The Art of Wedded Bliss

Last year, on July 7 my sister got married.  It was fun.  It was fabulous. And it was most definitely themed.  In fact, one of the first things that people asked my sister when they found out she was engaged was, “So what are you colors? And have you picked a venue?”

In essence, if you had to pick something (besides you and your fiancee, who this whole shindig is about) to encapsulate your nuptials, what would it be?

After a lot of trial and error, my sister eventually found a venue, picked her colors (pink and green) and created a fairytale wedding at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester.

One year later, with my family still recovering, my older brother pops the question to his significant other and we are back in the throes of the wedding industry.  Theirs will also be fairytale, but with slight alterations.

I could be a curmudgeon and talk about the commodity fetish in relation to all things wedding, but instead I think it is worth acknowledging the undoubtable aesthetics of weddings.  They are almost like grand architectural, musical, floral feats of greatness, are they not?

This ‘Peter Pan-themed Wedding’ on Buzzfeed is one that will knock your stockings off.  Time and time again I am amazed at the small details that create weddings.  They are often like huge bacchanalian paintings but with sound and more dancing and (sometimes) more wine.   And while you’re at one of these things, it’s almost hard to appreciate the setting, when the thing itself (the marriage ceremony) has all of your attention.

But when considering a wedding as ‘art’, I proceed with caution only because it is undoubtedly one of the most profitable industries out there.  If wedding planners and event coordinators are ‘artists’ then they have definitely sold out to the Man (or the Woman as is often the case).

In one of my classes, we are examining the theme parks of DisneyWorld in all of its fairytale glory.  I plan to focus my research on Cinderella’s Castle and Disney Weddings*.  If you want to talk about themes, there is no theme so ubiquitous as the fairytale and no conglomerate more suited to this theme than Disney Weddings.

*When adding the Disney Wedding link, their site was so beautiful and so enchanting, I was almost tempted to click the ‘Let’s Begin Designing Your Disney Wedding’ button, even though I am not engaged, going steady, or casually dating anyone at the moment  :/