00:04:05.360And like magnified into this like indie quirky bride, right?
00:04:09.500like how dare you um the brand 100 i mean and i'm not i'm not gonna defend it like i no i know i am
00:04:17.660like other girls like let's be very clear i am like other girls um but i am like an earnest
00:04:24.440former theater kid at the end of the day and i love to throw theatrical experiences for my
00:04:32.740freaking friends and family so to me this i love that we start this anecdotally because i think
00:04:38.800in your instance, it absolutely makes sense. The instances that make me feel really sad for the
00:04:45.780person is people who do not like throwing parties. For sure. They do not have the money or want to
00:04:53.080spend the money. They have really complicated and traumatic relations with their family that they
00:05:00.340have to reactivate in order to do this. They are maybe still learning their best communication
00:05:08.800style with their partner and spouse to be. And this actually like troubles it before you actually
00:05:16.900even get to be spouses. 100%. Like those are the things that I'm like, you could give in. And I0.91
00:05:24.260think you know the last 10 years i would say that we have the like not just the small courthouse
00:05:32.640wedding but like just different types of weddings have been repopularized i think i think so too
00:05:38.920obviously media portrayals of weddings have really established like what they should look like and so
00:05:46.520So, I mean, I do think it's important for kind of like smaller, less opulent, more realistic, more accessible types of weddings to, you know, come to the fore in media.
00:06:00.900But they're not as good for, you know, movies.
00:06:03.480i actually think like the vows section of the new york times for all of like the
00:06:10.060uh i don't know the new york timesness of it it often does highlight kind of fun different ways
00:06:17.760that people have gotten married different outfits that people have worn different ages that people
00:06:22.520get married all of those things yeah but we got so many questions i feel like we have to dive in
00:06:26.860so that we can get to all yeah and i promise i have more than anecdotal bullshit um to bring0.97
00:06:32.820to the table but my wedding was it was bullshit and you know what it was so it was so fun I wore0.99
00:06:40.500pink everyone else wore white I wore butterfly wings it was ridiculous it was so ridiculous I0.98
00:06:47.100had a great I had a great day at my dog's birthday party well and we will we will link to the
00:06:52.520Instagram post where you posted some pictures because I think that your joy is palpable in
00:06:58.000these photos like you are not a bride who is like just smiling and like my makeup is melting off
00:07:06.020like you're having a good time so it's see like you can feel the like on my own termsness just
00:07:12.440like sadly my own terms do align with um oh this is so this is so regrettable my my doing doing a0.97
00:07:20.640party on my own terms sadly did align ultimately with having a wedding god damn it0.95
00:07:26.020god damn it so lots of big feelings about this some people were like how dare you frame like0.94
00:07:33.900i don't know contemporary wedding culture as like weird wedding culture is always weird it is it's0.95
00:07:39.040totally weird it's like yeah rituals are weird uh and they are ever-changing and they are contextual
00:07:45.060and they are culturally specific and hopefully we'll be able to dive into all of those things
00:07:49.800so the first question comes from elena and melody's gonna read it when did wedding culture
00:07:55.420change. I'm a millennial woman who grew up with a very proper mother in Texas, so I know something
00:08:01.020about etiquette and hostessing. But even fancy weddings in the 80s were nothing like what is
00:08:06.000often considered standard today. For instance, my mom didn't need an event coordinator, but my
00:08:11.260wedding would have been a disaster without one. Is it as simple as Princess Diana's wedding?
00:08:16.180I have some thoughts on this, but I want to hear you first.
00:08:19.300Yeah, I mean, I learned from a scholar named Beth Montemuro, who's a sociologist and wrote a book
00:08:24.520about bridal showers and bachelorette parties that princess diana's wedding and the like huge
00:08:31.800media treatment of that did have a lot to do with weddings going from this like sort of intimate
00:08:38.280family affair to this like extravagant thing that you would want others to see and appreciate um
00:08:45.320this sort of like pseudo royal wedding thing which is cringe too because like we're never
00:08:49.740going to be able to pull off a royal wedding like any of us i mean the economic boom of the 80s
00:08:54.340also supported that but then I think things really changed um with the advent of Pinterest
00:09:00.140like that made other people's weddings visible um there was a lot of mutual escalation
00:09:08.860on on social media where it's like you see someone do something now you have to do the
00:09:14.420thing and then your bridesmaid has to do the thing and yeah you know we are we are consumerists we
00:09:19.600we approach problems with additive solutions you know like that's that's what we do here in the
00:09:25.640U.S. of A and yeah I think it was it was really the social media of it all and then of course like
00:09:30.960the industry snowballed and so now yeah if you don't have a background in event production
00:09:38.940you're gonna need to hire a wedding planner but now there's like a wedding planner type
00:09:44.640and uh we almost hired a wedding planner and then we were like no no no no no um because
00:09:50.440my understanding and I'm sure there are exceptions of this but I have learned throughout many
00:09:56.720conversations that wedding planners uh tend tend to make it all about them oftentimes and um they
00:10:06.120just really want the best marketing assets for their business and so you know I I was interviewing
00:10:11.080this wedding planner um and you know she sent the contract we redlined it because like there was
00:10:18.360this you know clause in there that said that she would be allowed to use all of the wedding photos
00:10:24.000that like my friend took um in her advertising like in perpetuity but my wedding was at my
00:10:31.520parents house and you know there were gonna be some photos where you could probably tell like
00:10:36.100where they live and like I write about cults and I have some enemies in the world and I was just0.75
00:10:40.940like I don't want I don't want the Scientologist to know where my parents live you know what I mean
00:10:44.400um and she was just like the TLDR was like she didn't care and she was like this is the contract
00:10:50.380and I'm me and you're like so lucky to get to work with me and I was like okay never mind so
00:10:56.900yeah I think there's a lot of ego here there's a huge industry but the long and the short of it
00:11:04.020is that it's uh it's social media and the visibility of other people's weddings fault
00:11:08.240I love what was the phrase that you use, like the mutual escalation, like the thing that came to my mind was like mutually assured destruction, self-destruction of like how when you escalate, because it's not just before you could find notes on people's weddings, like or see other people's ideas that they use to execute their weddings.
