Why Can’t We Quit Weddings?

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I watched the wedding planner last night.

Just I was like, oh, I'm tired.

Oh my God.

I'm so.

Can we talk about it?

Because, you know, it's like, I know that movie like the back of my hand.

I I mean, I love J-Lo, but like, I have not dipped into a rom-com from that era, I guess.

Every moment of it felt kind of like manufactured and awkward to me.

Oh, it's so, I mean, completely.

That era is like the era of the cultural stereotype.

Like, it's just the worst of shorthands, like one trope after another.

Although there's a great line when the boss of her little wedding planning operation is like, I've done things no innocent planner should ever do.

Right.

I did think of you when I heard that line.

Right.

It's a a good line.

That's actually a good line.

I'm Hannah Rosen.

This is Radio Atlantic.

If you're getting married this summer, I pity you.

Not because of the marriage.

I'm sure that will be fine.

But because of the wedding.

Social media seems to have totally changed the game for the average couple.

Every wedding is now supposed to look like a luxury wedding, and yet somehow cost a lot less than an actual luxury wedding.

But the weirdest thing for me is that weddings still exist at all.

Marriage is totally different than it used to be.

Women's roles are totally different.

And yet the wedding just keeps on getting more wedding-y.

Why do we keep innovating and improving on what is basically an artifact from the early 19th century?

And so, because surely some of you out there are attending a wedding or 15 this summer, we are going to talk about weddings with someone who has lived through many, many of them.

Atlantic writer Sochiel Gonzalez.

She just wrote a confessional for the magazine about her years running a luxury wedding planning business.

And before that, she wrote an exceptional novel called Olga Dies Dreaming about a wedding planner that was way more intense about the class and race dynamics of the American luxury wedding than the Jennifer Lopez movie.

Why do we have to mention that movie?

Hi, Sochiel.

Hi.

It's so nice to talk to you.

Yeah, it's nice to talk to you.

So I wanted to go back to a time when you were first starting out planning luxury weddings.

What year was that?

It was 2003 when I started, but I should say you kind of have to work, unless, I always say, unless your name is Bronson Van Wick, who's a real person who's extremely successful, and you have that kind of name where like it's like, oh, Bronson Van Wick.

I think you have to sort of work your way up the ranks.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, like in the movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And like, so it probably took us maybe two or three years before we were really doing luxury wedding, which at that time was probably anything over 75 was considered luxury.

And then you get into like ultra-luxury, which then was probably anything over a quarter of a million dollars, which I know sounds like a lot.

And to my jaded wedding planning eyes, it's like, yeah, it doesn't get you that far.

Oh my God.

All right.

So let's say around 2005,

you start planning some serious weddings.

Yes.

What is the first request someone made of you that you were like, oh, okay, okay, okay.

I mean, then I'm going to say that it was, it was relatively reasonable, right?

Like it was like, could you get me this celebrity singer to come to the wedding?

Like, I want every table to have like an ice sculpture with the flower arrangement frozen inside of it.

You know, like, it was like just weird stuff that they maybe had seen in a magazine or like, this is the dawn of like sort of wedding TV that they might have seen on wedding television.

Like everything was very celebrity and upscale emulating.

Like, you know, at the time, Preston Bailey was like the pinnacle of like weddings.

And he was doing this thing where he would make animals out of flowers.

So like an eight foot tall bear made out of orchids, you know, kind of thing.

And so people would be like, could I have like little animals made out of roses?

So it wasn't that creative in the beginning.

And then as it went on, you started to get like weird gag things like, I want to bring up this pony during a toast.

Or you'd be like, I had somebody that was like, I want to have tattoos set up at the after party so that my granny can get a tat at my wedding, right?

Like, and so like you have like a remote tattoo artist coming into town.

And then the first area, though, that I'd say where things started to get unusual really was the ceremony.

We had a couple that was like, you have to fly this monk in from Tibet.

