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I read this article in "The New York Times" with horror. I have not been to a wedding in years and what I know of them is from groups like these on the ''net. (I don''t watch television and don''t know who Jessica Simpson is, although I saw her picture on a magazine cover.) I would like to know if your experiences include weddings like the ones described here. Do you consider such weddings to be the norm? Have any of your close friends been married with this much glitz? I am one of those women who got married in a Priscilla of Boston in church with a sedate reception afterward!!
From "The New York Times"
June 6, 2004
Perfect Wedding: $5,000 Cake, Hold the Simplicity
By CATHY HORYN
So it has come to this: a flying wedding cake.
In the upward pursuit of the perfect wedding, finicky brides are having their cakes delivered by airplane. "We fly ours with Continental," said Sylvia Weinstock, a Manhattan baker, who has cakes in the air nearly every weekend in May and June. Mmmm: there''s the three-tier yellow cake adorned with bunches of sugar grapes for a wedding in Napa Valley and a six-layer Lady Baltimore cake for a bride in Lake Geneva, Wis.
Mrs. Weinstock, who flies her buttercream-frosted layers in cargo, sees this extravagance in relative terms. One of her fancy, many-tiered cakes — enough to feed 300 guests — can cost $5,000, plus another $500 for shipping and more if it is accompanied by a handler.
"When you''re spending $200,000 for a wedding, a cake that costs $5,000 is not all that expensive," she said.
Maybe not, but having one delivered 3,000 miles with the ease of a pizza does suggest a peculiarly driven personality. Wedding obsession has become the latest cultural contagion, and it doesn''t just affect the rich or fans of Jessica Simpson, the pop singer whose over-the-top nuptials inspired her book of wedding tips.
Turn on the television at the breakfast hour and you can watch a bride and groom plan every step of their special day, right up to an on-air wedding. Tonight, ABC Family will broadcast "Love Rules!," a movie about "the perfect wedding." Cable keeps viewers clinging to their Kleenex boxes with reality shows like "''Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave" on MTV. Meanwhile, on the peau de soie heels of Bride''s have come nearly a dozen new bridal magazine titles since 2000.
Although some degree of perfectionism is present in every blusher-length veil and ribbon garland - in every hand-lettered invitation, silver cake knife and, lately, every chocolate fountain that a bride feels she must have - this perfectionism, wedding professionals say, has ballooned into an obsession.
"We have people who have meltdowns over what hankie to buy," said Barbara Barrett, the owner of the Bridal Mall in Niantic, Conn., who in part blames the media''s focus on lavish weddings and what she calls "the stupid romance" of reality television.
Mindy Weiss, a Beverly Hills party planner who helped the actress Kate Beckinsale with her May nuptials, and Ms. Simpson in 2002, said she gets e-mail messages every week from brides-to-be asking how they can have a wedding like Ms. Simpson''s on a budget of less than $20,000. Ms. Weiss advises them to scatter candles around the room. "I truly feel for them," said Ms. Weiss, whose clients typically have budgets of more than $100,000.
One California bride, on a quest to be size 8 by her wedding day, had her jaws wired shut for two months. "She could only eat through a straw," said Monique Lhuillier, a Los Angeles bridal designer who made the woman''s dress. And more of her customers, Ms. Lhuillier said, are buying two gowns - a traditional style to please their mothers for the ceremony and a second, trendier model to wear during the reception.
Natalie Fritz, a lingerie designer in Los Angeles, has seen friends transform into Bridezilla, even Groomzilla, a specter she wants to avoid when she marries Rick Eid, a television writer, in September in Carmel, Calif.
Ms. Fritz, 31, who is limiting her guest list to 150, said, "I definitely feel the pressure to do something memorable." She will have a dessert bar and will send guests home with sacks of chocolate chip cookies and cartons of milk.
This impulse to be different is not confined to the coasts. A decade ago it would have unthinkable to hold a wedding on Aruba or Hawaii and turn it into a weekend of spa treatments and golf matches for your guests. But this year some 200,000 American couples - nearly one in every 10 - will do just that, making the destination wedding the fastest growing segment of the $50 billion bridal industry.
Marcy Blum, a New York wedding planner, recalls her skepticism when Disney approached her, in 1991, about developing a wedding business in Orlando, Fla. "I told them, this is the stupidest thing I''ve ever heard of,'' " Ms. Blum said. Since then, 22,000 couples have been wed there, a Disney spokeswoman said, generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue from hotels and admissions.
