Marriage was once considered a sacred union of two people and their lives into one inseparable unit. The months before the wedding are filled with preparations and decisions - what will the bride wear or where will the reception occur? However, over the years, an alternate route has developed, a method requiring little to no preparation at all. A traditional wedding plagued by "The Wedding March" and large bridal parties and family has also been replaced by a ceremony characterized by insincerity and mass production. Andrea Lee's "The Wedding" and Joan Didion's "Marrying Absurd" contrasts the plight of the modern-day wedding.
Couples wait for more than two years after engagement to conduct a wedding ceremony in efforts to have the "perfect" traditional wedding. Hundreds of preparations must be made, from choosing a bridal dress to invitations to limousine rental. The couple in "The Wedding" carefully chose their attire and the setting for the joyous occasion. Their guests met them at the Palace of Weddings, "a nineteenth-century mansion on a quiet tree-lined street (Lee 91)." They even made plans to have live music performed "by a trio of musicians," which cost extra (Lee 92). On the other hand, weddings performed in Las Vegas like those in "Marrying Absurd" are entirely different. There is no need for preparation. A bride may wear a brightly colored mini-dress if she chooses and not be deemed as tawdry. Las Vegas weddings exchange formal procedure for convenience. "I got it [the ceremony] down from five to three minutes," bragged one justice of the peace who once united more than sixty people in one night (Didion 87). It is a wedding - not a fast-food restaurant. .
The involvement of family and friends assists in making the day a wonderful memory. In "The Wedding," family and close friends were involved with preparation even minutes before the ceremony and serve as comfort to jittery nerves.
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