And then you have to help our rabbi get a visa because we need this one particular rabbi because he was like famous for being like the first gay rabbi in a particular denomination we had one couple that didn't want to leave like a carbon footprint for their ceremony that was a big deal at one point was like nobody wanted to leave a carbon footprint so we used real trees that then we had to find a place to replant them so you know

i have to stop you and say like this is insane i mean this is not what i was expecting like i thought it would be like a cute little story and it's no it's like fly a buddhist in from some town transplant trees i mean this is this is like the things that you have seen are extra i mean what was the thought going through your head like when somebody calls you and they're like i would like a buddhist flown in from a different country what is going through your head well i think what the crazier part is in is like it was kind of a frog boil so i always feel like i don't actually do that well with these questions because at the time you just were like oh okay of course because like the week before you had just gotten a slightly less crazy request so they just sort of kept escalating and you're like well obviously we've got to get the monk from Tibet here and then you know it was like and you're like well is he willing to fly commercial that would be like that's like your first question it's like well is he willing to fly commercial oh my god or do we need

I could hear that in your voice I could hear in your voice that you were lapsing into normal mode where it's just like sure I'll do this and I'll do that and I'll do that like you as you're telling me I'm realizing how otherworldly this is but for you it just registers it's another thing on your checklist Yeah, it was like, I think that the hardest part about writing about it is sometimes recognizing when things were strange.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Yes.

Yes.

Like that's probably like you're like, wait, okay, that was strange.

Now that I'm away from it, I can see how that was strange.

Right.

So what I understand was at first the wedding requests were derivative because there were a lot of wedding magazines.

And so people just saw.

what other people had and they wanted those things.

Totally.

And you had like more wedding magazines, which I think is so hard for people to even wrap their heads around.

But like there was inside weddings, in-style weddings, like Modern Bride, and then you had The Knot.

And then you had Martha Stewart.

And then you had, you know, you had regional versions.

Like, so you would have brides, and then you'd have New York Bride, and you have The Knot, and then you'd have New York tri-state area knot.

You just had

so much bridal content on newsstands.

And then 06, 07, you start getting blogs.

So now you've got digital media.

Then you've got print media still happening.

You have books.

You had Pinterest.

You could be doing wedding stuff.

You could be watching a wedding movie.

You could be going crazy on blogs all night.

You could be reading magazines on the subway on your way to work, to and from work.

You could be buying advice books and etiquette books and like design books.

Like you could spend a small fortune just on bridal media.

I mean, there really was a wedding industrial complex.

That's not like a made-up term.

Yeah.

No, it was, you know, I think that

there was a rebellion against the quote-unquote traditional wedding, right?

Like there was this like overtaking of how can I make this feel like only we would have this wedding, right?

And so like, I think that there was like a chicken and the egg.

Like blogs came about and kind of really

drove that because suddenly you don't have like, it's not Darcy Millerette, Martha Stewart determining whether or not this is good enough to be in print, right?

Like it's like, I need content to go up like 10 times a day, right, on this blog.

And so you were sort of like, like, well, what are we going to do?

Like, you know, we did this one thing and it was like pinwheels and calico prints, you know, like that was like,

and I think that was like one of the first weddings.

It was like a phase.

I call it the bunting years, like where everybody had bunting everywhere.

And like, we were like sort of like pioneers in bunting.

And I'm obviously quite proud of that.

Like, yes, I know.

Really, I was very, very proud of that.

And that wedding, I remember, again, I was so proud of this.

We had custom-made yarmulcas in denim and calico.

It was so cute.

It was very cute.

It It was very cute.

But, like, you know, I think what ends up happening is the oughts, the era when I got into it was sort of an era of growing flash.

And it just kind of kept increasing and increasing and increasing throughout that decade until the recession.

And then we sort of merged into like weird.

I don't want to say that it was quiet luxury, but it was, it was a, it was more whispered.

It was spent, it was, it was quirky luxury, quirky luxury.

And so before the recession, finance was a bigger section of the luxury wedding market, but not necessarily people with inherited wealth.

You know, like they're probably middle-class people that ended up going to business school and, you know, they're spending their golden money on a wedding.

And they wanted to have nice weddings that would impress their friends.