"The media and Internet have played such a big role in all this," said Mary Bernstein, an Omaha wedding planner who had a client wed in a train depot, an event featured in Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. "Now every bride wants something different."
The media are certainly culprits, says Katherine Jellison, an Ohio University history professor who is working on a study of American weddings since World War II. But, as Dr. Jellison points out, the media have long been obsessed with weddings; in the 1950''s, NBC had a show called "Bride and the Groom" with real couples. "So the phenomenon isn''t new," she said. "It''s just been ratcheted up to the nth degree."
Far more troubling to her is the message that the media, and the wedding industry, now give young women. "The message is: ''Spend time on yourself, not on your moral or intellectual development, but on displaying yourself,'' " Dr. Jellison said.
However, wedding professionals in the trenches tend to view this development more harshly. "I wouldn''t want my clients to hear me say this," a retailer said, "but I think it''s because we''ve raised a generation of spoiled brats. Everything is about them - ''me, me, me.'' ''''
In New York, the impulse to be different is further aggravated by competitiveness. "You can''t tell me there is a New Yorker who doesn''t want to be original," said Jordana Sandler, 30, whose reception in May at Gotham Hall included a sit-down dinner for 215 and "Jordana''s brownies," a favorite of her husband''s.
Ms. Blum said she has seen a radical shift in emphasis in the past few years. "It used to be that if you wanted to show you were rich, you went to the Pierre," said Ms. Blum, who helped Padma Lakshmi, an Indian actress and model, and the author Salman Rushdie with their April nuptials, which had an Anglo-Indian theme. "Now it''s not enough to show you''re rich, you''ve got to show you''re creative. That''s the message."
To older generations of brides, who perhaps got married in Priscilla of Boston dresses with receptions in their parents'' backyards or at local country clubs, the notion of receptions with sushi "stations" and chocolate fountains, or vows written out in calligraphy on the aisle runner - strains the imagination. Whatever happened to the afternoon wedding followed by cake and punch?
"Have you heard of an M.N.P?" said Gerard Monaghan, president of the Association of Bridal Consultants, a trade organization. "It''s a reception with mints, nuts and punch. They''re still very common in the South."
Influenced by the sugarplum pages of Martha Stewart Weddings, alert to the names of celebrity designers and determined to have a wedding that emphasizes not merely her taste and personality but also the cleverness of her choices, today''s bride is unlikely to see the virtue in bowls of Jordan almonds.
"This is a generation of highly branded consumers," said Nina Lawrence, vice president and publisher of the Fairchild Bridal Group, which includes Bride''s and Modern Bride magazines.
The average American couple spends $22,300 for their wedding, according to a 2002 survey by Fairchild Bridal InfoBank. In New York and Washington, the average is $35,000 (and, in reality, say caterers, closer to $50,000). Even though more and more couples are paying for their own weddings or pooling family resources, credit management companies have seen a rise in wedding-related debt.
And Ms. Barrett, of the Bridal Mall in Connecticut, said: "I think some of the franticness I''m seeing in brides is because they know they''re overextended. Their credit cards are maxed out."
But a more revealing indicator of wedding obsession may be the number of experts now operating in the field. Although the number of marriages performed in the United States has remained steady for 20 years - about 2.3 million - the number of wedding planners has risen 25 percent in the past 18 months to 7,000, according to the bridal consultants group.
"Like everything else, the industry has gone from being a mom-and-pop business to a highly specialized one," said the wedding designer Colin Cowie. In addition to books and a cable television show, Mr. Cowie now has a deal with J. C. Penney to produce a line of bridal products and services, so that lower-and middle-income consumers can benefit from the expertise he has lavished on big spenders, like the Mexican bride who sent her family''s private jet to pick up her cake.
But specialization has also led to an explosion of products, putting further strain on budgets - and, in some cases, making chiselers and penny pinchers of brides as they try to skimp on one frippery to have another. "There are just too many choices," said Ms. Barrett, noting that the latest rage to hit her area is the $300 preserved bouquet, freeze-dried and under glass.
Ms. Blum sees hopeful signs of a retreat. For the first time in years, she said, brides are telling her they want the traditional first dance and to toss their bouquets.
The flight of the Wisconsin wedding cake also illustrates that weddings, like life, seldom go as planned. The cake had a bumpy ride, causing a stabilizing rod between the layers to snap, said the bride''s mother, Janet Hanson. But while a disappointment, it was not a total loss. Mrs. Hanson and her daughter, Dawn, who is a flight attendant, borrowed a display dummy from a local bakery for the photos, and served up Mrs. Weinstock''s cake anyway.
