Everyone’s Getting Married

Weddings are everywhere right now. Dua Lipa and Callum Turner. Ming Xi and Mario Ho. Venus Williams and Andrea Preti. And don’t forget the recent wave of high-profile engagements: Zendaya and Tom Holland, Zoë Kravitz and Harry Styles, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.With every new wedding comes endless discussion of the dress, the venue, and the guest list. Increasingly, I’ve noticed that the conversation around weddings focuses as much on the aesthetic and curatorial choices a couple makes as it does on the couple themselves—myself included, guilty as charged.In this episode, I ask whether celebrity culture and social media have fundamentally shifted our understanding of weddings. In the age of social media, weddings increasingly function as displays of cultural capital. Every decision, however small, communicates something about taste (shoutout to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu!) and, by extension, social position.Is the wedding still about love? Or has it become a cultural performance for an audience of millions? Could it perhaps be both?Subscribe for more! New episodes every Thursday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe on Substack for written notes on culture and to get new episodes delivered straight to your inbox.Have ideas, questions, or something you want me to dig into? Send them my way at [email protected] or message me on Substack! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit workingtheorypod.substack.com