And then after the recession, what happened was almost all.

the clientele in the luxury sector shifted to people with inherited wealth.

So like they may have done well themselves, but their parents had also done very well.

And that was who then felt comfortable.

I think after this giant shakeup in the economy, these are the people that still felt comfortable spending that kind of money, but they didn't want people to know they were spending that kind of money.

So you start to get that like twee aesthetic where everything's super custom, but at the same time, it's not the plaza with orchids splattered all over the walls, right?

Like it's like flowers grown on a farm that only grew these flowers for your wedding, right?

Like,

like, I mean, we did, I think we did the very first wedding that Roberta's ever catered, and we had to bring up all of their pizza ovens.

And like, you know, it sounds really casual, right?

You're like, Robertas is catering to my wedding.

And then it's like, no, they've never catered anything before.

And we're basically recreating their kitchen in a field.

So it's actually not cheap at all.

But the couple wanted to be able to tell people, Robertas is doing my catering.

Oh, my God.

Right.

We should say, by the way, Roberta's is a famous hipster pizza place in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Anyway, so what are you learning about the ultra-wealthy as you're going through this?

Because it sounds like they they go through eras.

There's one era of conspicuous consumption, moves into the next era of understated elegance.

I mean, we like to flatten the motivations and desires of the ultra-rich, but what do you think they wanted?

I mean, partly

it's to get into a magazine or a blog or sort of be seen as being a majority of the people.

Yeah, I would say that that I think is a more middle-class desire, to be honest.

I think that the ultra-rich are much more content with like the people that were there seeing it.

And you know, now I'm, there's like a bit of social media, but like there's a remarkable amount of privacy around this stuff.

And especially, I'd say that trend has even increased since I've left in talking to different people still in the business that are working with, you know, when I say ultra luxury, I'm saying like two, three, four million dollars on a wedding.

Like there is a desire to not necessarily have every single thing sprawled over and the sense that that makes it more exclusive to the people that were there.

Exclusivity is a big thing.

It's probably part of the reason why you see so many very wealthy people having like tent weddings because they want to go to a location that nobody has gone to before, right?

So maybe that's like you're housed at a hotel, but you're going to be down by a lake that no one's ever used for a wedding before.

Like exclusivity and rarity and giving guests access to that is a big part of what I think the ultra-wealthy are trying to achieve with their weddings.

Got it.

So for the ultra-wealthy, it's an air of mystery,

specificity, exclusivity.

And then how does that filter down to

everyone else?

So what will happen is, and I spoke with this wonderful photographer, Alan Zapeda, and he was telling me, he's like, the number one thing that I now do, and he charges, I think, around $40,000 and $50,000 for a wedding weekend.

And he's like, the number one thing I have to do is get like 10 or 12 images ready to put on social media.

So it's not that they're not sharing, it's just that they're sharing very selectively.

So what happens is like these will go out.

And in the olden days, maybe a wedding would go in a magazine.

Like, you know, you might see, let's say, you know, Chelsea Clinton's wedding, right?

And people then might do an interview with the person who planned it, Brian Raffinelli.

And Brian will say, like, oh, here's a way to get Chelsea's look for less.

And, you know, he'll do like a little editorial thing.

What happens now is that people see this on social media and it's given without any context, right?

So like you see, you know, let's say Kim and I'm thinking of a famous image, like Kim and Kanye's floral wall.

Like you see it in a magazine.

It's like, how to get that look for less?

And like, do it it with carnations.

You know, like it's like it was done with like roses and orchids, like whatever.

And now you end up just seeing it with no context, with no information, with no kind of like quote-unquote wedding education.

And so it creates desire in people that are assumed to be brides and grooms.

And it creates desire without any attachment to knowledge.

Like it's like I could see a Chanel gown and know like, well, that's a very nice gown, but I'm not buying that.

Right.

Like it's like, but there's no sense that this is the Chanel of wedding flowers right

because it's appearing in your feet it feels utterly attainable you're like oh there's a picture of scrolling down my feet

it's like in the next thing you see like your you know your college roommates baby shower it's like it's like it mixed in with content of people that are real life people but then these are not necessarily even people that you exactly know and so I think it it sort of makes a scramble in the brain where it's like, well, I now need to have this because it becomes detached from any reality of the wealth that's supporting that.