00:11:32.160like there were bridal magazines right and you saw announcements in the newspaper all the time
00:11:38.360of what like a wedding where a wedding was held and you saw their wedding dress even if it was a
00:11:42.860black and white picture whatever but the ability to see just like normies like you and not just
00:11:49.520like a dozen normies we're talking like thousands of normies all over and the replication and like
00:11:55.560that looks like that feeling like you must do something, the perfunctoriness of it. Okay. My
00:12:01.940theory, and this goes to my experience with predominantly Christian weddings, I think,
00:12:10.840and like my parents' generation of their friends, which were predominantly Christian weddings.
00:12:15.860When you got married in the church, there was always someone at the church who this was their
00:12:20.780job was to run the building. They were a de facto wedding coordinator and they came with the rental
00:12:26.660of the church. And if you were getting married in the church and then your reception was in the
00:12:32.840church's reception hall, think about the ease. Like you don't need a wedding coordinator for that.
00:12:38.500No. Like people just move and then you might have a caterer, but different story. Like that's very
00:12:45.060different than having a wedding coordinator. And the mother of the bride did some of these duties
00:12:48.840in various capacities. And I think now when so much of like the weight is transferred,
00:12:56.360the planning weight is transferred to usually the bride, right? And the bride has to outsource0.57
00:13:02.400it somehow. And they are oftentimes not getting married in a church, right? No, there is a lot
00:13:09.440to manage. That's what I'm saying. It's like if you, so we threw our wedding at, I mean,
00:13:14.800my dog's birthday party in my parents' backyard. And we thought that would make everything
00:13:19.440easier. No, harder. No, no, no. You have to turn it into a wedding venue. You have to turn it into
00:13:24.240a wedding venue. Exactly. Now, fortunately, we have friends and community members who have
00:13:32.060different skills and connects they could bring to the table who were pulling favors. And we
00:13:37.280we were able to skirt the wedding industry like quite significantly but that took so much effort
00:13:45.920and bandwidth and we enjoy that type of challenge he and I my yeah yeah yeah you okay here look you
00:13:54.020like logistics I also like logistics yeah well he really likes logistics and I so he we we had a
00:13:59.740pretty complimentary division of labor um I don't mind logistics I I'm I'm sensitive to logistics
00:14:05.220because I throw live events for my work.
00:14:07.240And so like, I know kind of what needs to get done.
00:14:10.740But if you have no background and you don't enjoy it,
00:14:13.760of course you're going to need someone to do it for you.
00:14:17.540And the amount of money that they charge is unbelievable.
00:14:57.660And there was cookie cutter-ness to that too, right?
00:15:00.580Because it was the limitations of the spaces.
00:15:03.060of course yeah and they really do I mean the reason why I've analyzed wedding culture through
00:15:09.060a cult lens so much is because like they're really on top of like the rituals and the financial
00:15:16.400exploitation or whatever there really is this strange secret like conveyor belt that they
00:15:24.240put you on and make you feel like is is special but it's actually the least special thing ever1.00
00:15:29.200So like, you know, when I was in early talks with this wedding planner, I was kind of, you know, describing our vibe and I was like, yeah, I don't really, you know, I'm really kind of creeped out by those like highly produced wedding videos that like that the Mormons do really well.0.99
00:15:44.200I was like, I don't want one of those.0.99
00:15:46.660I want, you know, I want to document the day, but I want it to feel like a little more nostalgic, you know, like maybe I could just have like one of my videographer friends like be in charge of a super eight or whatever.
