From sitcoms and soap operas to talk shows and movies, Amerians are in love with the idea of a white wedding. The happy bride and groom smile from the covers of fashion and entertainment magazines, and appear in TV commercials to sell everything from life insurance to antacid. Fascinated by this national obsession, Chrys Ingraham peers behind the veil to question the meaning of weddings in American popular culture. What she finds is nothing less than a wedding industrial complex. The wedding industry does a thriving business with annual revenues in excess of 30 billion dollars. The average cost of a wedding is over $19,000, with 2.4 million couples getting married each year. This book investigates the underside of this recession-proof industry, exposing how weddings are used to sell a heterosexual fairy tale.

Ingraham draws on popular media, such as bridal magazines, children's toys, feature films, television and advertising to reveal how they regulate gender, sexuality, race and class.