But, you know, the mania just keeps transforming and it doesn't change anything for the actual couple.

It makes it worse because at first you have all these standard bearers like the magazines and the central blogs.

And then it just becomes democratized.

And so everybody has to do it for themselves.

So like everybody has to create their own perfect photo shoot.

That's right.

That would have been, say, a bridal magazine photo shoot, but you're expected to somehow do it, create it, and pay for it yourself.

Yeah.

You know, I'd written a piece about this like ages ago about my bra fitter, like the lady where I buy my bras on Atlantic Avenue.

And like, this woman's been in bras for 40 years, right?

Like, and I was like, I go to her because she's an expert.

And I think what has happened in the democratization of imagery, because it's not really information necessarily, is the demise of expertise.

And I don't know that that's helped people.

I think it's created more confusion.

I think that there's not necessarily reliable sources to even know what to ask.

So I always am curious, like in that sort of middle tier, like how good are those experiences that you're seeing?

And like, I think that people are performing, you know, on Instagram and taking out money for the things that are going to get them attention on the gram or doing, you know, to spend money on choreography so that you can do a choreographed dance.

It'll get you hits on TikTok.

Like, I wonder what these guests are eating.

Like, I wonder what they're drinking.

Like, you know, like, I wonder what the experience is on the other side.

And I wonder how much people care.

Right.

Because you have to skimp somewhere.

Right.

And that's also the stuff that like really costs the most, right?

Is like giving like a very nice meal, making sure people have transportation to and from like the ceremony back to the reception, back to the hotel after they've been drinking all night.

Like that's the stuff that starts to really add up, but you don't see that on the gram, right?

And so I don't know if that's where the money's going.

After the break, we check in with a bespoke pyrotechnics expert on how to give your wedding the grand entrance of your dreams.

Just kidding.

We're actually going to discuss why we can't seem to quit the ever bigger, ever fancier, and ever more expensive wedding.

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So we've talked about how couples see these luxury weddings on Instagram, and then how does that have real effects on their typical wedding?

So I think it sort of trickles down and then people want, you know, I discovered, like, this did not exist when I was still in the business, but two kind of cottage industries have come up.

Wedding styling, you know, like in terms of like the way you think of a stylist that's going to get you ready for a runway if you're a celebrity.

Wedding styling has been around for maybe like 20 years or so, but it was like a very exclusive service, right?

Like it was really for the upper tier of the market.

What is wedding?

When you say wedding styling, I just think someone comes in and does your hair, but you must mean something more seriously.

So this is like, I'm going to help you find the dress, the shoes, the accessory.

Now it's expanded to the look that's going to coordinate that for your engagement photos, for the rehearsal dinner.

What are you going to wear for the day after brunch?

Like if you have like an excursion during your wedding weekend, what are you going to wear for that?

Like, so it's like a whole series of quote-unquote bridal looks.

And then the other...

little strange thing that I wasn't expecting at all is social media professionals to come and sort of document your wedding specifically for social media.

So they will like be be on TikTok.

They'll be making reels.

They'll be posting up select photos like in real time.

And one of the services will quote unquote develop a strategy for your wedding.

And like their tagline was, because the day you spent 14 months planning should be seen by the world.

Oh my God.

No.

This is, I mean, this sounds, is this trickle-down luxury?

to you, who's someone inside it, a good thing or a bad thing?

To me, it's very stressful just hearing you lay it out.

I'm really glad I'm not getting married right now.

But what do you think?

To me, I think it's pretty stressful.

Like, I guess I could say I get worried about society, right?

And like what sort of living virtually has done to us in terms of our priorities about like real life versus appearances, if that makes sense.

And so I'm not against weddings.

You know, I had a, I had a relatively.

low budget wedding.

I'm not married anymore, but I never regret having that wedding because, you know, my grandfather walked me down the aisle.

We did the dance.

I have those memories.

I have these great photos of me and my best friends who are still my best friends.