00:15:57.220and she was like oh my god oh my god it's so funny that you say that i actually now now that i think
00:16:04.080about it i know this incredible super eight and dad cam uh husband wife partner they're so sweet
00:16:11.080i could totally suggest them and i was like oh my god that sounds great and then i look it up and
00:16:16.780it's ten thousand dollars and this you know i'm sure this woman is getting a kickback or whatever
00:16:20.720in the end i literally just paid a friend of a friend to take super eight footage and i paid
00:16:26.400another friend who's an editor 500 books to edit it together and it was like great
00:16:31.240the culture study podcast is sponsored by biologica so maybe you're one of those people
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00:16:55.900these things I really do need to take every day. It needs to be a separate pill. But some of these
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00:18:36.620Support for today's episode comes from Honey Love. So we're getting that time of year when like,
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00:18:46.460just chaffage, there's discomfort, there's like weird gatherings of sweat in places there shouldn't
00:18:53.100be. Like this is the time of year when I actually think more than any other time of year about like
00:18:58.660what sort of bra I'm wearing. And I love wearing my Honey Love bra when more perspiration enters
00:19:04.120the picture. Melody, the other day someone said to me that they love our ads because it sounds
00:19:10.400like we're just like like shooting the shit we are which we are yeah I like that the my honey0.98
00:19:19.080love bra when the sweat is happening it does not stay damp all day oh that's good yeah it's not0.99
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00:20:20.940standard and comfort and support with Honey Love. Okay, our next question comes from Grace and it's
00:20:31.980about the point of a wedding. My partner and I are currently planning our wedding, and I feel
00:20:36.880like so much of the online discourse is around how you don't have to have a big wedding or a
00:20:40.640wedding at all, and it's really just about the two people getting married. At a time when we're all
00:20:45.080talking about community, what does a cultural shift away from an event that's about bringing
00:20:48.600friends, family, and community together mean? And how can we make it more affordable and possible
00:20:53.360for people who do want that community event to hold it without spending more than their annual
00:20:57.620salary. I love this question because it's pointed to something that like I love to talk about right
00:21:03.080it's like how do you actually make like how do you participate how do you show people that they're
00:21:07.680meaningful to you how do you like have a community yeah but I think the vast majority of contemporary
00:21:16.080weddings are not actually interested in guest experience really right they're like what food
00:21:22.480are we going to have them yeah that's not it's about impressing people right maybe even online
00:21:28.500more than in person sometimes yes it's about like what the instagram version of the wedding
00:21:34.000the spectacle of the wedding is going to look like and not what the experience is yeah and then also
00:21:40.560not a ton of thought about like the cost to a community like what happens when attending a
00:21:47.560wedding becomes so expensive that no matter what the experience is, it doesn't feel worth it,
00:21:53.040right? And different rules about how you should show up to this wedding, and what you should be
00:21:59.680wearing, and who you can and cannot bring, and plus one or no plus one, and where you're sitting,
00:22:04.960all of these things. The most interesting conversations I've seen about this actually
00:22:10.100are on like Priya Parker's Instagram, where she highlights weddings where they have done
00:22:14.360something incredibly mindful about making it feel like something that is a group of people
00:22:22.220coming together to celebrate the love between two people. Yeah. I mean, you can literally,
00:22:27.440I did this for like our welcome drinks, LOL, the like all the events you like are coerced
00:22:33.280into throwing throughout the weekend. But again, I am that bitch. So ultimately I did do the1.00
00:22:39.060welcome drinks um uh anywho our venue was 150 and it fit 70 people in it and we like full-blown
00:22:50.300could have done the wedding in there like you you know i i think we we brought our own mocktails and
00:22:58.280then there was like you know spent maybe 1500 on on alcohol um and i i was like after the end of
00:23:07.100that night, I was like, this could have been it. Right. Right. You're like, I saw the people.
00:23:12.540Yeah. It was fantastic. This literally could have been it. You know, our two best friends
00:23:15.920gave speeches. We, we, we dressed up. I was like, this felt kind of like its own wedding.
00:23:22.560Totally. So I think, yeah, you can really, really simply just not use the word wedding
00:23:27.720when you're booking stuff. You can totally, you can totally just say you're throwing a special
00:23:32.760event and um I think you know have a conversation with yourself and your partner about like how do
00:23:38.360we want to feel on the day you know what do we want our loved ones to feel how much how much
00:23:43.400do we really like really in our heart of hearts want to spend how much do we want other people
00:23:48.400to spend now I don't think it's like morally inferior to want to like spend a bunch of money
00:23:57.200I mean, if you are inclined to over-the-top celebration, then this is an excuse to do that and to make your friends do that.
00:24:53.040But yeah, no, there are a lot of pressures online and offline to have a wedding.
00:24:59.100But like if you don't want to, it is so possible to throw just like a much smaller, more intimate, more mindful, as you said, event where like the word wedding isn't even uttered until the day of.
00:25:14.940I a friend of mine they just went on like a fun trip to Iceland and then brought their wedding
00:25:22.060dresses as two women and got married and then and had like a photographer there right and then
00:25:28.040they had like fun celebrations that were just you know at like a big bar or a community hall
00:25:35.040in the two places where both of them are from so they got to celebrate with like so many people
00:25:40.960that mattered to them in like localized those so those people could come yeah and also have like a
00:25:46.640really precious moment that was on their terms yeah yeah I love that it's interesting the way
00:25:53.020that the wedding industry but also just like kind of general discourse about weddings being
00:25:58.260traditional yeah has justified like throwing the big extravagant wedding I there there's this
00:26:04.520article that i this like scholarly article that i read that felt so um felt so validating to me
00:26:11.400uh in all of my ics and questions about weddings it's called traditional inequalities and
00:26:18.580inequalities of tradition gender weddings and whiteness and when asking you know brides
00:26:27.060particularly like why are you doing this um the studies authors found that tradition was
00:26:34.640repeatedly used when talking to actually both the husband and the wife heterosexual couples
00:26:39.540and the reason why it was important to them to throw a wedding in this traditional sense
00:26:47.140was because that seemed like it was setting them up for a traditional marriage which
00:26:54.080they seem to use as shorthand for a marriage that was secure stable yeah and had children
00:27:01.900connected with an imagined past when these elements were believed to be inherent in society
00:27:07.720and family bonds so it was almost like if I throw a wedding with traditional elements and again those
00:27:15.720change all the time because in the 70s it was like throw the wedding at the church and now it's like
00:27:19.920throw it at a hotel and like you know ice sculpture that's really 90s whatever um but it's
00:27:25.580like if you do all this then you'll be connected to some kind of like illusory vision of a time
00:27:33.820when like husbands and wives were really connected and secure that's that's the what this article
00:27:41.060seemed to be intimating uh total imaginary time yeah i just am thinking of like all the people
00:27:48.840who got shotgun wedding like people who got married just so that they could have sex like
00:27:54.180just like different like and those weddings are like absolutely part of that traditional wedding
00:28:00.120because they were also following these scripts right yeah yeah and it's like great we want to
00:28:04.740you know reflect a marriage from a time when like marital rape was not a crime like i i don't know
00:28:13.080Totally. I don't want to. Yeah. Yeah. And like that women, their parents had to pay for the
00:28:19.220wedding because like, oh, well, the women couldn't have checking accounts or like credit cards. So1.00
00:28:23.080they certainly weren't paid for. Right. And everybody was really young. So that's the other
00:28:26.620thing, too, is that like another reason why weddings are more expensive now is because people
00:28:30.260are getting married later, you know, and and and that's like this catch 22 as well, because
00:28:35.580a wedding and marriage used to symbolize like the beginning of your adulthood. And so it was like
00:28:40.900this small affair because you couldn't afford anything and like yeah your parents were paying
00:28:44.380for it but like you know it wasn't typical to pay for this extravagance but now people are getting
00:28:49.740married later and it's more customary to pay for more of it yourself and so they're getting more
00:28:55.340expensive but then it creates a situation where some people feel like they can't even get engaged
00:29:01.660or get married because they can't afford a wedding so it's like actually really wedding
00:29:06.720culture is halting people from like unionizing their love, like really backwards, actually.
