[troutman]

Originally Posted by sun

Weddings.

When did these out of control, extravagant weddings start? Who convinced us that spending tens of thousands on a wedding is okay? We laugh at celebrity's million dollar weddings, but that is a fraction of their income compared to what us plebs spend on ours. I blame baby boomers. Or maybe pinterest.

A courthouse wedding has never looked so good...

Who? Wedding Vendors.

Here Comes the Bride
A History of the American Wedding

http://www.randomhistory.com/1-50/009wedding.html

In many ways, the history and development of the American wedding from simple, homespun ceremonies to elaborate, public rituals are directly related to changes in the American mindset throughout the country’s history.

By the 1920s and 1930s, brides had largely turned to professionals to organize their weddings for them. However, while this trend had already been evolving for nearly four decades, it was not until the Jazz Age that wedding vendors began to see the true business potential of brides and their weddings. One of the clearest and earliest manifestations of the new conception of the bride as a profit center was the introduction of bridal departments in large stores. Many stores began to offer a whole section of merchandise devoted to the bride and her big day. Around the same time, catered weddings and engraved invitations became less of a luxury for only the very rich and more of a standard that all brides should aspire to. Wedding photographers also became a key part of the wedding proceedings and often scripted the entire progression of the wedding with their photograph cues.

This turning of wedding preparations to the professionals created an interesting side effect of uniformity in American weddings. By the 1950s, when a white wedding was the ultimate dream for an affluent, middle class bride, the American wedding was a cookie-cutter production that could easily be replicated for another bride by the professionals who had created it.