Like I remember, I have these memories of us getting ready together and doing the whole thing.

And I, you know, this is great.

But like, it was not only a different time economically when I did that.

That was around 04 or 05.

But it was also like a different mindset.

And that sense is certainly not pervading the general population of the economy right now.

And so I think that's why I'm sort of shocked.

at the way in which money is getting spent sort of flippantly.

Like more people are taking on on wedding debt now than ever before and through personal loans, too.

Like, it's not even just credit card debt.

It's like taking out personal loans to finance or supplement their weddings at like sometimes up to 30% interest rates.

And I just sort of find that knowing that it's, is it for people's experience?

Is it for the memory or is it for the gram?

And that part makes me a little nervous or uncomfortable, I should say.

Yeah, I'm really confused by why we just cling to this tradition.

Like as you're talking, I'm thinking, has not one single couple just when you were wedding planning, just said, no, like this is not us.

This has nothing to do with our life.

Like we're putting ourselves in ASPIC, like getting this perfect old tradition and to the max, but this is not us and I don't want to do it.

Well, probably self-selected by the people that came in the door, right?

Like I will say I did have one couple.

They called off their wedding because the mom of the bride was so particular and worried about what people thought and how things were going to be perceived.

And they started to bicker.

And they ended up, they were like, we don't want to do this.

This is terrible.

We don't even want to be together anymore.

And they called off the wedding.

And I remember running into them separately, like a year later, you know, they were not together.

And like, I think it's probably the best thing that we did.

The wedding was just too much.

The wedding was just too much.

And then a year after that, like two years later, they ended up just eloping.

They got back together.

They eloped.

Like, and the wedding sort of the desire to have this like perfect wedding that represented quote-unquote them as a couple just was too much.

Like, and it literally, they were like, I can't do it.

But I think it was also money that everybody had.

Right.

So the calculus was different.

I think I'm more,

I'm sort of just disconcerted to a certain extent at like

what is the point of making it a visually stunning event if you know that you're going to be kind of paying that back for forever.

Because you just get one second of.

It's a dopamine hit, right?

Like, yeah.

Well, what do you think?

Like, marriages are so different.

fewer people are getting married women's roles are so different and we keep injecting this one tradition with so much money so much importance like so much perfection it's really odd so you know the wedding in america the way that we think about it right like the white dress and the reception that sort of all emerged in the 50s post-war right like when we had a middle class yeah and it was this kind of way to say here we are as a family right?

Like for the bride's family to be like, we are in the middle class.

And so

the niceness of the wedding was like a...

performative way for your neighbors and your community, your church community, your residential community to see like, oh, okay.

Like look what they were able to do for their daughter.

And there was a certain aspect of like the lady's hurrah, right?

The bride's hurrah of like showing herself off.

And I think what's funny is that as we've been able to sort of let go of like, you know, like the, I think the number of people that anticipate buying a home has like declined right like like we've let go of so many quote-unquote middle-class American aspirations but we haven't been able to let go of the wedding like it's not perceived as a luxury like weddings period are a luxury whether you're in the luxury end of the market or not they are a luxury start to finish but there's something that we have not sort of accepted as a luxury they feel like an entitlement like if you are going to marry and by that i mean legally do it then you should be able like if you are an American and you consider yourself middle class, you should be able to have a nice wedding.

And I think that that's where a lot of the resentment of the cost comes in.

Like it's like, you're stopping me.

You running your business is stopping me from having my nice wedding that I'm entitled to.

And I think that there's a real reluctance to give up the dream.

It's one of the few middle class dreams that I think people don't want to give.

People have given up on college, and I don't think they want to give up on weddings.

But I mean, we have definitely transformed the traditional marriage.

Like if you had a friend who had a very stereotypical 1950s style marriage where the gender roles were very rigidly prescribed, you might be like, what?

Like you'd be confused.

We just don't do that anymore.

Like women's roles are dismantled, but we refuse.

We will not dismantle the proposal, the wedding dress, the wedding.

Like so many things about the wedding are so traditional.

