A Day To Remember Forever - On Film
The Age
Sunday July 3, 1994
The wind is bitterly cold yet new bride, Anne Stone, will not be deterred. She is posing, twisting and bending to the hand of the photographer and video maker because she wants her ``traditional" dream wedding recorded.
Like her, hundreds of others visit ideal wedding-shoot locations in Melbourne - the steps of Parliament House, St Kilda Pier, the Botanic Gardens and Southgate every Saturday and Sunday to record their dream come true on film.
They wear the obligatory white wedding gown, veil, and carry bouquets.
Their bridesmaids follow them. They arrive in flash hired cars. All this to be about $20,000 poorer the next day.
Are these brides all slaves to consumerism? Dr Stephen Mugford, a reader in sociology at the Australian National University, says the pinnacle of consumerism is having a video made of the wedding.
``The most antithetical thing to tradition is the video. So the traditional wedding isn't traditional. It is, in fact, a simulation of the traditional wedding. It's about the external appearance, not the internal meaning.
``What is important about traditional weddings today is the perfection of reproducing the perfect shell. The whole thing must be rehearsed and rehearsed."
Dr Mugford says the video and photos dominate to such an extent that couples choose a church because it will be the most photogenic. They might find a fabulous place for the reception and find that they don't go there because the video operator says the light is bad.
In her paper on the consumption of weddings, Ms Sarah Mugford wrote that weddings were about recreating history which was bigger and better than the original event. She used the extreme example of a British woman who restaged her daughter's wedding because the video did not work on the original day.
(Ms Mugford, an honors sociology student at the ANU was asked to write the paper by her father, Dr Mugford, because he was paying for her ``traditional" wedding!) Dr Mugford says weddings are now about spending lots of money on ``producing an expensive reproduction" where the viewer is more important than the wedding couple.
Tradition is abandoned, for example, by the photographer demanding that the bride and groom stand while the guests sit and toast them - a reversal of the traditional practice.
A survey by Ms Mugford shows that weddings cost between $10,000 and $30,000. The video alone, can cost between $1000 and $4000.
Weddings, says Ms Mugford, are a ``golden opportunity to gain status as they are events that involve conspicuous consumption, providing many opportunities to prove one's position in the community".
She says an analysis of sociological writings on consumption shows that since the 1970s the working classes have begun to take part in the consumption of weddings. The poorer have joined the rich at the wedding status game, feeling a need to try to improve their social status through big weddings.
Status is maintained or developed through the memories of the guests, says Ms Mugford.
Ms Stone agrees to an extent, but, for her, the most important factor is fulfilling a life-long dream. ``I like the look of the traditional wedding more than the religious meaning. I've wanted one all my life ... that's really why we're having one."
© 1994 The Age