00:29:15.920Okay. Next question is another one that we get a lot of. And I hear people complain about a lot
00:29:20.600and I have a very simple explanation for it, but I'm sorry, I'm setting it up. I'm giving it,
00:29:25.380I'm giving us so much hype for this question. Yeah. Let's hear it.
00:29:28.540Johnny. When did no kid weddings become so popular? I've always loved the little kids
00:29:34.440running around in their fancy outfits and it was a favorite memory of mine from my own wedding
00:29:38.660it seems so not representative of the community that loves and supports you
00:29:44.120yeah what's your what's your theory i think it's partially because there is this sort of
00:29:52.000ideological divide between like millennials who have kids and millennials who don't and it's
00:29:59.940becoming more accepted to to not have kids and and and there's a lot of you know justified
00:30:08.180defenses and defensiveness around not having kids and um yeah and there's also you know
00:30:15.700increased conversation about boundaries you know with your friends and family members um which can
00:30:22.640be good conversations and also kind of used to justify a little bit of of uh you know
00:30:27.500wedding-centric narcissism. No, but okay. No, see, I actually don't. It's a little bit
00:30:33.040wedding-centric narcissism. But here's the reality. When you bring your kids to the wedding
00:30:37.700and you don't have childcare, which a lot of people don't have childcare at a wedding because
00:30:43.260you're traveling to the wedding or whatever, right? You got to go home early. You can't hang
00:30:48.080out. You can't hang out with your friends. And as someone who doesn't have kids, who has lots
00:30:53.680of friends who do have kids there is just a very distinct change in the way that we hang out when
00:30:59.600you have to get back to a sitter at a certain time or you have to like you you have to go home
00:31:04.680it just changes the character right but doesn't that mean that like you're gonna if okay well if
00:31:11.120you have kids period then you can't come to the wedding like what no no no no uh sorry i don't
00:31:17.640mean getting back to the sitter so much i mean more like if your kids are at the wedding and
00:31:21.420you need to bail out at 7 35 so that you can get them home to get them to sleep or whatever you
00:31:27.520know what I mean yeah your kids at the way unless you have a bailout plan which sometimes it's like
00:31:32.500one one person in our partnership has to go home and take care of the kids right um oh I'm now
00:31:38.680wondering too if it's like people what some people okay the child-free weddings that I've
00:31:46.200actually never been to one but I I know people who've thrown them I think they wanted their
00:31:51.240wedding to be like really debauched they like they wanted people to get like you know yeah exactly
00:31:57.880that's what I'm talking about they want to have like they don't want little kids doing the hokey
00:32:02.040pokey in the middle of the dance floor yeah all the parents like all the adults out I think I
00:32:06.860think that's just a vibe I think that's just a vibe for the wedding I was I was getting too deep
00:32:12.180with it i think i was just like oh there's like you know this like righteousness of like i i do
00:32:17.400not have kids that's true and i don't want to see your kids on my day and that's so valid i let me
00:32:23.680see i had yeah i well i had a flower girl but she was two and a half and she's my friend okay like
00:32:29.820yeah this is an intergenerational friendship like i she was my friend and i wanted her at the
00:32:34.660wedding she she's iconic like she brought she she was probably somehow the most turnt person at this
00:32:41.460well and here's the other thing is that some people just don't like kids and I think that0.90
00:32:45.680we are normalizing people saying like I don't like kids I don't like having kids around and
00:32:50.360I know that like there are some people we've had this conversation in my newsletter a lot that
00:32:54.340think that like you're not allowed to say that but you can if you're throwing a party and there
00:32:58.960is a type of person aka yeah no I mean I didn't want yeah there were lots of different hanging
00:33:06.800out yeah i mean they're i mean yeah i don't think i don't think we had i don't think we had
00:33:11.580a single republican at my wedding yeah see um i will also say that old school weddings
00:33:18.660again because they were often held at a religious institution those religious institutions also have0.82
00:33:26.120nursery spaces yeah yeah like just the basement where you can send the freaking kids and if you
00:33:31.760pay for some sitters who are there and like liabilities considerations were slightly different
00:33:37.180right like there used to be ways that you could like shunt the kids in a way that you cannot
00:33:43.420any longer and I feel like it was also more traditional at a certain time in the past to
00:33:49.140have the wedding ceremony in the morning and now they're more often at night or in the late
00:33:55.240afternoon and so then people are like partying into the wee hours but like the church wedding
00:34:00.220with the nursery they're not like dropping acid like there's there's so many I mean my wedding
00:34:06.020was like pretty no one's on shrooms at the church yeah like my there was a lot of shrooms at my
00:34:11.420wedding and um you know that yeah like koa's daughter she didn't do shrooms she's two and a
00:34:18.980half but she doesn't need them we're all trying to get on her level that was the thing I think
00:34:23.100we all want we all want to be the kids we all want to become the children well and that actually
00:34:28.880i think like how do i put this like because weddings have also become more about the party
00:34:34.980and less about the ritual less about the church ceremony right and more about like let's have fun
00:34:39.980together and like have a live band and like everyone's gonna dance it is about this opportunity
