This past month several high profile celebrities got hitched with hardly a peep. Bruce Willis, David Letterman, and Tom Brady all somehow slipped under the radar. The wedding industry no doubt let out a global gasp at the missed opportunity to bestow their artistic flare on the ceremony.
But where one knot is tied another is waiting in the wings, and from the fashion, flowers, rings, decor, location, photos, music, and favors to the hair, makeup, transport, dinner, and the honeymoon, a wedding has traditionally been one if not the most creatively expressive events we humans hold.
It’s the performance of a lifetime and simple or lavish the big day is just that. Big. I’ve never been married, but I’ve been in and at my fair share of them and I have to say, it never ceases to amaze me how different and special each on is.
I’ve seen small beachside ceremonies, courtly manor house affairs, extravagant ballroom shindigs, touching backyard garden weddings, courthous plesantries, and being in the performing arts, I’ve seen a number of over the top productions with the proper balance of humor and elegance.
Months of planning goes in to a few scant hours which will then go on to symbolize a life together and these days people spend thousands upon thousands of dollars and hours to tell their love story their way and give their guests a glimpse into their hearts.
Kind of sweet when you think of it. Every aspect is mapped out in most cases and perhaps the act of planning a wedding is one of the last tests the couple must endure before the deal is officially sealed.
It’s no wonder there’s a honeymoon really as it serves as a reward for having endured all the planning, primping, and penny-pinching leading up to the vows and that first kiss.
It doesn’t end there though. The focus on the momentos of the day (becuase let’s face it, it’s got to be kind of surreal when the day is there and gone before you know it and you can’t remember if you ate, who was there, and where your shoes went) is a creative industy too. 
The candid photos that capture a tender moment, the bling that you wear with you every day, people are even hiring folks to do wedding scrapbooks for them, complex videos, and are outsourcing their thank you cards so as to make that final lasting impression. Next thing you know there will be surveys sent out, and feedback cards.
And let’s not forget the art of budgeting. When you start pricing out the expertise of florists, chefs, decorators, travel agents, printers, stylists, limo drivers, tailors, and wedding coordinators eloping to Vegas looks better and better.
And most of us approach the wedding as a one shot deal. You have exactly once to get it right. No pressure though right? Maybe it’s not the comittment that brings on those pre-wedding jitters, maybe it’s not even the bill. Perhaps it’s the idea of being in front of all those people, not screwing up your lines, and pacing yourself with the champagne. It’s probably one of the hardest things you’ll do.
And at the end of the day this combination of so many arts have colloborated in an effort to celebrate love. Art like love is natural, eternal, and always interesting. It comes in every shape, size, form, texture, taste, sound, and possible configuration. Love is something intimately universal. Art is impusively personal. And the two will forever be intertwined in this celebratory display. Til death do they part.