One of the things that I think is probably the funniest to me is that we did a pop-up wedding chapel with the knot the weekend that gay marriage passed in New York.

Okay.

Like, and we had like two or three little ceremony setups.

And I think like 20 couples got married in Central Park that day.

And I remember being like, this is so cute.

Like, this is what wedded, like, this is bad for business.

But I was like, this, wouldn't it be great if this is what people like could, like, if in expanding what marriage, who can get married, we expand what could be a nice wedding.

And then instead, like you fast forward 20 years, and it's just like everybody's just still having these super traditional weddings.

I was gonna say, I've been to many a gay wedding.

No, I was gonna say, like, I feel like I've been like the gay weddings that I've been to have been just as, if not more elaborate, right, than any of the hetero weddings.

So, I almost think that it's hilarious that when you think about the total deconstruct of like that 1950s stereotype of what a marriage is, like, we still can't get away from the wedding.

And I think it's got got romance attached to it.

And I think there is sort of this idea, again, of like, instead of it being like the right to,

in a funny way, it is not the right to live together in relationship.

And like, you know, it's that great Sondheim song like about marriage.

Like, you know, it's the little things you do together.

Like, it's not about that part.

It's literally about the right to have a wedding.

Yeah.

I mean,

it's like the fight for your right to party, like literally.

Like, and so I think that some, in some ways, we've conflated like a good wedding with good marriage and i do think we've become obsessed in this country with celebrity and i think it's sort of a performative way to now have bulls you know show off some class status but more than anything i think people are like it's a way to sort of have celebrity for a day like a you know attainable celebrity for a day so in the way that you'd want to you used to want to be a princess for the yeah for the day or royalty for yes now you're like a kardashian for the day right like right like and what does that come with it comes with luxury you know it comes with designer clothes it comes with you know a glam squad it comes with a camera following you around the entire day it comes with all these things and like people don't want to give that up so it's it's a tiny version of celebrity

I think what's funny to me when I kept thinking about it is I was like people will sit and like hem and haw about like oh can we afford to get a car can we afford to do this like can we afford to like send our kid to this school like and in the meantime like they'll be like for no hands down just like borrow $50,000.

Let's have this wedding.

You know, in the Jennifer Lopez movie, which I just re-watched last night, she herself is chasing the dream.

Like she wants to have her own wedding.

And in your novel, Olga Dies Dreaming, which I loved.

Olga ends up with a guy and there's no wedding in sight.

And she seems like way more herself.

Is there some message I'm supposed to read into that?

Like just forget the wedding?

Like what's your, what's your, where did you land?

Because you wrote this novel when you've essentially exited wedding planning.

Yes.

Yes.

I'd exited.

And, you know, I think she was commitment phobic in the beginning of the novel and ends up with somebody, but she's got like serious commitment issues.

And I think I've landed on the relationship is so much more important than the performance of the relationship.

I love a good party.

You know, I think if you've got the cash, like who doesn't love a good party?

But I don't know that the wedding has to be the reason for the party, right?

Like a party for no reason is also kind of fun.

So skip the wedding, just have a party.

That's your mantra now.

Yeah.

I still support parties.

Yeah, you're pro party.

Okay, well, you are working on a new novel.

There's going to be a cover reveal soon.

Is there anything else you want to say about it?

Oh, it's about...

power and creative couples.

And it's a first-generation art history student in an Ivy League school who discovers a forgotten female genius artist who was murdered by her husband 20 years before.

And I'm very excited about it.

It's a little bit of a mystery.

It's a little bit of a campus novel.

It's a little ghosty.

And it's called Anita DeMonte Laughs Last.

Ooh, amazing.

Can't wait.

Thank you, Sochill, for joining us today.

Thank you.

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Theo Balcombe.

It was engineered by Rob Smirziak and fact-checked by Yvonne Kim.

Our executive producer is Claudine Abade.

Thank you to managing editor Andrea Valdez and executive editor Adrienne LaFrance.

If you like this episode, leave us a review wherever you're listening.

We would really appreciate it.

I'm Hannah Rosen, and we'll be back with a new episode every Thursday.