Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding (Life Passages, 2)
by Cele C. Otnes, Elizabeth H. Pleck
Life Passages (2)
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Description
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, show more 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 culture: 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. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Big, expensive weddings allow people, especially women, to feel like they’ve been touched by magic—to be special and unique and experience a magical moment marking a major life transition. They provide a happy unity of consumption and romantic ideals. There, I saved you a lot of time reading this book.
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Author Information
5 Works 58 Members
7+ Works 123 Members
Elizabeth H. Pleck is professor emerita of history and human development and family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has edited nine books about the history of American families. Her most recent book is Love of Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England.
Series
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Anthropology, Sociology, General Nonfiction, Sexuality and Gender Studies
- DDC/MDS
- 395.2 — Society, government, & culture Customs, etiquette & folklore Customs, Clothing, Celebrations Etiquette for Weddings, Funerals, and Other Ceremonies
- LCC
- HQ745 .O7 — Social sciences The family. Marriage, Women and Sexuality The Family. Marriage. Women The family. Marriage. Home
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 34
- Popularity
- 839,477
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 1
