Wedding Industrial Complex TM
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy attending a nice wedding as much as the next girl (this post is not about *your* wedding or *your* choices), but the more I think about planning *my* wedding the more entrenched against the Wedding Industrial Complex TM I feel. I have found myself almost irrationally recoiling from anything that has become a wedding "tradition."
Of course I believe that getting married is a big deal and I want to have a party to celebrate it with friends and family, but the immense pressure that people place on themselves to follow all the rules and rituals just don't seem like a true celebration of love, but of consumerism and conformity.
But the Wedding Industrial Complex TM is so insidious that even the websites and books I've looked at that are about having an affordable, non-traditional wedding still lay the pressure on thick. For example, the description of this book, about having a 2,000 wedding, starts with "How you and your partner plan your wedding can set a precedent for how you will be as a family." Because, you know, no pressure to make it perfect AND cheap AND define you as a human being or a couple. A DIY wedding just sounds like more work, more pressure, and ends up being a handmade version of all the same old wedding rituals.
I refuse to be defined as a person by my wedding.
Of course I believe that getting married is a big deal and I want to have a party to celebrate it with friends and family, but the immense pressure that people place on themselves to follow all the rules and rituals just don't seem like a true celebration of love, but of consumerism and conformity.
But the Wedding Industrial Complex TM is so insidious that even the websites and books I've looked at that are about having an affordable, non-traditional wedding still lay the pressure on thick. For example, the description of this book, about having a 2,000 wedding, starts with "How you and your partner plan your wedding can set a precedent for how you will be as a family." Because, you know, no pressure to make it perfect AND cheap AND define you as a human being or a couple. A DIY wedding just sounds like more work, more pressure, and ends up being a handmade version of all the same old wedding rituals.
I refuse to be defined as a person by my wedding.