence wielded by the wedding industry to be even more interesting. For example, I did not know that during WWII, the wedding industry successfully petitioned the War Production Board to exclude the material aspects of lavish weddings from their rationing, claiming that lavish weddings were patriotic and boosted morale by giving the soldiers fighting overseas extra incentive to win the war.
Howard discusses the rhetoric of tradition. Tradition sells but it is also bad for business. After all, many of the traditions from the 1800s involve very little spending. A simple in home reception where family members do most of the cooking is a tradition that is anathema to the wedding business. Similarly, practices like the handing down of heirloom wedding dresses hurt the bottom line of those selling dresses. Howard explores the rhetoric of claiming modern innovations as tradition. Probably the funniest of these was a business that took once-worn dresses after the wedding, cleaned them, and put them in a hermetically sealed display box so that it would become a precious heirloom worn by daughters and granddaughters of the bride. However, this business co-existed with a trend in the wedding industry that decried the use of heirloom dresses!
Overall, Howard’s book was a slog. Mead’s is far more entertaining.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
More Pictures (Birthday Edition)
This past Saturday Anne organized a simple Birthday get-together with a few other couples that we know. We enjoyed ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins and the board game Ticket to Ride to which we are completely addicted.
[Edit: Anne wants it to be known that she WON the board game.]
Here are some pictures:
(Maybe I was kept out a little bit too late before church the next morning.)
[Edit: Anne wants it to be known that she WON the board game.]
Here are some pictures:
(Maybe I was kept out a little bit too late before church the next morning.)
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
What's in a Name?
One of the big issues surrounding a marriage is over surnames. There are so many options! I could keep my name, take Thom's name, or hyphenate. Or we could both hyphenate, or even create a new name. Thom and Anne Skelote, perhaps? It is a very personal issue with many considerations: identity, politics, attachment to name, professional reputation, etc. While I consider myself to be strongly feminist, I am not passionate about this issue. To me, this particular piece of the personal is not political.
I have decided to take Thom’s last name. My reasons for this are both practical and emotional. First, I am simply not that attached to Skinner. Anne Skinner sounds good, but I don’t consider my name to be a large part of my identity. Secondly, Anne Belote is much less common, which means my name will become more distinctive. When people Google my name, things connected to me will actually show up. Finally, I love the idea of getting a new name. I have changed so much, especially in the past five years. A new name seems fitting for this stage of my life. I must also admit that I am excited to move so far up in the alphabet!
Monday, July 13, 2009
Marrying Well
I recently attended the National Jesuit College Student Leadership Conference as an advisor to a group of eight student leaders from Rockhurst University, where I work in the Career Services department. This is an annual conference where top student leaders from the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities gather to exchange ideas and attend educational sessions targeted at the programs they lead. This year’s conference was held at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
What does this have to do with weddings? Well, two of the keynote speakers on two separate days made a point to advise the students to choose their life partners well. One speaker stressed that a supportive partner is the foundation of success, whatever your future plans may be. While I was in graduate school at the University of Missouri, the professor for my Career Development of Women class stressed this, too.
This is great advice, but hard. When I was a college student I was not thinking any further into the future than possibly next semester or the next academic year. At age 20 I could not even imagine age 25. Now, however, I can see so much more. As I interacted with these bright, excited, and engaged students I could already see the day when Thom and I might be bringing our own children to college.
When you hear that someone “married well,” I think the common understanding is that the person married into a comfortable financial situation or married someone “out of his/her league.” I like the definition provided at the conference. Marriage to me is the forming of a team with similar values, common goals, and complementary strengths. Under this definition, I believe I am marrying well.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Book Review: "One Perfect Day" by Rebecca Mead
Rebecca Mead begins One Perfect Day, her investigation of the modern bridal industry, by invoking the term “bridezilla.” This universally recognized stereotype describes a woman who is so myopically focused on her own wedding planning that she becomes a monster. In the pursuit of a perfect wedding, the “bridezilla” neglects relationships and mistreats vendors, friends, family, and even her husband-to-be. Moreover, the “bridezilla” insists on being the center of attention, everyone else’s top priority.
Even though the term is ubiquitous and the phenomenon is real, Mead begins her book by looking at the “bridezilla” character through a larger cultural framework. The term is anti-feminist and even sexist, creating the expectation that a “proper” woman should be able to plan and execute an expensive, large scale wedding operation with confidence and grace, all the while tending to the her relational bonds with family and friends. The linking of the archetype of the “bride” with the archetype of the “princess” suggests a bride should be an exemplar of manners. Never mind that a contemporary bride lives in a society that likely necessitates full-time work as well as a host of other obligations. Never mind that a contemporary bride lives in a society marked by informality; etiquette is not a pre-requisite for American life in the 21st century. And yet, the term “bridezilla” is often used to suggest an individual woman’s failure of character or of nerve. The term suggests that becoming a “bridezilla” is her own fault and evidence of her own intrinsic flaws.
