Why Wedding Ceremony is Such a Big Event?

Wedding Jester

Being to ask to marry or just be in the wedding is a great honor, most specifically in part of women. The bride and the bridesmaid are all busy, rolling their sleeves up and matching the clothes to the shoes, choosing wedding paraphernalia, and trusting the wedding planners and magazines for the important details – whether big or small. All in all, wedding is an important part of a woman’s life. There are so many plans to do and to avoid making the grand event perfect. Mostly, the woman are the one who manage the wedding preparation even though, she already hired a wedding expert. Woman wants the details to be polished and counting days leading to her grand entourage.

The Wedding Tradition

For the past decades, the society already witnessed many unique wedding ceremonies. Some couples dreamed to make their wedding experience lasts for a lifetime and explore the different wedding opportunities, while others stick to the traditional customs of wedding ceremonies. Weddings, for all over the world, have their own characteristics, meanings, symbols, and even reasons. The tradition of wedding does not only encompassed the union of two individuals but also the commitment they promised on each other. Wedding is frequently seen as the rite of passage for the adults. Many families chose to make the wedding ceremony be the big event and spending sums for clothes and dresses and receptions, even if the event will just take few hours. For the couples who planned to get marry, the blessing of their church remains important.

In customary actions, the bride is the center of attention, the exchange occurs between the father’s bride and the man to be her husband; the ring is a remnant of bride’s price; the whit gown symbolizes the virginity and the throwing of rice is fertility. These customs are still interpreted in the modern era and with an indication that both husband and woman will live in prosperity.

As a sacred union of life, the wedding became the subject of modernization and preserving the essential values. From the past literatures and histories, wedding ceremonies remains a big event because it is only passed once in a lifetime. Others tell that it is the miracle of love and the modern couple should not forget the essence of marriage. In reality, most of the couples that undergo in this kind of transition, thinks their wedding to be simple yet solemn. It’s only their parents and other adults that push them to bring their wedding in Guinness. A great and big wedding will surely the topic for a month and then forgot afterwards, which is ironic because people spend much money on it even in times where financial crisis kicks in.

Aside from the fact that the couple wants it to be worth remembering, another reason why the wedding ceremony is a big event is the presence of the social connections. If a bride saw another wedding ceremony and she turned to her partner, of course, she’s putting a pressure on her partner. The tendency is to make their wedding same as the one she saw or as much as possible, more than what she saw – all because he loves her.

Another is the influence that the wedding planners and bridal magazines that contributes in their out of control in spending. They cause financial stress and they really contribute to make the wedding ceremony superfluous. Couples and their families spend more than they anticipated. Given the fact, that there are specialized books and magazines to guide the brides and the grooms, as a wedding vehicle, they only show the best of the best options.

Wedding and Social Anthropology

The changes in wedding rituals started from the 1930s and adopted in the present. The attitudes in the creation in these changes also became the social distinction within the society. The choice of wedding celebrations depends on the idea perception of the individuals involve in the ceremony. The culture justifies the similarities and differences of traditions within the study of social anthropology. As the classical “rites of passage”, the wedding ceremonies became the key by which children were incorporated into adult status.

Weddings, for Argyrou, are potlatches which is popular among the Native American. This is the ceremony of feasting in which the host gains prestige by giving gifts or, sometimes, destroying wealth. This tradition is also depicted in the books of Odyssey by Homer, where the suitors of Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus and wait for his homecoming, feasted all their wealth and they will stop if Penelope chose her next husband.

On the view of Argyrou, the wedding practices were shifted the power relations between generations. As the continuous rise of universal education and employment, the fathers lost their power over the resources and the absolute power to make decisions for children. The wedding became less important as a marker of adulthood because children prioritized other things such as schools and jobs. Moreover, Argyrou claims that the pace of the local beliefs about the wedding and its practices did not diminished from an everyday affair to its current one-day celebration because of economic or other concerns, but because it no longer had such a crucial role to play as a rite of passage.

Works Consulted:

Charsley, S., 1999. Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle – By Vassos Argyrou. Journal of Social Anthropology, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 93-113 [Online] Available at: www.assets.cambridge.org/97805215/.../toc/9780521560955_toc.pdf. [Accessed 10 Dec 2009].

Currie, D., 1993. “Here Comes the Bride”: The Making of a “Modern Traditional” Wedding in Western culture. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3

Sutton, D., 1997. Review of Argyrou, Vassos, Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle. H-SAE, H-Net Reviews. [Online] Available at: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=1101. [Accessed 10 Dec 2009].