I think your story about the waitress and her dress is very sweet, Del. Half of all American marriages fail, and no studies that I am aware of have noted any difference at all based on what kind of dress you had, or how much the whole thing cost.
Historically, in most cultures everyone just showed up in the very nicest clothes they had. This idea of everything matching, and being custom-mad, seems very artificial, wasteful, and is quite recent, besides. I do know that the fantasies of a beautiful wedding in a splendid white dress are quite pervasive, however, having had them myself. It is almost like a fairy-tale dream. My own daughter started buying brides' magazines several years ago, and reads them over and over again. It seems to be the next developmental step after the girls are too old to play with their Barbies, in fact. |
