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Wedding paradoxes: Individualized conformity and the ‘perfect day’

Duncan, Simon; Carter, Julia

Authors

Simon Duncan

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Julia Carter Julia.Carter@uwe.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology



Abstract

© The Author(s) 2016. Marriage rates in twenty-first-century Britain are historically low, divorce and separation are historically high, and marriage is no longer generally seen as necessary for legitimate sexual relationships, long-term partnership or even parenting. Yet at the same time weddings have become more prominent, both as social aspiration and as popular culture. But why have a wedding, especially an ornate, expensive and time-consuming wedding, when there appears to be little social need to do so? Similarly, weddings have never been more free from cultural norms and official control-so why do these supposedly unique and deeply personal events usually replay the same assumed traditions? We draw from a small qualitative sample of 15 interviews with white, heterosexual celebrants to address these questions. While existing accounts posit weddings as a social display of success, emphasizing distinction, and manipulation by a powerful wedding industry, we argue that weddings involve celebrants necessarily adapting from, and re-serving, tradition as a process of bricolage. This shapes the four major discourses interviewees used to give meanings to their weddings: the project of the couple, relationality, re-traditionalization and romanticized consumption. At the same time many couples did not want to be distinctively unique, but rather distinctively normal. This is what we call ‘individualized conformity’.

Citation

Duncan, S., & Carter, J. (2017). Wedding paradoxes: Individualized conformity and the ‘perfect day’. Sociological Review, 65(1), 3-20. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12366

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 18, 2016
Online Publication Date Apr 14, 2016
Publication Date Jan 1, 2017
Journal Sociological Review
Print ISSN 0038-0261
Electronic ISSN 1467-954X
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 65
Issue 1
Pages 3-20
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12366
Keywords weddings, marriage, couples, bricolage, tradition, Britain
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/900440
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12366