AHC: slow down the U.S. wedding industry?

Either significantly weaken feminism or significantly reduce income inequality/the culture of striving and "meritocracy" in the us.

I would say rather opposite. If feminism is stronger, then the weddings themselves have less significance. In Finland the wedding craze was at it's low point during 1970's, but got up in late 1990's but seems to have faded a little. Incidentally, as inequality has gone up so has the spending on weddings.
 
Wow there's some skooky stuff in this thread

Well, a lot of it is cultural and not easy to say what will really change it. Especially in the modern day, a lot of the wedding extravaganza has roots in consumer culture and a very USonian propensity for personal indulgence. Anything that will weaken traditional views of what marriage should look like (feminism, influential media, backlashes, etc.) and encourage austerity/discourage materialism (economic stress, war mobilization, etc.).

Kneecap the Progressive movement, and keep significant inequality, high tariffs, and isolationism more prominent could limit the industry to the wealthy and aspirationally wealthy.

Keep the social backlash of the 1970s/1980s to a minimum, keep deregulation from opening the floodgates of consumerism, and keep the US economy tottering along not too bad but not perky either.

Have the Dubya 'compassionate conservative' coalition fail and have the dot Com bubble burst ache a little longer. The social movements changing our concept of marriage are not kneecapped by the Bush administration, and thought 9-11 and War in Iraq are not guaranteed, it's likely Gore/other president would wind up trying to accelerate the end of history somewhere.
 
I remember in the ‘80s, a nurse in her mid-twenties was telling me about her fiance and herself getting engaged. And she also told me how her mom had jokingly said, are you sure you don’t want to elope, we’ll even provide a ladder. Because a big wedding is just so much work! :p

So, another possibility!

The couple engages in a stylized elopement. And the much smaller circle of close friends and immediate family shows up last minute at the Justice of the Peace’s.

And yes, my personal preference would be for a variety of norms, where even the most popular norm is only 40%, meaning no majority norm.

. . , Keep the social backlash of the 1970s/1980s to a minimum, . . .

Do you mean the whole ‘60s and ‘70s approach of be true to your own inner light, and the conventional backlash against same?
 
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One of the easiest ways would be remove the Church from the whole thing - instead make marriage solely a civil affair where you can only get married by handing a judge a fifty dollar bill.

I think it's rather the opposite. I know that opinion isn't popular on this board, but: If more people took church weddings seriously as a spiritual joining, rather than regarding the church as a nice place to hold their wedding with the bride in her $10,000 dress and the giant party afterward (with the party being the real point of the whole thing), there might be less emphasis on the surface trappings. A nice white wedding dress, OK: thousands of dollars spent on something worn once, vain, and therefore not OK. Having the family and friends over for a celebration at the bride's parents' house afterward, OK; having a the bride and groom arrive at the ceremony in a carriage drawn by four white ponies, not OK. That sort of thing.
 
One factor that lead to Big Weddings is the fact that many families are far more spread out around the country, then they use to be.
So when you invite the members of your family to your daughter wedding (As I did this year), not having a big reception is not a option.
For my daughter wedding here in Alabama, we had family members from New York, and Chicago. So yes, Megan reception had a meal and lots of Drinks and a Band.
We also rented two vans to get people whom drank to much, to their Homes and Hotels.
 
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