Rebecca Mead’s argues that placing the blame on the individual is wrongheaded as well as draconian. Rather, she insists that it is a social construction fed by the vast economic engine driving the American wedding. In One Perfect Day Rebecca Mead takes us from an upscale bridal seminar in Manhattan to conventions of wedding planners and videographers. She takes us from the boutiques and box stores that sell wedding dresses to the factories in China where the dresses are stitched. She takes us to places that thrive on the wedding industry like Las Vegas, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Disney World. She takes us to a small, dying church in a small, dying town in Wisconsin that has attempted to stave off its own demise by marketing itself as a place for weddings. And, finally, Mead takes us to the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Jamaica, popular destinations for what is known as the “new elopement.”
I picked up Mead’s book hoping for insight into the phenomenon of contemporary American weddings, and, if truth be told, for a little bit of justification in how Anne and I are approaching our wedding. I was not disappointed. At times Mead is a little too snarky for my tastes, but this is more than made up for by her brilliant social commentary and her journalistic eye.
Rebecca Mead’s central thesis is that weddings have come to mean less and less as a “rite of passage” – a term coined in 1908 by Arnold van Gennep. Exactly what transition does a wedding, and married life, now mark? By age 24 nearly forty percent of women have cohabitated with a romantic partner; by age 19 roughly two thirds of boys and girls have had sex. Combine these statistics with the fact that Americans now marry at a later age and it becomes vastly unclear what passages are marked by a contemporary wedding. Mead argues that the wedding industry has filled this void of meaning and assuaged insecurity about not knowing what a wedding means by marketing products and services that make couples feel as though their wedding must have meaning. The “passage” is the transition to a new kind of consumerism.
Mead’s book included a whole lot of interesting facts. For example, in 2006 the average American wedding cost $27,852. (In context, that amount is about equal to a 10% down-payment on a median purchase price house in 2005 and is almost two-thirds of our nation’s median household income in 2004.) The wedding industry is said to be worth $161 billion dollars annually, although just about half of that are wedding expenses. The other half comes from spending that coincides with a wedding and may include down-payments on a home, a car, and/or new furniture as well the purchase of various financial services. The average wedding in 2005 had 165 guests and the least popular weekend to hold a wedding is the first weekend in February—Super Bowl weekend.
Mead also includes interesting nuggets about the history of weddings. For example, in 1939 the average wedding cost $392, which in today’s dollars would have about $5,700 in purchasing power. In 1939, a third of all brides were not given an engagement ring, 16% married in clothes they already owned, a third of couples did not hold a reception, and a third of all couples did not take a honeymoon or post-wedding trip.
I could probably go on and on about Mead’s fantastic book; it is chocked full of all kinds of fascinating observations and insights. The one thing I did not manage to touch on was Mead’s sixth chapter which had to do with wedding officiants and wedding ceremonies. I will write separately on that issue on the RevThom blog.
Even though the term is ubiquitous and the phenomenon is real, Mead begins her book by looking at the “bridezilla” character through a larger cultural framework. The term is anti-feminist and even sexist, creating the expectation that a “proper” woman should be able to plan and execute an expensive, large scale wedding operation with confidence and grace, all the while tending to the her relational bonds with family and friends. The linking of the archetype of the “bride” with the archetype of the “princess” suggests a bride should be an exemplar of manners. Never mind that a contemporary bride lives in a society that likely necessitates full-time work as well as a host of other obligations. Never mind that a contemporary bride lives in a society marked by informality; etiquette is not a pre-requisite for American life in the 21st century. And yet, the term “bridezilla” is often used to suggest an individual woman’s failure of character or of nerve. The term suggests that becoming a “bridezilla” is her own fault and evidence of her own intrinsic flaws.
Rebecca Mead’s argues that placing the blame on the individual is wrongheaded as well as draconian. Rather, she insists that it is a social construction fed by the vast economic engine driving the American wedding. In One Perfect Day Rebecca Mead takes us from an upscale bridal seminar in Manhattan to conventions of wedding planners and videographers. She takes us from the boutiques and box stores that sell wedding dresses to the factories in China where the dresses are stitched. She takes us to places that thrive on the wedding industry like Las Vegas, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Disney World. She takes us to a small, dying church in a small, dying town in Wisconsin that has attempted to stave off its own demise by marketing itself as a place for weddings. And, finally, Mead takes us to the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Jamaica, popular destinations for what is known as the “new elopement.”
I picked up Mead’s book hoping for insight into the phenomenon of contemporary American weddings, and, if truth be told, for a little bit of justification in how Anne and I are approaching our wedding. I was not disappointed. At times Mead is a little too snarky for my tastes, but this is more than made up for by her brilliant social commentary and her journalistic eye.
Rebecca Mead’s central thesis is that weddings have come to mean less and less as a “rite of passage” – a term coined in 1908 by Arnold van Gennep. Exactly what transition does a wedding, and married life, now mark? By age 24 nearly forty percent of women have cohabitated with a romantic partner; by age 19 roughly two thirds of boys and girls have had sex. Combine these statistics with the fact that Americans now marry at a later age and it becomes vastly unclear what passages are marked by a contemporary wedding. Mead argues that the wedding industry has filled this void of meaning and assuaged insecurity about not knowing what a wedding means by marketing products and services that make couples feel as though their wedding must have meaning. The “passage” is the transition to a new kind of consumerism.
