The Wedding Fantasy: Consuming Emotions on the Big Day

Abstract

This chapter takes as its focus the immediate pre-wedding build-up through to and including the ‘big day’ itself. To begin, I briefly sketch what I take to be the typical wedding narrative, following the chronology of events related to me by brides and grooms. Formative stages here, as we shall see, include the last few days and hours of preparation, the wedding morning, the final transformation into the bride, the ceremony and the reception speech.