brooks' wedding is in sunday styles!
Aug. 25th, 2002 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phamoscopied from the new york times website
For Better, for Worse and for Fun
By ELIZABETH BREYER
IT was a beautiful June day in Providence, R.I., a perfect day for a wedding. The bridegroom, Brooks King, and the bride, Megumi Aihara, had recently graduated from Brown University and hoped to start a business together.
The wedding was catered, and a friend with a degree from a French culinary school had constructed an ornate cake. The night before, guests had enjoyed the traditional bachelor party for Mr. King and a shower for Ms. Aihara.
At the ceremony, about 100 of the couple's closest friends, wearing dresses and lightweight suits, squeezed onto a dozen or so rows of metal folding chairs.
But as soon as the bridegroom appeared — wearing a bear costume — accompanied by a best "man" (who was actually a woman) and four "groomsmen" (two of them women), it became obvious to the few who may not have known that the wedding was not real.
It was an elaborate mock wedding, entirely fabricated by the bride, the bridegroom and some close friends. Ms. Aihara, who is not romantically involved with Mr. King, described the wedding as "completely fake." Mr. King called it "a performance art piece."
Across the nation, whether for artistic expression or just to have a good time, perhaps dozens of men and women in their late teens and early 20's have been putting on costly pseudo-weddings, complete with a ceremony, reception and festivities.
The trend, scarcely two years old and, according to anecdotal evidence, increasingly popular, has surprised experts like Dr. David Popenoe, a sociology professor at Rutgers University and co-director of the National Marriage Project, a research institute there. He had heard only a little about the practice, and finds it bizarre. "It sort of leaves me in a state of shock," he said laughing.
Dr. Popenoe attributed the phenomenon of mock weddings among college-age students and recent graduates to a new attitude toward marriage. Students' parents wed as soon as possible after graduation day. But now, a generation later, the marrying age has been pushed back.
"The college years used to be, not so long ago, a time for matchmaking," Dr. Popenoe said. "So that is a base point in the minds of these people's parents. But for the most part today, people don't even talk about marriage in college. They know that they want to get on with their careers, and marriage is way down the road.
"It may be that marriage is so far off that people want to have the marriage experience now," he said. "Since they won't get married for a real way for a long time, they want the make-believe."
(SNIP!)
This trial run at matrimonial bliss — like the real thing — does not come cheap. Mr. King, who now runs a startup Web design business with his make-believe wife and two friends, estimated that the two-day extravaganza cost about $1,000, which they all financed.
Mr. King had conceived the idea several months ago when all four of them were talking about the imminent marriages of classmates.
"My `fiancée,' now my `wife,' and I were talking about how we liked to go to weddings," Mr. King said. "But it was really depressing to go to ones that people our age were having, because people were 22 and ruining their lives."
He said that although his friends were initially skeptical, they warmed to the idea of a mock ceremony. They decided to have the bride carried to the altar on a rocking horse — she was — and to have dance and music performances by the couple's friends before the ceremony: in short, prewedding entertainment.
The bridesmaids were outfitted in a "goth and animal-print theme, mostly leopard," she said, while the groomsmen wore costumes like a jumpsuit with waffles glued to it, a Gay Pride rainbow flag and cone-shaped tentlike outfits.
For Better, for Worse and for Fun
By ELIZABETH BREYER
IT was a beautiful June day in Providence, R.I., a perfect day for a wedding. The bridegroom, Brooks King, and the bride, Megumi Aihara, had recently graduated from Brown University and hoped to start a business together.
The wedding was catered, and a friend with a degree from a French culinary school had constructed an ornate cake. The night before, guests had enjoyed the traditional bachelor party for Mr. King and a shower for Ms. Aihara.
At the ceremony, about 100 of the couple's closest friends, wearing dresses and lightweight suits, squeezed onto a dozen or so rows of metal folding chairs.
But as soon as the bridegroom appeared — wearing a bear costume — accompanied by a best "man" (who was actually a woman) and four "groomsmen" (two of them women), it became obvious to the few who may not have known that the wedding was not real.
It was an elaborate mock wedding, entirely fabricated by the bride, the bridegroom and some close friends. Ms. Aihara, who is not romantically involved with Mr. King, described the wedding as "completely fake." Mr. King called it "a performance art piece."
Across the nation, whether for artistic expression or just to have a good time, perhaps dozens of men and women in their late teens and early 20's have been putting on costly pseudo-weddings, complete with a ceremony, reception and festivities.
The trend, scarcely two years old and, according to anecdotal evidence, increasingly popular, has surprised experts like Dr. David Popenoe, a sociology professor at Rutgers University and co-director of the National Marriage Project, a research institute there. He had heard only a little about the practice, and finds it bizarre. "It sort of leaves me in a state of shock," he said laughing.
Dr. Popenoe attributed the phenomenon of mock weddings among college-age students and recent graduates to a new attitude toward marriage. Students' parents wed as soon as possible after graduation day. But now, a generation later, the marrying age has been pushed back.
"The college years used to be, not so long ago, a time for matchmaking," Dr. Popenoe said. "So that is a base point in the minds of these people's parents. But for the most part today, people don't even talk about marriage in college. They know that they want to get on with their careers, and marriage is way down the road.
"It may be that marriage is so far off that people want to have the marriage experience now," he said. "Since they won't get married for a real way for a long time, they want the make-believe."
(SNIP!)
This trial run at matrimonial bliss — like the real thing — does not come cheap. Mr. King, who now runs a startup Web design business with his make-believe wife and two friends, estimated that the two-day extravaganza cost about $1,000, which they all financed.
Mr. King had conceived the idea several months ago when all four of them were talking about the imminent marriages of classmates.
"My `fiancée,' now my `wife,' and I were talking about how we liked to go to weddings," Mr. King said. "But it was really depressing to go to ones that people our age were having, because people were 22 and ruining their lives."
He said that although his friends were initially skeptical, they warmed to the idea of a mock ceremony. They decided to have the bride carried to the altar on a rocking horse — she was — and to have dance and music performances by the couple's friends before the ceremony: in short, prewedding entertainment.
The bridesmaids were outfitted in a "goth and animal-print theme, mostly leopard," she said, while the groomsmen wore costumes like a jumpsuit with waffles glued to it, a Gay Pride rainbow flag and cone-shaped tentlike outfits.
