Here Comes the Bride: Women, Weddings, and the Marriage Mystique
Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001.
"Whether she wears a ball gown (fitted waist with full skirt), an Empire gown (cropped bodice and high waist), a princess gown (vertical lines flowing from the shoulder to the hemline), a sheath (linear, body-hugging form), or an a-line dress (fitted bodice that steadily flares out from the hemline), the contemporary bride always wears an expression of social victory. She wears a dress that she will not wear on any other day, a garment designed, purchased, and worn to mark the happiest occasion of her life. This is not, as marriage advisors mistakenly claim, the day a woman is joined in marriage. It is the day she escapes the stigma of being 'single.' It is the day her relatives breathe a sigh of relief as she enters sanctioned coupledom. Her carriage, self-presentation, and apparel are therefore the visual centerpiece of the contemporary wedding."