The White Wedding In Postwar America By Karen Dunak

In As Long As We Both Shall Love: The White Wedding in Postwar America, Karen Dunak reflects the traditional white wedding through the displays of the aspects of the ritual. Through Dunak’s research, she encompasses all of the crucial aspects of a white wedding ritual, such as the purity of the white dress, the religion of the Church, as well as the publicity of the wedding. Throughout the book, Dunak proves the significance of such events to the wedding culture. In relations to my parent’s wedding, they combined many of Dunak’s white wedding elements with unique elements of their own to accommodate the ritual to their liking. My parents, Kim and Dave, were unique, as they chose very specific components to stay traditional and some other aspects

When it came to the wedding dress, my mother wore her mother’s dress, and wore her grandmother’s veil. Both the dress and the veil had been passed down to each woman in the family to wear. The passing down of the dress and veil symbolizes to our family long and happy marriages because each woman who has been married while wearing the dress has withheld those joyful and timeless marriages. In addition to the dress, my parents chose to use pieces of the traditional wedding vows but modernized them to change certain words to reflect more equal partners instead of the patriarchal words that were what the original words spoke to. My parent’s had chosen to tweak the words because they were both coming out of graduate school and ready to start their careers side by side. Furthermore, Dunak would approve and encourage the tradition of the wedding dress and veil, she might not agree with the change of vows to make them less male dominated.

In conclusion, my parent’s Halloween wedding contradicts Dunak’s ideals of the white wedding for many reasons. My parent’s wedding ritual challenges some of the larger aspects such as the reception being Halloween themed, as well as a costume party. Their wedding continues to refute Dunak’s findings on the traditional white wedding because of my mother’s music choices, vow choices, and drastic mode of transportation. Although some aspects of their wedding conforms with Dunak’s image of the white wedding, overall they do not fit the