Knowledge@wharton

Money to paraphrase the Beatles can’t buy you love. But it can certainly buy a lavish wedding as noted in Rebecca Mead’s new book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. Indeed according to Mead America’s wedding industry exceeds $161 billion annually -- an enormous sum that suggests how much weddings have become not only big business but big fantasy. Yet as our reviewer notes the wedding boom is not just confined to wealthy Western nations but has become a global phenomenon concerned with ”displaying and solidifying social position in a world where such things are fluid and changeable.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.