"It was beyond compare," said Mrs. Hanson, admitting that her friends were a little startled by the idea of a flying cake.
But she suggested that why they did it was no secret: "We heard about Sylvia on ''Regis and Kathy Lee.'' ''''
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections
From "The New York Times"
June 6, 2004
Perfect Wedding: $5,000 Cake, Hold the Simplicity
By CATHY HORYN
So it has come to this: a flying wedding cake.
In the upward pursuit of the perfect wedding, finicky brides are having their cakes delivered by airplane. "We fly ours with Continental," said Sylvia Weinstock, a Manhattan baker, who has cakes in the air nearly every weekend in May and June. Mmmm: there''s the three-tier yellow cake adorned with bunches of sugar grapes for a wedding in Napa Valley and a six-layer Lady Baltimore cake for a bride in Lake Geneva, Wis.
Mrs. Weinstock, who flies her buttercream-frosted layers in cargo, sees this extravagance in relative terms. One of her fancy, many-tiered cakes — enough to feed 300 guests — can cost $5,000, plus another $500 for shipping and more if it is accompanied by a handler.
"When you''re spending $200,000 for a wedding, a cake that costs $5,000 is not all that expensive," she said.
Maybe not, but having one delivered 3,000 miles with the ease of a pizza does suggest a peculiarly driven personality. Wedding obsession has become the latest cultural contagion, and it doesn''t just affect the rich or fans of Jessica Simpson, the pop singer whose over-the-top nuptials inspired her book of wedding tips.
Turn on the television at the breakfast hour and you can watch a bride and groom plan every step of their special day, right up to an on-air wedding. Tonight, ABC Family will broadcast "Love Rules!," a movie about "the perfect wedding." Cable keeps viewers clinging to their Kleenex boxes with reality shows like "''Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave" on MTV. Meanwhile, on the peau de soie heels of Bride''s have come nearly a dozen new bridal magazine titles since 2000.
Although some degree of perfectionism is present in every blusher-length veil and ribbon garland - in every hand-lettered invitation, silver cake knife and, lately, every chocolate fountain that a bride feels she must have - this perfectionism, wedding professionals say, has ballooned into an obsession.
"We have people who have meltdowns over what hankie to buy," said Barbara Barrett, the owner of the Bridal Mall in Niantic, Conn., who in part blames the media''s focus on lavish weddings and what she calls "the stupid romance" of reality television.
Mindy Weiss, a Beverly Hills party planner who helped the actress Kate Beckinsale with her May nuptials, and Ms. Simpson in 2002, said she gets e-mail messages every week from brides-to-be asking how they can have a wedding like Ms. Simpson''s on a budget of less than $20,000. Ms. Weiss advises them to scatter candles around the room. "I truly feel for them," said Ms. Weiss, whose clients typically have budgets of more than $100,000.
One California bride, on a quest to be size 8 by her wedding day, had her jaws wired shut for two months. "She could only eat through a straw," said Monique Lhuillier, a Los Angeles bridal designer who made the woman''s dress. And more of her customers, Ms. Lhuillier said, are buying two gowns - a traditional style to please their mothers for the ceremony and a second, trendier model to wear during the reception.
Natalie Fritz, a lingerie designer in Los Angeles, has seen friends transform into Bridezilla, even Groomzilla, a specter she wants to avoid when she marries Rick Eid, a television writer, in September in Carmel, Calif.
Ms. Fritz, 31, who is limiting her guest list to 150, said, "I definitely feel the pressure to do something memorable." She will have a dessert bar and will send guests home with sacks of chocolate chip cookies and cartons of milk.
This impulse to be different is not confined to the coasts. A decade ago it would have unthinkable to hold a wedding on Aruba or Hawaii and turn it into a weekend of spa treatments and golf matches for your guests. But this year some 200,000 American couples - nearly one in every 10 - will do just that, making the destination wedding the fastest growing segment of the $50 billion bridal industry.
Marcy Blum, a New York wedding planner, recalls her skepticism when Disney approached her, in 1991, about developing a wedding business in Orlando, Fla. "I told them, this is the stupidest thing I''ve ever heard of,'' " Ms. Blum said. Since then, 22,000 couples have been wed there, a Disney spokeswoman said, generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue from hotels and admissions.
"The media and Internet have played such a big role in all this," said Mary Bernstein, an Omaha wedding planner who had a client wed in a train depot, an event featured in Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. "Now every bride wants something different."
