Cinderella Dreams: The Allure Of The Lavish Wedding (Life Passages)

by Cele C. Otnes, Elizabeth H. Pleck

The fabulous gown, the multitiered cake, abundant flowers, attendants and guests in their finery. The white wedding does more than mark a life passage. It marries two of the most sacred tenets of American culture―romantic love and excessive consumption. For anyone who has ever wondered about the meanings behind a white dress, a diamond ring, rice, and traditions such as cake cutting, bouquet tossing, and honeymooning, this book offers an entertaining and enlightening look at the historical, social, and psychological strains that come together to make the lavish wedding the most important cultural ritual in contemporary consumer culture.

With an emphasis on North American society, Cele C. Otnes and Elizabeth H. Pleck show how the elaborate wedding means far more than a mere triumph for the bridal industry. Through interviews, media accounts, and wide-ranging research and analysis, they expose the wedding's reflection―or reproduction―of fundamental aspects of popular consumer its link with romantic love, its promise of magical transformation, its engendering of memories, and its legitimization of consumption as an expression of perfection. As meaningful as any prospective bride might wish, the lavish wedding emerges here as a lens that at once reveals, magnifies, and reveres some of the dearest wishes and darkest impulses at the heart of our culture.

Genres: Nonfiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Taylor Jachts · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting, and I would recommend it to people who are getting married. As a lover of traditions, I found it interesting to know where some things come from and how they started. I read this for a class, and I enjoyed it.

[Laine Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly fascinating for those of us who like religio-anthropological studies. I recommend it to every academic who is getting married or recently did.

[Kristie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it for a class and I surprisingly liked it.

[RileyV]

University