00:34:46.280to act like children yeah and if you are also responsible for children sometimes that makes it
00:34:51.460yeah yeah great we arrived at a great no i have a really basic interjection here because i did not
00:34:57.500have children at my wedding they're extra mouths to feed they're extra they're extra mouths to
00:35:03.020feed and they're extra butts in chairs it would have like significantly increased the price of0.99
00:35:08.920our wedding had we included children because there would have been like 40 extra bodies
00:35:12.980yeah yeah no that's so fair you're like you're only half a person I don't want to have to pay
00:35:20.800for a full chair exactly it was a space and food issue for us that's so that's so so fair uh now
00:35:30.400we're gonna talk about aesthetics one of my favorite things this comes from sarah why are
00:35:34.640people so obsessed with weddings dresses hairstyles flowers table settings being timeless i know that
00:35:41.120we look back at weddings from 10 years ago and we think they're a bit cringe style wise but when we
00:35:45.180look back at them 20 years later the time stamp stuff is half the fun is it because they're so
00:35:50.340expensive that we feel we can't follow trends the same logic as investing in a good classic winter
00:35:55.140coat or is it because we have so many more photos of weddings now than our parents generation ever
00:36:00.160did or maybe something else what do you think i think your face right now i think timeless0.94
00:36:08.260is a euphemism for like some type of elitist bullshit like timeless if they're timeless is0.95
00:36:17.660like bourgeois waspy white 100 100 i i think it is a dog whistle i think no for sure it is and0.98
00:36:30.500it's also a ridiculous concept like if you can guarantee anything it is the passage of time
00:36:38.880like you cannot beat time you know i and i said bourgeois earlier but i really think that like
00:36:45.540like you said it's a euphemism i think that it's a way of saying i don't want to think tacky i'm
00:36:50.260scared of having something tacky at my wedding tacky being like living in a moment and i know
00:36:56.220but i mean i think okay i think too probably a discourse about the wedding needing to be timeless
00:37:03.680followed um the like pinterest diy millennial aesthetic of like mason jars and um and like
00:37:12.620chalkboard signs or whatever we were like ew like that is so millennial cringe we need to return
00:37:18.780to the princess diana aesthetic but it's like it's such a futile pursuit i don't think like
00:37:26.100well sure like if you're following trends just because everybody else is following trends and
00:37:32.840they don't feel authentic to you yeah like maybe you can think more about let me go back to basics
00:37:38.440What do I really want? But that I think inauthenticity should be the enemy, not like
00:37:45.440timestamping or trendiness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But I do think that like part
00:37:51.340of this too is like if I avoid anything tacky or Pinterest-y, then I'm also rejecting wedding
00:38:00.940culture in a way, right? Like if we think like there is an understanding of wedding culture
00:38:05.300as culture almost as like the thing that you're trying to avoid yeah i don't know i think the
00:38:11.920word timeless if you're timeless you're like a j crew sweater from 1980 right it's so it's just i
00:38:20.220i think timeless is just like a genre of wedding it's like do you want like a fairy tale wedding
00:38:27.180with a ball gown do you want like a sexy girl wedding with like a mermaid dress okay but what
00:38:32.060what does timeless look like how do you see it what do i think timeless looks like oh that's so
00:38:37.680funny that's such a good question i imagine like audrey hepburn i imagine like a kind of um like a
00:38:43.920a plain but like flawlessly executed maybe like off the shoulder french twist yeah french
00:38:50.620for certainly an updo you know it's like past hors d'oeuvres you know black tie just i think of
00:38:58.980like high class you know like I think it's just I think it's just a synonym a euphemism it's really
00:39:06.160just a euphemism for like expensive expensive and spending your money on the right things right
00:39:13.180yeah and like minimum a little more minimalistic but like so again because you have to avoid
00:39:20.540tackiness because tackiness is showing off your money in some way right like it has to be subdued
00:39:25.680luxury oh my god I remember okay I I did not wear um I did not wear a wedding dress but I didn't I
00:39:33.540wore I wore I wear a pink dress um but I did go wedding dress shopping I I mean of course like
00:39:39.520it's so fun I tried on like so many wedding dresses um and some I just tried on like as a bit
00:39:45.360and um I tried on this one dress that I like I could not believe how um not me it was it was
00:39:52.680like so popular and it was like it had kind of like a bandage like cut or whatever like it was
00:39:58.280so tight around the midsection and it was and it was I think but I think it was what people might
00:40:05.500conceive of as timeless it was just like very simple just like figure fitting and and off the
00:40:12.260shoulder and whatever and it immediately inspired in me this alter ego named Antoinette and Antoinette
00:40:18.860was like wasted and had just found out the day before the wedding that her husband, her husband
00:40:24.660to be his family had actually lost all their wealth and it was all a facade. And so she was
00:40:29.000marrying into this like fraudulence. And it just, I was like overcome with this timeless Antoinette,
00:40:35.740like old money, like performative, like Gilmore Girls persona. It was, it was really fun for 10
00:40:42.020minutes. Right, like timeless is miserable, man. Yeah, it is. Timeless is miserable. Like get a
00:40:46.280personality. The Culture Study Podcast is sponsored by Wild Alaskan. So Melody, we just
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00:41:16.220and you can't use your grill anymore, that's when you have to buy a new grill.
