Ebook: It's Our Day: America's Love Affair with the White Wedding, 1945-2005

Katherine Jellison gives us a comprehensive cultural history of American weddings since World War II, examining the development of our precise and expensive standards for celebrating weddings and the staying power of this phenomenon in the face of enormous social, political, and economic upheaval. Jellison examines the ways the bridal business, the media, and consumers responded to new norms that expanded the notions of who was an appropriate white-wedding bride. She particularly examines the key influences that have sustained this cultural phenomenon for sixty years—the bridal-wear industry, celebrity weddings, movie weddings, and media coverage of the weddings-next-door—to show that the white wedding has become a unifying experience that crosses gender, class, and racial lines.