Postponing the day of your dreams? Modern weddings and the impact of COVID-19
COVID-19-related restrictions had an enormous impact on weddings in 2020. For three months, weddings were effectively prohibited, and requirements for social distancing, hand-sanitising and face coverings existed throughout England and Wales for the rest of the year. In August 2020, we conducted a survey of couples who were planning to marry between March and December 2020. This article focuses on how many respondents had postponed their wedding, and what they said about their reasons for doing so. We analyse their responses according to the significance attached to three alternative meanings of a wedding: an event for family and friends, a traditional ceremony that has to be conducted in a particular way, and the individualistic ‘perfect day’. We found that many couples attach considerable importance to who attends their weddings and that some traditions are very important to them, but few responses supported the notion that weddings are principally extravagant displays.
-
Auchmuty, R. (2004) Same-sex marriage revived: feminist critique and legal strategy, Feminism & Psychology, 14: 101–26, doi: 10.1177/0959353504040307.
-
Barnes, M.W. (2014) Our family functions: functions of traditional weddings for modern brides and postmodern families, Qualitative Sociology Review, 10(2): 60–78. doi: 10.18778/1733-8077.10.2.04.
-
Boden, S. (2001) ‘Superbrides’: wedding consumer culture and the construction of bridal identity, Sociological Research Online, 6(1): 1–17. doi: 10.5153/sro.570.
-
Bryman, A. (2016) Social Research Methods, 5th edn, New York: Oxford University Press.
-
Carter, J. (2021) Traditional inequalities and inequalities of tradition: gender, weddings, and whiteness, Sociological Research Online (Special Section: Intersections of Intimacies and Inequalities), 1–17, doi: 10.1177/1360780421990021.
-
Carter, J. and Duncan, S. (2017) Wedding paradoxes: individualised conformity and the ‘perfect day’, The Sociological Review, 65(1): 3–20, doi: 10.1111/1467-954X.12366.
-
Carter, J. and Duncan, S. (2018) Reinventing Couples: Tradition, Agency and Bricolage, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
-
Castrén, A.M. and Maillochon, F. (2009) Who chooses the wedding guests, the couple or the family? Individual preferences and relational constraints in France and Finland, European Societies, 11(3): 369–89, doi: 10.1080/14616690902764724.
-
Charsley, S.R. (1991) Rites of Marrying: The Wedding Industry in Scotland, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
-
Currie, D.H. (1993) ‘Here comes the bride’: the making of a ‘modern traditional’ wedding in western culture, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 24(3): 403–21. doi: 10.3138/jcfs.24.3.403.
-
Farrimond, S. (2015) Church of England weddings and ritual symbolism, in J. Miles, P. Mody and R. Probert (eds) Marriage Rites and Rights, Oxford: Hart, pp 203–20.
-
Finch, J. (2007) Displaying families, Sociology, 4(1): 65–81, doi: 10.1177/0038038507072284.
-
Ingraham, C. (1999) White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture, Abingdon: Routledge.
-
Kalmijn, M. (2004) Marriage rituals as reinforcers of role transitions: an analysis of weddings in the Netherlands, Journal of Marriage and Family, 66: 582–94, doi: 10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00039.x.
-
Lawler, S. (2002) Narrative in social research, in T. May (ed) Qualitative Research in Action, London: Sage, pp 242–58.
-
Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (2002) Wedding as Text: Communicating Cultural Identities Through Ritual, London: LEA.
-
Leonard, D. (1980) Sex and Generation: A Study of Courtship and Weddings, London: Tavistock Publications.
-
Mamali, E. and Stevens, L. (2020) When same-sex couples say “I do’: display work and the (re)production of the wedding rite, Sociology, 54(5): 987–1003, doi: 10.1177/0038038520922523.
-
Mason, J. (2004) Personal narratives, relational selves: residential histories in the living and telling, The Sociological Review, 52(2): 162–79, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.2004.00463.x.
-
Nichols, J.A. (2012) Introduction, in J.A. Nichols (ed) Marriage and Divorce in a Multicultural Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2020) Internet access – households and individuals, Great Britain: 2020, www.ons.gov.uk.
-
ONS (2021) Marriages in England and Wales: 2018, www.ons.gov.uk.
-
Otnes, C.C. and Pleck, E.H. (2003) Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
-
Probert, R. (2020) Love in a COVID-19 climate, Law & Religion UK, blog post, 5 May.
-
Probert, R. and Pywell, S. (2021) Love in the time of COVID-19: a case-study of the complex laws governing weddings, Legal Studies, 41(4): 676–92. doi: 10.1017/lst.2021.17.
-
Probert, R., Akhtar, R.C., Blake, S. and Pywell, S. (2022) The impact of Covid-19 on legal weddings and non-legally binding ceremonies (forthcoming).
-
Purbrick, L. (2007) The Wedding Present: Domestic Life Beyond Consumption, Aldershot: Ashgate.
-
Purbrick, L. (2015) No frills: wedding presents and the meaning of marriage, 1945–2003, in J. Miles, P. Mody and R. Probert (eds) Marriage Rites and Rights, Oxford: Hart, pp 73–94.
-
Smart, C. (2007a) Same sex couples and marriage: negotiating relational landscapes with families and friends, The Sociological Review, 55(4): 671–86, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.2007.00747.x.
-
Smart, C. (2007b) Personal Life: New Directions in Sociological Thinking, London: Polity.
-
van Hooff, J. (2013) Modern Couples? Continuity and Change in Heterosexual Relationships, Farnham: Ashgate.
-
Walliss, J. (2002) ‘Loved the wedding, invite me to the marriage’: the secularisation of weddings in contemporary Britain, Sociological Research Online, 7(4): 60–70. doi: 10.5153/sro.765.
| May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 475 | 475 | 37 |
| Full Text Views | 487 | 487 | 79 |
| PDF Downloads | 251 | 251 | 25 |
We are a leading social science publisher
committed to making a difference.
Bristol University Press and
Policy Press
bristoluniversitypress.co.uk