Photo illustration by Peter Thomson

 
hen Katherine Jellison got married 15 years ago, she wanted to plan a simple family wedding.
 

But she and her fiancé were thwarted at every turn. Invitations weren’t available in small batches, and boutiques balked at her request for a gown minus the fancy train and flourishes.

“Most places weren’t very accommodating and made us feel worse than second-class citizens,” she says.
 

The wedding industry was sending a clear message: The proper way — and some might insist the only way — to get hitched in America today is to host a big, elaborate, pricey affair. Jellison, an associate professor of history at Ohio University who researches women’s issues and consumerism, was intrigued by the popular culture that breeds this $32 billion industry as well as the women who shell out an average of $20,000 for a one-day fairy tale of white lace and silk. Americans didn’t always marry this way, mused Jellison, curious about what fueled this mass marriage machine.

Wealth, status and women’s quests to portray Cinderella for a day were some of the answers Jellison found when she popped that question, which she addresses in the forthcoming book, “It’s My Day: The Commercialization of American Weddings, 1945-2000.” After interviewing professionals in the wedding industry and brides who wed during the second half of the last century, and combing popular magazines, books, television shows, movies and academic literature, the historian is taking a sabbatical from the university this school year to compile her research, slated for publication in 2002.

Prior to World War II, most Americans married within their ethnic communities. Relatives, neighbors and friends sewed gowns and baked cakes, and news of the event was spread by word of mouth. But things changed after the war, when more American families enjoyed disposable incomes, were geographically scattered and had greater exposure to the mass media, which promoted a new, commercialized wedding ideal.

“You don’t have specialized wedding boutiques or people who make their living as wedding planners until after World War II,” she says. “You also don’t have mass circulation magazines devoted to how people should plan their weddings. It’s really a post-war phenomenon.”

As the decades passed, more families turned to private businesses to handle wedding preparations. Savvy industries were eager to fill the niche. Garment companies readily supplied wedding gowns, and glassware merchants convinced new brides that they needed an elegant set of crystal stemware to start their marriage right. While many mainstays of the early wedding industry were men, new female entrepreneurs were welcomed as caterers, boutique owners and planners.

Americans with newly acquired wealth hungry to gain status bought into the wedding ideal, even during economic downturns. “It’s the kind of conspicuous consumption that defines a family as middle class. Just like a second car, a color TV, a summer vacation, a home in the suburbs, it’s a way to show that we’ve arrived.”

Young brides of limited status saw these marital   productions as a precious chance to shine, Jellison says. In a reversal of gender roles, the women became authorities, relegating grooms to roles as supporting players. “It’s largely defined as a girl thing — grooms are not emotionally invested,” she says.

What puzzles Jellison, however, is that even in our current post-feminist era, progressive women still buy into the act.

“There are all these traditional notions about gender that so many people participating in these commercialized weddings don’t believe in 364 days of the year,” she says.

“But on that one day, they revert back to all of these symbols of traditional femininity.”

Even the prospect of divorce — about half of all marriages still end that way — hasn’t dampened Americans’ love for the elaborate wedding.

Jellison’s students at Ohio University, who in 1995 selected her for the University Professor Teaching Award, have given her more insight into the wedding industry through personal accounts of their wedding planning or work in wedding businesses. “I learned a lot about the role consumerism does play, even with professional intellectuals,” she says.

Consumerism is a theme that repeats throughout Jellison’s research work. Her first book, “Entitled to Power,” published in 1993, examined rural farm women’s responses to the advent of labor-saving appliances. She’s also studied women in Amish communities.

“Consumer culture has become such a dominant factor in modern American life,” she says. “It’s such a defining feature of women’s experience. Even for women like myself who try to stay out of it, there’s no way you can avoid it.”

Jellison is quick to point out, however, that not all Americans buy into the commercialized wedding ideal. “The most surprising thing may be that a quarter of Americans are resisting it,” she says. “Of course, you never hear about that.”

But with the historian’s new book on the way, more people are likely to understand why they’re compelled to pay for personalized napkins, designer dresses and gourmet appetizers when they tie the knot. And Jellison welcomes a wide readership.

“I don’t feel comfortable doing scholarship that only five people understand. I want a broad audience,” the seven-year faculty member says. “It’s a topic everyone can relate to.”

Andrea Gibson, BSJ ’94, is assistant editor in the Office of Research Communications.