The media are certainly culprits, says Katherine Jellison, an Ohio University history professor who is working on a study of American weddings since World War II. But, as Dr. Jellison points out, the media have long been obsessed with weddings; in the 1950''s, NBC had a show called "Bride and the Groom" with real couples. "So the phenomenon isn''t new," she said. "It''s just been ratcheted up to the nth degree."
Far more troubling to her is the message that the media, and the wedding industry, now give young women. "The message is: ''Spend time on yourself, not on your moral or intellectual development, but on displaying yourself,'' " Dr. Jellison said.
However, wedding professionals in the trenches tend to view this development more harshly. "I wouldn''t want my clients to hear me say this," a retailer said, "but I think it''s because we''ve raised a generation of spoiled brats. Everything is about them - ''me, me, me.'' ''''
In New York, the impulse to be different is further aggravated by competitiveness. "You can''t tell me there is a New Yorker who doesn''t want to be original," said Jordana Sandler, 30, whose reception in May at Gotham Hall included a sit-down dinner for 215 and "Jordana''s brownies," a favorite of her husband''s.
Ms. Blum said she has seen a radical shift in emphasis in the past few years. "It used to be that if you wanted to show you were rich, you went to the Pierre," said Ms. Blum, who helped Padma Lakshmi, an Indian actress and model, and the author Salman Rushdie with their April nuptials, which had an Anglo-Indian theme. "Now it''s not enough to show you''re rich, you''ve got to show you''re creative. That''s the message."
To older generations of brides, who perhaps got married in Priscilla of Boston dresses with receptions in their parents'' backyards or at local country clubs, the notion of receptions with sushi "stations" and chocolate fountains, or vows written out in calligraphy on the aisle runner - strains the imagination. Whatever happened to the afternoon wedding followed by cake and punch?
"Have you heard of an M.N.P?" said Gerard Monaghan, president of the Association of Bridal Consultants, a trade organization. "It''s a reception with mints, nuts and punch. They''re still very common in the South."
Influenced by the sugarplum pages of Martha Stewart Weddings, alert to the names of celebrity designers and determined to have a wedding that emphasizes not merely her taste and personality but also the cleverness of her choices, today''s bride is unlikely to see the virtue in bowls of Jordan almonds.
"This is a generation of highly branded consumers," said Nina Lawrence, vice president and publisher of the Fairchild Bridal Group, which includes Bride''s and Modern Bride magazines.
The average American couple spends $22,300 for their wedding, according to a 2002 survey by Fairchild Bridal InfoBank. In New York and Washington, the average is $35,000 (and, in reality, say caterers, closer to $50,000). Even though more and more couples are paying for their own weddings or pooling family resources, credit management companies have seen a rise in wedding-related debt.
And Ms. Barrett, of the Bridal Mall in Connecticut, said: "I think some of the franticness I''m seeing in brides is because they know they''re overextended. Their credit cards are maxed out."
But a more revealing indicator of wedding obsession may be the number of experts now operating in the field. Although the number of marriages performed in the United States has remained steady for 20 years - about 2.3 million - the number of wedding planners has risen 25 percent in the past 18 months to 7,000, according to the bridal consultants group.
"Like everything else, the industry has gone from being a mom-and-pop business to a highly specialized one," said the wedding designer Colin Cowie. In addition to books and a cable television show, Mr. Cowie now has a deal with J. C. Penney to produce a line of bridal products and services, so that lower-and middle-income consumers can benefit from the expertise he has lavished on big spenders, like the Mexican bride who sent her family''s private jet to pick up her cake.
But specialization has also led to an explosion of products, putting further strain on budgets - and, in some cases, making chiselers and penny pinchers of brides as they try to skimp on one frippery to have another. "There are just too many choices," said Ms. Barrett, noting that the latest rage to hit her area is the $300 preserved bouquet, freeze-dried and under glass.
Ms. Blum sees hopeful signs of a retreat. For the first time in years, she said, brides are telling her they want the traditional first dance and to toss their bouquets.
The flight of the Wisconsin wedding cake also illustrates that weddings, like life, seldom go as planned. The cake had a bumpy ride, causing a stabilizing rod between the layers to snap, said the bride''s mother, Janet Hanson. But while a disappointment, it was not a total loss. Mrs. Hanson and her daughter, Dawn, who is a flight attendant, borrowed a display dummy from a local bakery for the photos, and served up Mrs. Weinstock''s cake anyway.
"It was beyond compare," said Mrs. Hanson, admitting that her friends were a little startled by the idea of a flying cake.
But she suggested that why they did it was no secret: "We heard about Sylvia on ''Regis and Kathy Lee.'' ''''
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections
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