Mead’s book included a whole lot of interesting facts. For example, in 2006 the average American wedding cost $27,852. (In context, that amount is about equal to a 10% down-payment on a median purchase price house in 2005 and is almost two-thirds of our nation’s median household income in 2004.) The wedding industry is said to be worth $161 billion dollars annually, although just about half of that are wedding expenses. The other half comes from spending that coincides with a wedding and may include down-payments on a home, a car, and/or new furniture as well the purchase of various financial services. The average wedding in 2005 had 165 guests and the least popular weekend to hold a wedding is the first weekend in February—Super Bowl weekend.
Mead also includes interesting nuggets about the history of weddings. For example, in 1939 the average wedding cost $392, which in today’s dollars would have about $5,700 in purchasing power. In 1939, a third of all brides were not given an engagement ring, 16% married in clothes they already owned, a third of couples did not hold a reception, and a third of all couples did not take a honeymoon or post-wedding trip.
I could probably go on and on about Mead’s fantastic book; it is chocked full of all kinds of fascinating observations and insights. The one thing I did not manage to touch on was Mead’s sixth chapter which had to do with wedding officiants and wedding ceremonies. I will write separately on that issue on the RevThom blog.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Avoiding the "Wedding Face"
OK... so let me say a little bit more about what I meant by the last post. Early in our dating life, Anne showed me this candid picture, taken at an inopportune moment while Anne was serving as the Maid of Honor at a friend's wedding. (Anne is on the right.)
I've teasingly taken to calling this picture, "The Wedding Face." (It is an inside joke.) We've kind of made it our unofficial goal that we are going to avoid any part of planning a wedding that causes either of us to make The Wedding Face. Basically, this means that we are going to avoid stress, the temptation to spend extravagantly, or the pressure to do something that we aren't excited about doing.
As a minister, I've done dozens and dozens of weddings. They've been small and big. They've been lavish and simple. They've been outside and inside. They've cost less than a few hundred dollars and as much, according to my best guesstimates, as six figures. I've performed weddings for teenagers and for those who would qualify to join the AARP. I've officiated at a wedding in Yosemite National Park with the Half Dome as a backdrop after which we returned to the campsite and had wedding cake and smores. And I've performed a simple wedding ceremony that began immediately after the second service on Easter morning.
From officiating at all these weddings, I've gained an insight into what I would want from a wedding. The first thing is that I want it to be simple and stress-free. There isn't any part of "The Traditional American Wedding" that is mandatory. If it doesn't seem like fun, there is no need to do it. If I ever feel like saying, "Whew! I can't wait until this whole ordeal is over," that is a sign to me that something is dreadfully out of balance. Henry David Thoreau spoke of being "tripped up by our own traps." Part of having a stress free wedding means avoiding trappings, heedless expenses (to use another term from Thoreau), and unnecessary fripperies.
The second thing I want from our wedding is for Anne and I not to forget who we are. We are each individuals with complementary values and who make value-based decisions about how we are going to be in the world. We plan to avoid making things a part of our wedding that are not reflective of who we each are.
We don't want to make "The Wedding Face."
I've teasingly taken to calling this picture, "The Wedding Face." (It is an inside joke.) We've kind of made it our unofficial goal that we are going to avoid any part of planning a wedding that causes either of us to make The Wedding Face. Basically, this means that we are going to avoid stress, the temptation to spend extravagantly, or the pressure to do something that we aren't excited about doing.
As a minister, I've done dozens and dozens of weddings. They've been small and big. They've been lavish and simple. They've been outside and inside. They've cost less than a few hundred dollars and as much, according to my best guesstimates, as six figures. I've performed weddings for teenagers and for those who would qualify to join the AARP. I've officiated at a wedding in Yosemite National Park with the Half Dome as a backdrop after which we returned to the campsite and had wedding cake and smores. And I've performed a simple wedding ceremony that began immediately after the second service on Easter morning.
From officiating at all these weddings, I've gained an insight into what I would want from a wedding. The first thing is that I want it to be simple and stress-free. There isn't any part of "The Traditional American Wedding" that is mandatory. If it doesn't seem like fun, there is no need to do it. If I ever feel like saying, "Whew! I can't wait until this whole ordeal is over," that is a sign to me that something is dreadfully out of balance. Henry David Thoreau spoke of being "tripped up by our own traps." Part of having a stress free wedding means avoiding trappings, heedless expenses (to use another term from Thoreau), and unnecessary fripperies.
The second thing I want from our wedding is for Anne and I not to forget who we are. We are each individuals with complementary values and who make value-based decisions about how we are going to be in the world. We plan to avoid making things a part of our wedding that are not reflective of who we each are.
We don't want to make "The Wedding Face."
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