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For those of you who are getting married or who have gotten married, have you been looking through many bridal magazines and catalogs? I have, mostly because I’ve received many of them for free from various vendors, and because I’m the type of person who likes to gather a lot of ideas before I decide on anything.
So, I’m flipping through the pages and I was shocked at what I saw – or didn’t see. There were almost no people of color (Is that a good term to use? I will correct this term if this is offensive in any way, just let me know.) on the pages of any of the magazines. In a sea of white dresses were white faces, and I was really surprised that the wedding industry hasn’t yet incorporated racial diversity into their pages.
Does anyone have any insights into this? It seems to me that there are beautiful brides of all races and ethnicities and beautiful weddings that aren’t Christian or Jewish or Secular (those are the three I read about most often in these magazines) that should be featured, as well as beautiful models of all races and ethnicities to show off the couture gowns (the ones that no one can possibly afford) in the bajillion adds that appear. Why don’t the pages and pictures in these magazines reflect that?
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Before I called off my engagement, I was in the same camp. Planning a Christian/secular wedding but with a lot of different traditions represented in my wedding party, who were astounded that none of what they saw would relate to their planning needs.
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Comment by Zippa — September 21, 2009 @ 9:34 am
Wow, that’s crazy. Is it possible there are specialty publications for minority populations? Still, what does it say to WOC/non-Christian brides when they open these magazines?
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Comment by Danine Spencer — September 23, 2009 @ 1:38 pm
This may sound really ignorant, but what is WOC?
Lots of the women are blonde and size 2, too, which can be frustrating to those who don’t fit into that box, either. The “women” section is always tucked way into the back of the magazine. Which says two things to me: normal-sized women have to buy different dresses than the size 2’s AND those who ARE size 2 aren’t really women. SO problematic.
Also, dresses in larger sizes cost more money at some shops. What does THAT say? Ugh! I could write 10 posts on this topic alone.
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Comment by Ashley — September 24, 2009 @ 4:53 pm
WOC: women of color
I didn’t look through many magazines when I was planning my wedding (maybe because I knew I couldn’t afford much of that stuff? dunno…) so I can’t tell you if all the faces were white, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were. I did my shopping at David’s Bridal, and they probably had the token one-person-of-color-per-wedding-party-photo.
(Also, back when I was doing the wedding-planning, I wasn’t thinking about these issues as much… living my life in ignorant priviledge… so I don’t know if I would have noticed…)
But it is a problem; the whitewashing and the wedding = Christian ceremony issue.
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Comment by Criss — September 25, 2009 @ 2:01 pm