ABSTRACT
Recently referred to by Wall Street analysts as “recession-proof,” the wedding industry has reached such proportions that it can be more accurately described as a wedding-industrial complex. This structure reflects the close association among weddings, the transnational wedding industry, marriage, the state, religion, media, and popular culture. To understand the significance of white weddings, it is crucial to attain a sense of the operation of the wedding industry particularly in relation to the workings of the wedding-industrial complex. The scope of this chapter is to provide an overview of the various components of this complex in order to make visible the historical and material foundation upon which the operation of the heterosexual imaginary depends. Greater elaboration of the role of mass media and popular culture and other aspects of the accompanying wedding-ideological complex will be covered in subsequent chapters.
