In case you missed it, weddings have gone from brides in rainbow muumuus with homemade poetry in the 1970s to elaborate highly videoed, choreographed and expensive events with brides wearing diamond tiaras.
To present a functional theory of this phenomenon three elements need to be explained. First, the elaborate wedding has nothing to do with marriage per se. The length of marriage went from 85% lasting over seven years at the beginning of the 1960s to less than 50% lasting that long by the end of that decade. It hasn't changed since then.
Second, the exponential growth of elaborate American style wedding ceremonies occurred first in Japan followed by similar wedding practices in various Chinese societies.
Third, the whole wedding ceremony is directed and scripted by the bride and sometimes the women around her. Men are props in the show.
My explanation for the elaborate explosions of the wedding is based on Social Thought, the view that holds humans organize behavior, language and institutions around core ideas, metaphors and concepts.
What happened between 1960 and today is that women have joined the work force (nearly 70% of all women are in the workplace in industrialized nations) and have become a nearly equal force to men in the commercial world.
There has been an apparent or perceived decline in the domestic power of women during this same period. We hear the perennial litany of women having to chose between a job and a family.
Whatever the reality (and I acknowledge the serious problem of the choice between family and job) society has chosen to reestablish the statue of the infinitely powerful and perfect bride. This is a wildly exaggerated recreation of an image that never existed. Nevertheless the new image of the bride symbolizes the immense power of women in the domestic domain. The power of women to create this illusionary statue is due to their mastery of their real power in the marketplace.
The elaborate wedding is a reflection of women effectively organizing their lives in the commercial world of jobs and still claiming to be all powerful and perfect in the remnants of the domestic world. The incredibly expensive wedding.
The elaborate wedding first appeared in Japan because that is the society where women have always been the most powerful members. Japanese women have joined the work force in the same numbers as American women.
The wedding is a statue of the perfect bride in her reconstructed domestic domain which explains why men are pawns, stage props at the elaborate weddings.
The elaborate wedding is a statement of power on the part of women, who can not control the future of their marriage by power alone, which is why the wedding ceremony has nothing to do with the durability of marriage itself.