Traflet on Howard, _Brides Inc.: American Weddings and the Business of Tradition_

[eh.net-review at eh.net]

Published by EH.NET (February 2007)

Vicki Howard, _Brides Inc.: American Weddings and the Business of 
Tradition_. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 306 
pp. $35 (cloth), ISBN: 0-8122-3945-4.

Reviewed for EH.Net by Janice M. Traflet, Department of Management, 
Bucknell University.


In _Brides Inc._, Vicki Howard details in thought-provoking fashion 
the evolution of the wedding industry in the United States. 
Certainly, it is no surprise to learn that weddings have become big 
business. Yet, rather surprisingly, few scholars have attempted to 
explain how or why this $70 billion industry came to be. 
Painstakingly researched, Howard's book well illustrates how the 
"traditional" white wedding became an entrenched consumer rite during 
the twentieth century and how a massive industry grew up around it.

Conceivably, the book could have been organized chronologically, with 
chapters devoted to wedding culture during the Depression, the Cold 
War, the Sixties, etc. Instead, Howard chooses a more creative and 
more illuminating structure: she organizes her chapters around the 
chronology of the wedding process itself, from the initial steps of 
choosing rings to later decisions, like the hiring of a bridal 
consultant and the selection of the proper catering venue. 
Essentially, then, each chapter constitutes a mini-history of some 
element of the wedding industry. This organizational structure works 
effectively to highlight the many types of businesses which are 
involved with the wedding process. Howard emphasizes not just the 
role played by mass retailers, but also the roles of smaller firms, 
and, perhaps most interestingly, "kitchen capitalists" -- those 
individuals, often women, who labor in their homes to perform a range 
of services for the bride.

While Howard does a commendable job of bringing into focus these many 
players, at the same time, she does not lose sight of the bigger 
picture. Constantly, throughout the book, she grapples with a 
fundamental question: how did weddings -- traditionally considered by 
most Americans to be a private institution if not also a sacred one 
-- morph into the highly commercialized phenomenon that exists today?

As Howard expertly highlights, it was no easy task for businesses to 
supplant certain older wedding practices (which often held religious 
and ethnic significance) with newer ones that held more profit 
potential for them. Doing so required the creation of "invented 
traditions," to borrow historian Eric Hobsbawm's phrase. To make new 
practices (like diamond engagement rings and the groom's band) 
acceptable and desirable, the wedding industry needed to make them 
appear as if they were rooted in ancient customs. At the same time, 
the industry also sought to subtly encourage the public to jettison 
practices that were not conducive to growing their businesses -- such 
as the bride wearing an heirloom ring or a handed-down dress.

Perhaps what's most remarkable about this story is the amazing 
success of the wedding industry in propagating, despite obstacles, a 
new and ever-changing mass vision of what the "traditional" American 
wedding should look like. At various historical junctures, the 
vitality of the industry theoretically could have weakened -- but it 
didn't. Despite a critical shortage of diamonds and other raw 
materials in World War II, for instance, the relatively new practice 
of giving diamond engagement rings persevered, as did the buying of 
white wedding gowns, increasingly for one-time usage. In the late 
1960s and early 1970s, the industry, in part by making some changes, 
also withstood criticisms by feminists that it (along with the 
marriage institution itself) exploited women. Today, as Howard's last 
chapter discusses, the wedding industry is still vibrant, in part 
because it is continually being reinvented.

It is interesting to contemplate (as Howard does) the degree to which 
consumers had the power to accept or reject the wedding industry's 
"strategies of enticement," to borrow William Leach's term. Howard 
insists, "Women, who were understood to be the main consumers of 
wedding-related goods and services, were not mere victims of 
advertising and merchandising campaigns, nor did they simply accept 
wedding industry advice uncritically" (p. 5). In one example of a 
failed "invented tradition," the male engagement ring never caught 
on, in part because it was unable to transcend contemporary gender 
mores. Howard also emphasizes the ways in which women, not just men, 
historically have been involved in marketing wedding products and 
services.

Finally, it is worthy to note that, in many ways, the act of 
consumption (not just production) can be construed as an act of 
marketing. The famous marketing guru Philip Kotler once wrote, 
"Buyers are Marketers, too." While Howard seems to implicitly 
recognize this (as she does spend some time detailing how consumers 
participated in the industry's transformation), she readily 
acknowledges that her book focuses on the "producers" in the story. 
This angle, though, actually works very well to illuminate many 
aspects of the development of the wedding industry that previously 
have not been closely examined.

Well-written and engaging, _Brides Inc._ is a welcome addition to the 
fields of twentieth-century business as well as cultural history.


Janice Traflet is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Bucknell 
University. She is currently writing a book on the NYSE.

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