If you’ve not been in space, you’re probably aware that on the 19th of May, Prince Harry will be marrying Meghan Markle. A large number of Americans are getting up early to catch the wedding, and some will be traveling to London to attend the wedding celebrations.
There will always be people who claim that it doesn’t matter.
But royal weddings do matter. Since the marriage to Queen Victoria with Prince Albert in February. 10 1840, they have shaped the expectations Americans have for their weddings.
In the book I wrote about the relationship between romance and capitalism, I examine the ways that weddings, engagements, and honeymoons transformed from modest occasions to lavish, costly events. While the majority of Americans are not married, most of us want to be married. However, marriage is a formal ceremony that has to look “perfect” in every way, which is an unattainable standard that has been shaped, at least in part, by what people see when they see weddings of royals and other celebrities’ weddings.
Similar to the plot of a Disney film
On her wedding day, Victoria wore a white dress, opting to avoid the traditional red gown. Within a couple of decades, American women’s magazines were advocating an all-white wedding dress as a symbol of the purity of innocence.
Victoria’s wedding was the first wedding with a celebrity. It was the subject of massive media coverage and was distributed through telegraphs to magazines and newspapers across the globe. When they learned about the trumpeters, the music, the glistening décor and the lavish attire, the readers could envision what a dream wedding could appear like.
Queen Victoria famously shunned her traditional wedding gown and instead chose a white wedding dress. Royal Collection
Queen Victoria also had a diamond engagement ring. As with the white wedding gown, this diamond engagement ring was to become a must-have item for the perfect love story. Naturally, many years of wise advertisements of De Beers was also a big help.
Then we move on the years to Charles and Diana’s marriage day in July of 1981. Following decades of political turmoil as well as a sexual revolution, marriage rates across the U.S. haU.S.ached their peak.
However, Charles and Diana provided a public response to the social forces who were swaying against the wedding. Their wedding was akin to an epic Disney fairytale, starting with Diana’s entrance wearing a white dress with a train that measured 25 feet to Charles wearing a Prince Charming-like military dress.
Lady Diana Spencer waves to crowds from a carriage drawn by horses on the way towards St. Paul’s Cathedral on the day of her wedding. AP PhotA.P.All over the world, 750 million viewers tuned in to see the wedding vows. In the U.S., spending on weddings rapidly increased.
Although it’s impossible to tell what the reason for the rise in the amount of money spent on the U.S. weU.S.gs was tied to the royal wedding, Maybe couples wanted to imitate, in a tiny manner, Diana and Charles’ dream wedding.
Every girl is able to marry the prince.
The subsequent royal wedding took the fairy-tale story a step further when Prince William selected “commoner” Kate Middleton as his bride. Kate was born into an upper-middle-class background and was a major part of the narrative in the media.
I was in London to attend Kate and William’s wedding, to do studies in preparation for a book about love and romance.
Nearly every person I talked to during the wedding spoke about how the wedding brought them optimism in difficult times. A lot of people I talked to were Americans. A young American woman I met said that she traveled up to London to witness the wedding as there was a happy end, and she was in need of a happy ending.
“I don’t go to a movie unless I know it has a happy ending,” she added. “I don’t read a book unless it does.”
A young American who was studying at Oxford said to me, “It’s a true life fairy story, isn’t it? A commoner getting married to the prince.”