00:41:19.840That sounds terrible, but also thrilling.
00:41:24.780I'm really excited, actually, to have this functioning grill.
00:41:27.580So excited that I took my last two packets of the sockeye salmon out of the freezer,
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00:42:59.460Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is sponsored by
00:43:04.300aura frames. So Melody, do you know what the number one gift on Mother's Day is? The thing
00:43:10.100that everyone gives their moms. I'm assuming flowers. Yes, it is. It's flowers. And if I were
00:43:16.420a mom, I'm not. But if I were a mom, I would be like, lovely flowers. But also maybe you got me
00:43:22.040flowers every single year. Maybe there's a way for like a very simple and straightforward way
00:43:27.080to upgrade from the usual Mother's Day flowers. I cannot tell you what a crowd pleaser. Like
00:43:33.060every single person I know who's given their aura frame as a gift to their mom. It's been a massive
00:43:39.560hit. Imagine the aura frame like a bouquet of photos that never dies, that you never have to
00:43:47.160throw in the trash. It never dies. And if you like maybe looked into digital frames a while ago and
00:43:52.800thought like, I don't know, like the quality isn't that great. They have improved so much. It is
00:43:58.980beautiful crisp and it's so easy to upload your photos to it both like before it arrives to your
00:44:06.060mom and in lieu of mother's day flowers but also as you go through the year and if you have the
00:44:12.960app on your phone like you can just press a button or you can text it to this number that serves as
00:44:17.800like a very easy shortcut for it to just go to the frame and then it can surprise them so you can
00:44:24.060even play jokes too. If you have a mom who likes funny things, they could like send weird memes.
00:44:29.440There's all sorts of fun things that you could do. You've given me some ideas. I know, I know.
00:44:34.080The AuraFrame has free unlimited storage. Like I said before, you can preload the photos before
00:44:38.800it ships. It also has a very tasteful gift box so it looks fancy and not just like someone,
00:44:44.340I don't know, ordered it off the internet. It looks nice. Make Mother's Day special with Aura
00:44:49.580frames right now you can save on the gifts mom's love by visiting aura frames.com for a limited
00:44:55.720time listeners can get 25 off their best-selling carver mat frame that's the one that i have
00:45:00.720with code culture that's a u r a frames.com promo code culture support the show by mentioning us
00:45:09.140at checkout terms and conditions apply okay next question comes from aya when i think about my
00:45:19.540appearance wedding photos, there are a handful of pictures and that's it. I'm curious about the ways
00:45:24.820that social media, including the early days of blogging, have affected this notion that any
00:45:29.920experience, adventure, or wedding are all ways to generate content that is meant to be shared online.
00:45:36.460I find myself being more thoughtful about the contentification of my life, pushing back and
00:45:42.380asking myself why I'm taking a picture or if I need to share it online, and I'm wondering if the
00:45:48.260wedding industry is experiencing this too? Is not documenting or not sharing the wedding a trend?
00:45:55.100Love this question. I think so. Not sharing the wedding is becoming a trend.
00:46:00.460Or just doing one carousel. I did three.
00:46:09.460Also, you had a wedding that you wanted to show up. You know what I mean?
00:46:13.840Okay, but this is a really interesting thought exercise.
00:46:18.260When thinking about what you want to spend your money on for the wedding, you could ask yourself, if I were not to share this on social media, none of it, what would I choose?
00:50:07.700Like that's like you're like, hey, guys, welcome to my wedding.
00:50:10.380yeah like you go into the closet and turn it like put on your dress like hey I'm here again
00:50:16.560Casey and I were like both in suits and then um everybody went down to the ceremony area and I0.98
00:50:23.040went into my parents bedroom and put on the most ridiculous pink Galinda ass dress you've ever seen0.93
00:50:28.520and um Casey I walked down it wasn't an aisle but we walked on a little staircase together0.99
00:50:33.100and then um I couldn't dance in that dress because it was long and I was wearing these big ass heels
00:50:38.660so then i had to put on the little short dress um so that was just me but if it baffles you
00:50:46.100don't do it i mean why that's a great that's such a good that's such a good like um i don't know0.99
00:50:54.180like what's the word rule of thumb like litmus test whatever that if it baffles you fuck it0.99
00:51:00.780Yeah. It baffled me to have thousands of dollars of flower arrangements. I was like, no, I'm going to go to Trader Joe's and get like little bouquets of flowers and put them in bud vases. And that's what we did. But having three outfits, whatever the opposite of baffle is, that's what it did to me.0.99
00:51:18.960I think it really depends on your personality because I too would like, I love an outfit. And it would be, there's so few opportunities in my current life to like wear those three outfits. And then also the point and going to Julia's question about like why people have a second outfit, especially for the reception. I think a lot of it is like, do you want to dance?
00:51:44.100If you don't want to dance, whatever. But a lot of people want to really go after it. They envision their reception not as demurely going from table to table saying hi to every single person that came and maybe stuffing a piece of steak in your mouth. They see it as like, I'm going to shovel the food in and then I'm going to dance for literally four hours. That is my dream.
