In a wedding-obsessed society fueled by an industry constantly churning out new, expensive ways for couples to outdo their friends and make theirs the best big day(s) ever, the dress has assumed the position of a crown jewel. We don’t have many debutante balls anymore, so this is it — a woman’s a chance to show the world how stylish/pretty/thin she really is. As a bridal magazine executive recently told me, “It’s her one red carpet moment in life.”
These are the glittery waters Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow chose to wade into for his new book, “The Magic Room.” Zaslow has also written “The Girls From Ames,” which tracked the lives of 11 women whose deep friendships started in girlhood, and he co-authored Randy Pausch’s bestselling memoir, “The Last Lecture,” as well as Gabrielle Gifford and Mark Kelly’s book, “Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope.” Zaslow tends to be uplifting and lesson-bearing. So in an attempt to capture what modern romantic relationships look like and “how all of us can best show love to our daughters,” he hit upon the idea of focusing on the bridal gown and the significance it carries in our private lives and cultural landscape.
Zaslow, who has three daughters of his own, zeroed in on Becker’s Bridal, a salon in small town Michigan that’s been run by three generations of Becker women since 1934. For some Midwest women, it’s become a family tradition to buy their wedding dress at Becker’s, taking their favorites into the mirror-lined “magic room” for final judgment.
As a wedding reporter, I sometimes worry that women are so eager for a wedding — and in particular, a wedding dress — that everything else becomes ancillary. Including the choice of groom. Even in a prolonged economic slump, brides (or their parents) are coughing up ever more money for the gown. A report by Brides magazine found that the average wedding dress cost $1,289 in 2010, up 20 percent from the previous year. Zaslow noticed the same heightened emphasis on gowns and wrote that he “wanted to understand the women wearing them, their fears and yearnings.”
But in the next sentence, he explains that he’ll turn a blind eye to this less-than-wholesome trend. “I resolved to pay less attention to brides I met whose motives seemed somewhat frivolous,” he writes. “I wanted to find brides and their families whose paths here were not necessarily easy, but who have given great thought to the love that guides and connects them.”
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