The Wedding Spectacle Across Contemporary Media and Culture

By Jilly Boyce Kay (editor), Melanie Kennedy (editor), Helen Wood (editor)

Book cover of The Wedding Spectacle Across Contemporary Media and Culture: Something Old, Something New

Book description

This book interrogates the hyper-visibility and stubborn endurance of the wedding spectacle across media and culture in the current climate.

The wide-ranging chapters consider why the symbolic power of weddings is intensifying at a time when marriage as an institution appears to be in decline - and they offer new…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Wedding Spectacle Across Contemporary Media and Culture as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

While there are other books on the “matrimonial industrial complex,” this one provides a really in-depth analysis of the cultural fascination with weddings, and I found it an absolutely engrossing account of phenomena ranging from royal weddings to “purity porn.” 

What comes across here is the scale of the idealized wedding as a consumerist ritual and form of deep aspirational investment. One of the most thought-provoking aspects of the book is the notion that the cultural norms around weddings and marriage have slipped out of alignment so that there is a growing gap between the celebration of getting married and…

From Diane's list on romance, intimacy and media culture.

Want books like The Wedding Spectacle Across Contemporary Media and Culture?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 95 books like The Wedding Spectacle Across Contemporary Media and Culture.

Browse books like The Wedding Spectacle Across Contemporary Media and Culture

Book cover of Single Women in Popular Culture: The Limits of Postfeminism
Book cover of After Happily Ever After: Romantic Comedy in the Post-Romantic Age
Book cover of Wife, Inc.: The Business of Marriage in the Twenty-First Century

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,531

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in weddings, feminism, and women?

Weddings 35 books
Feminism 363 books
Women 656 books