Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Romance, Magic, Memory, and Perfection 2. The Rise of the Lavish Wedding 3. The Engagement Complex 4. The Rituals of Wedding Shopping 5. The Wedding Weekend 6. From the Cabin to Cancun 7. Hollywood Hosts a Wedding 8. The Lavish Wedding Goes Global 9. Variations on a Theme 10. The Allure of the Lavish Wedding Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author

Cele C. Otnes is Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the coeditor, with Richard F. Beltramini, of Gift-Giving: An Interdisciplinary Anthology (1996), and is also coeditor, with Tina M. Lowrey, of the forthcoming book Contemporary Consumption Rituals: A Research Anthology (2003). Elizabeth H. Pleck is Professor of History and of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Celebrating the Family: Ritual, Consumer Culture and Ethnicity (2000) and Domestic Tyranny: The Making of Social Policy against Family Violence from Colonial Times to the Present (1987).

Reviews

"Elizabeth Pleck and Cele Otnes pair their distinct talents to offer us a lavish display of the lavish wedding. In fascinating and often surprising detail--across time and place--they make sense of why we have clung to and, in fact, have radically embellished this vestige of Victorian culture."