My friend got married a couple of weeks ago, and today I was looking at the pictures on the web. You know those photographers that take twenty zillion pictures and put them all on the web and then you choose what to buy? Like that.
So, there are all the posed pictures (groom with best man, bride with mother, bride with father, groom with children from previous marriage…) and there are pictures of the ceremony, of the first dance, of the reception, and then there are pictures of…stuff.
There’s a close-up of the dress; just a big picture of some of the detail work on the buttons and beading. There’s a picture of the flower petals that were given out to throw at the couple instead of rice. A picture of a table setting, a picture of the cake. And at first I was thinking, these were nice memories, these were nice keepsakes. But it went on; more gown closeups, the veil, the tiara, and finally…the shoes.
Not with feet in them, mind you. Just the shoes. A full size, extra large shot of white satin shoes with rhinestone buckle. I believe you could read the brand name still embossed on the insole. This is when I understood.
It’s a fetish.
This is the fetishization of marriage. This is the creation of the much touted “Bridezilla” This is the selling of the idea that the stuff is the point of it all. Oh, sure, nice groom, let’s look at the shoes.
The wedding industry wants you to spend, spend, spend. On stuff you’ll only wear once, do once, look at once, but fetishize forfuckingever. The photographer, in this case, was just one participant. (As far as I know, the crazyass end of this didn’t apply to this particular bride. At least, not that her husband mentioned.)
In order for the megalithic bridal industry (gowns, shoes, beauty treatments, catering, music, flowers, printers, reception halls…need I go on?) to keep raking in the profits, it has to keep selling the idea that it’s ABSOLUTELY! NECESSARY! for future happiness.
Part of that is just the old song of making women feel bad about themselves. (And of course, if they take the bait, they still have to feel bad about themselves.)
But part of it is shifting the definition of satisfaction. The industry is built around making love and happiness and good sex and open communication much less important than The Day and (need I add) The Shoes.
The fucking shoes.
But fetishizing an impossibility is just a way of making sure women aren’t good
-AWESOME-
This post is awesome. I went barefoot at my Handfasting.
Thanks.
I don’t know if I’d do the barefoot handfasting thing, should I ever remarry. But I definitely wouldn’t photograph my shoes. And there would be no tiara. Anywhere.
Shoes remind one of Cinderella, but i’m sure you remember when I used to keep a pair of silver shoes in a cage in my living room
I am trying to find the blog post where it said that German women prefer shopping to sex, and one woman specifically said that shoes provided more pleasure and satisfaction.
Which is so so so sad.
I have huge feet — maybe that’s why I don’t get the shoe fetish. Nothing ever fits me.
Anyway, great post.
This is why my guy and I are making nearly everything for our handfasting and keeping it simple, more like a big friends party then anything else. We want to be able to wear our handfasting robes again I don’t get using stuff like that only once. Such a waste.
My sister-in-law got married recently, she was bridzilla, wasn’t even sure if she loved the guy, until he put on a darth vader helmet for the wedding photos and she left him. The phographer was so shocked…
She left him AT THE WEDDING?
Holy shit.
I have no objection to some of the wedding stuff, like the dress, being worn only once. It’s a unique day in life and it is appropriate to mark that. I have no objection to making a fuss if people want to. It’s the STUFF STUFF STUFF obsession that kills me.
Hmmm. I definitely don’t like the Amwerican Wedding Fetish or the Bridezilla thing, but I have plenty of pics of our wedding (over a thousand). And I’m probably one of the few people who will be perfectly happy wearing her wedding dress again – to a Renaissance Fair – since it is based on Leighton’s painting “The Accolade.” And my husband gets plenty of use out of his wedding attire – 12th Century Hospitaller Knight garb. The very last thing we wanted was the Typical American Wedding, but we spent tons of money and took LOTS of pictures. Does that make me a fetishist?
My shoes were cheap satin slippers that I picked up at a dance store. And I changed into boots before we went to the reception. Who can throw axes in ballet shoes?
I used to be a wedding photog and finally got out if it becuase of the whole “this is the happiest day of your life” stuff – especially if the happiest day meant and included the BRIDE beating up the GROOM for not getting the “right” tux and then blaming me for the black eye in the pictures! Yikes! (Yes, there was a fist fight on their wedding day!)
Talk about your bridezillas – this was the mother of them all.
See? This is where it gets crazy. Where there’s an inversion of values.
And we have to recognize that the inversion is manufactured by an industry that profits off of it.
It’s not the pictures that are the fetish, CmdrSue; most people like pictures of special events. It’s the pictures of stuff. It’s Still Life of Bouquet, followed by Still Life of Tiara, followed by Still Life of Beading Detail.
Nice dress. Sleeves must’ve been a bitch with the axe & all.
Eh – it’s a chick thing…….. 😉
I did not wear a tiara at either of my weddings. However, I reserve the right to wear a tiara at any time.
I think it’s a fetish in the sense of magical/superstitious objects… so much of wedding tradition seems to be a series of ritual actions, fraught with omens and hidden meanings. Of course, so much of the hidden meaning is rather obsolete or insulting– especially the fertility charms bestowed on couples who may not plan to have children, and the ostentatious display of wealth where neither bride-price nor dowry nor the husband’s position have much impact on our current concepts of a happy marriage. (Since I have recently been reading some historical biographies, I would say that in the past dowry and other exchanges often did have an impact on the happiness of the marriage– because the implications for family harmony were fairly pronounced.)
The display of the one-time-use dress and all the shoes and the Jordan almonds (almonds being a fertility symbol) are relics. Their meanings are mostly forgotten, and in many cases would be insulting to both bride and groom if remembered.