00:52:05.960yeah so our situation was the dinner was like the main event it was like a bacchanal um i have a
00:52:14.280magician friend who did a magic show during the dinner you're like never speak to me but okay
00:52:21.760the thing that i've noticed as you've talked about all of this stuff though
00:52:25.060and what i think people should like internalize is each person who did something at your wedding
00:52:30.840was a friend of yours yeah yeah they were part of your community yes and so like there is a real
00:52:36.200difference between like and then I decided I wanted a magician and so I had to outsource
00:52:41.360finding a magician and then there was this random magician guy doing tricks in the court you know
00:52:45.600what I mean like this is special to incorporate his skills into your party exactly no it was it
00:52:51.860was so so special um but the movement like being constricted and wedding dresses a lot of the
00:52:58.740times are really constricting and so i think people want to strip that off and whatever have
00:53:02.680like a looser outfit but that maybe wouldn't look formal enough for the ceremony but i could not
00:53:08.860endorse enough just not getting a wedding dress like there are yeah yeah you can thrift and then
00:53:14.460spend all that money to alter it to your specifications and taste um you can you can
00:53:21.140just get like a white non-wedding gown and again just spend the money on altering it um and you'll
00:53:27.840still end up spending way way less i yeah i could not recommend enough just not getting a like build
00:53:34.300wedding dress well and also like i even look at anthropology has like a wedding arm or j crew has
00:53:39.800a wedding arm and like the way that the cost goes up just because it's like placed into the wedding
00:53:46.080section is phenomenal like totally find a dress that you love and wear that dress yeah i love i
00:53:52.660loved wearing pink and having everyone else wear white and even even and I keep saying dress find
00:53:59.340an outfit that you love like it could be does not have to be a dress yeah you could wear a cape
00:54:04.240and bloomers if you really want okay I'm gonna use this as our final question because it's very
00:54:12.420astute and I think will give us something to think about as we try to wrap up this comes from Anna
00:54:17.660There seems to be an inverse correlation between how much changes in your life from before and after a wedding and how elaborate the bachelor and bachelorette parties have become.
00:54:28.920Four decades ago, a bachelor party was one night typically, and a bachelorette was maybe a lingerie gift at your shower or a little lingerie shower once the older relatives left your bridal shower.
00:54:41.240And at that time, you probably were celebrating the loss of quote unquote freedom in a meaningful way.
00:54:46.700You might not have been living together before you got married. You probably still had separate
00:54:51.760bank accounts, etc. Now, bachelor and bachelorette parties are so often very elaborate vacations,
00:54:58.040but what they are marking, the last-ditch party before the big change of the wedding,
00:55:02.580is actually very insignificant. Most people I know who have these parties are already living
00:55:07.560together, sharing finances, going on vacations together, and so on. Often, there isn't even a
00:55:14.560name change involved after the wedding? Is there something to this inverse correlation,
00:55:19.420or is the answer just that everything that can be photographed has gotten more intense?
00:55:27.220Both, yes. So I looked into this somewhat carefully because I did an episode of my
00:55:33.680podcast, Sounds Like a Cult, on the cult of bachelorette parties, for which I interviewed
00:55:37.860this sociologist that I keep referencing Beth Montemurro and she talked about how um so the
00:55:45.280bachelorette party as a phrase and thus like a marketable concept didn't really come about until
00:55:51.740the early 1980s the bachelor party is older and that was more of this like last hurrah before you
00:56:01.960lock it down with the ball and chain that wouldn't make sense in the days of yore for a woman because0.74
00:56:07.720like uh there was nothing to sacrifice she was like finally fulfilling her life's purpose by1.00
00:56:12.580becoming a bribe right and then and also like no understanding that like a woman could go out and0.90
00:56:19.120like have a party of sexual liberation yeah no hell no no no no um and then once you know 1970s1.00
00:56:27.180happened women's liberation sexual revolution blah blah blah um and then of course the economic0.59
00:56:32.520boom of the 1980s then women started kind of parodying and parroting what had become traditional0.92
00:56:42.540for a bachelor party by throwing a kind of ridiculous extravagant event of their own1.00
00:56:49.640with like penis straws and last dick forever and da da da which is obviously like a joke0.99
00:56:55.740um it was like it's like it's like making fun of men um right but also not necessarily it's0.99
00:57:07.580in the pursuit of making fun of men it's also maybe not the most authentic way of like celebrating
00:57:14.700friendship which was ultimately through Beth Montemoreau's studies what what bachelorette
00:57:19.900parties were really about it's like you know I actually I have a friend whose um whose wedding
00:57:24.720i attended last year and she threw a bachelorette party at the madonna inn in california which i
00:57:31.540don't know if you know what that is but um no it's this amazing hotel with all these themed rooms
00:57:36.600it's just the pinnacle of kitsch and it's just a great place for a bachelorette party i was like
00:57:41.840damn it that's so good but she said that she felt like she got she had just gotten married to all
00:57:46.440her friends and so it's just like it's an opportunity to celebrate like the other loves0.99
00:57:51.900of your life um but yeah I mean uh women are just like able to that women women are more liberated
00:58:01.580now and so we're able to and you know more financially independent than we've ever been
00:58:06.800and so yeah we can throw like our our big ass bachelorette party to celebrate our friends
00:58:11.640um and you know weddings and marriage don't change our identities quite as much um and so yeah there
00:58:19.100is an inverse correlation and bachelorette culture and aesthetics are also heavily influenced by
00:58:26.660pinterest and social media both and so smart and i think also might help us reframe some of what
00:58:35.300i don't know just the general denigration of bachelorette parties for me i think the ones
00:58:40.600that are the best and like how i'd love to just recently to recenter the friendship part right
00:58:47.440when they get annoying is when it's actually just a group of like you're like I have to invite all
00:58:52.580these people and like they're actually they kind of hate each other or like travel in very different
00:58:57.160ways or you know what I mean like and then you turn it into this event and someone else is planning
00:59:02.260and everyone gets mad at each other and it's super expensive like the ones that I have loved have
00:59:08.260just been like let's go hang out for a weekend and I think that is why they have become so
00:59:13.220significant is because with what I call calendar culture where everyone in their 30s is just like
00:59:18.780nope busy this weekend can we like push bump this to six months from now like when can anyone get
00:59:24.280their schedules together a bachelor or bachelorette party trumps other things in a way that is
00:59:30.820socially acceptable so I into my mind I just wish that we could be like I want to hang out with my
00:59:38.000friends and it's okay to go someplace with them. You know what I mean? Exactly. Yeah. But for some
00:59:43.740reason we need this kind of like fascistic, like if you don't go to my bachelorette party.0.98
00:59:51.340And everyone has to wear the same shirt and like have the same penis hat. I know. Again,0.98
00:59:56.740I keep talking about the events that I threw for my like general wedding season, but I really did0.72
01:00:01.180love them um i had like the gayest like the queerest bachelorette party ever um there was
01:00:08.320not one straight person there it what we did it in new orleans where my mom is from and like oh it
01:00:14.180was so me it was it was totally over the top we like dressed like witches and i don't even know
01:00:20.760it we went to an event called um uh pitties and titties which was a burlesque in a dog park
01:00:26.840but again this sounds like a party i would like to go to right and also one that didn't feel like
01:00:35.120compulsory like you're like and i guess i'm going to spend a thousand dollars on this bachelorette
01:00:41.080party when for this shirt that i'm never gonna wear again yeah like oh i gotta go i gotta go to0.59
01:00:47.240pitties and titties yeah and i i pay i paid for our lodging because i was like i want this like
01:00:55.160i want this fancy airbnb and i'm not gonna make like my artist friends pay for this like i'm gonna0.98
01:01:00.240fucking pay for this um and i mean it was not cheap for anyone like let me be clear but but uh0.58
01:01:06.300but yeah i was just like this is what i want and i don't want to make that other people's problem0.98
01:01:10.380um but it was also it was also really sweet it was like a it you know my my friends
01:01:17.000care about my partnership with with Casey and um we did this like beautiful ritual where like
01:01:25.460uh they each you know wrote down kind of like a well wish for our partnership and like we did you
01:01:32.600know a little cheeky like mystical thing with it and they like pasted them in this in this um
01:01:38.660little booklet that they made with like a moon and me and Casey on it it was just like it was
01:01:42.400so corny but it was so it was so sweet it was just um it felt like my friends being like we're
01:01:48.280gonna send you on your way into this like new phase of your partnership I just I loved it
01:01:52.560well and this I think gets kind of brings us full circle both in terms of like if something sounds
01:01:58.840bonkers to you don't do it um like if you don't want a bachelorette party no one has to throw you
01:02:03.780one if you if a bachelorette party that's a sleepover at your house sounds awesome do that0.99
01:02:08.880If you want to do pitties and titties, also awesome. But also the re-ritualization. Religion used to be the way that all of us made sense of our lives. And we have lost a lot of that. Not everyone, but many people have lost that as the primary way that we understand the way we go through the world.
01:02:32.660And so how do you re-ritualize, add meaningful communication, like all of these different things, things that stick with you and make like demarcate something? Like you can figure out what that is. It doesn't have to be timeless. It can be anything that you want.
01:02:50.640And, yeah, I think, like, going through all of these questions, I just really think the more that you spend time contemplating, discerning what's really important to you, and maybe that's not having a wedding, whatever it is, listen to, like, actually listen to what's going on in your head and your partner's head, like, together.
01:03:11.220what do you envision the experience that you want to have being like what you're like your parents
01:03:18.720you're like everyone's experience like what do you want them to leave feeling like yeah I totally
01:03:24.360agree I um what what gave me these cringetastic feelings about wedding culture I think was
01:03:33.820ultimately connected to the fact that for women a wedding used to be this like rigid thing that
01:03:44.320you had to do because you had to get married in order to be like seen as valuable in society
01:03:49.260and now they're framed as this extravagant thing that you'd be crazy not to want to do
01:03:57.140Right. And I don't I don't like either of those options. Yeah. And consumerism replaced religion so smoothly as the generations went by as the kind of justification for why we do this that and I don't that I didn't even like notice why I was creeped out by the whole thing.
01:04:20.420but at the end of the day yeah I think the wedding planning process really showed me and Casey like
01:04:31.180a new way of collaborating on something yeah and that was really positive for us but if I
01:04:39.980had a different personality I would love to know what my life would be like in general
01:04:44.740but that's that's life's glorious tapestry right is that we all get to have a different personality
01:04:54.980yeah indeed amanda you have a new paperback out yeah yes um my third book the age of magical
01:05:06.040overthinking is newly out in paperback um I I do talk a little bit actually about um
01:05:14.260some misconceptions that I held about wedding traditions in a certain chapter of that book
01:05:19.700where um I uh I believed this stupid piece of misinformation about the origin of the bridal
01:05:27.560bouquet um because I read it literally in every source um and I was just like yeah sure that's0.96
01:05:35.300that seems true even though I felt in my bones it wasn't and then a medievalist corrected me
01:05:39.380but um I was just like why why do I believe things that I know in my bones can't be true
01:05:46.160just because I like read them multiple times and um that has to do with a cognitive bias called
01:05:51.760the illusory truth effect but anyway the book uh the book investigates um different types of
01:05:58.160modern irrationality from the zeitgeist and my own personal life through the lens of cognitive
01:06:02.460biases and it was a delight for it it's fantastic and i will put it links to all different places
01:06:09.560to buy it in the show notes and where can people find you if they want to find more of you on the
01:06:13.280internet well if you want to see my wedding photos you can find them on my instagram at
01:06:18.660amanda underscore montel uh and i have a couple of podcasts um and helen peterson was a guest on
01:06:27.060our episode on the cult of trad wives on my podcast sounds like a cult i also have a podcast