My mother finished with, “If Jesus came to you and said that he had found your perfect spouse, what would you say to him?” She paused for effect. “Now, how much more is Father?” Photographer Jen Kiaba writes a first hand account of courtship and a mass wedding under the direction of Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church. Not every arranged marriage story is unhappy, but inside and outside observers are curious to see what happens to the organization (and its finances and investments) after Moon's death this past September. Oh, and of course there is a goofy TLC special. Previously. (And previously, on the Moonies and the Washington Times.)
posted by availablelight on Oct 23, 2012 - 30 comments

The New York Times' "Vows" column is turning 20. Lois Smith Brady revisits some of the first couples covered in the column which she has written since its inception (alone for the first decade, and as one of several writers in its second). A companion article describes how the column came about and how it (and the couples it covers) have changed over the years. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco on May 20, 2012 - 16 comments

"Every Sunday, the New York Times publishes the wedding announcements of the most promising, wealthy, talented — and only very occasionally inbred — couples in the whole wide world. (Oddly enough, two-thirds of them hail from within a 30-mile radius of Manhattan.) If life is a contest, these people are already winning. But by how much, and in what order?"
posted by SkylitDrawl on Sep 7, 2011 - 67 comments

The Top 100 Wedding Blogs (and Twitters) to follow in 2009 [more inside]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Mar 19, 2009 - 40 comments

The British documentary Britain's Youngest Brides follows five teen girls on their paths to the altar. My personal favorite is Catrina and her 308 pound wedding dress.
posted by miss lynnster on Aug 18, 2007 - 66 comments

70 private cars, 50 000 kilos of flowers, 3000 candles, 65 000 yards of fabric. Those are just a few of the figures from the wedding of New York playboy and (wait for it) hotel heir Vikram Chatwal to model Priya Sachdev. Last year, Lakshmi Mittal (the world's third-richest man, according to Forbes) spent over $60 million for his daughter Vanisha's wedding. What kind of wedding does $60 million buy? A song-and-dance by Aishwarya Rai, among other Bollywood luminaries; ceremonies at the Tuileries and Versailles; and top chefs and designers at your beck and call. In 2004, the Sahara Group's Subrata Roy built three mock palaces on the edge of a lake in Uttar Pradesh; his sons' double wedding had 11 000 guests. Mr. Roy's company paid for the weddings of 101 couples (numbers ending in '1' are considered auspicious) who couldn't afford to get married, and also fed 140 000 poor people across the country (all as part of the festivities). All of this sound like idle gossip? The wedding business is huge in India; it's a $10bn business (and growing at 25% annually), and the demand for gold wedding jewelry, according to analysts, "helped lift the metal's price to a 25-year high last month." Appliance retailers offer discounts during weddings season; there are personal loans available for weddings; and there's even an entire mall devoted to weddings. As the Christian Science Monitor notes, the minimum a middle-class Indian family will spend on a wedding is $34 000. (The average American wedding? $26 327.) And who makes up the Indian middle class? "Those making $4,545 to $23,000 a year." More on Indian wedding traditions here.
posted by anjamu on Mar 6, 2006 - 58 comments

Welcome to our wedding. Join Scott and Helen as they countdown to their wedding on the 9th. View pix of the proposal, the stag do in Amsterdam, the hen night in Brighton, and check out all the details of the upcoming event. Would you open your wedding to the eyes of the world? Site designer and groom Harold says "The idea is not to invite the world to our wedding, would you want them at yours? hence the reason I have now had to take off the reception maps/venues/pictures." (via Haddock)
posted by madamjujujive on Aug 6, 2003 - 33 comments

From Big to Aidan to...the ballet dancer? Sex and the City's author and inspiration Candace Bushnell got married to 33-year-old ballet dancer Charles Askegard July 4 on a Nantucket beach in Massachusetts. The couple has only known each other for eight weeks.
posted by stevis on Jul 9, 2002 - 14 comments

A duct tape wedding Sorta like the Rose Bowl, only with duct tape instead of flowers, people instead of floats and marriage instead of a parade connected to a foodball game.
posted by raysmj on Jan 5, 2002 - 21 comments

"Wait - what - huh?? THAT was your marriage proposal???"
posted by ookamaka on Mar 25, 2001 - 14 comments

Do you take this blogger to be your lawfully wedded geek? I want to know why Matt and Kay haven't set up a link to their deepleap wishlist wedding registry yet.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe on Aug 12, 2000 - 3 comments

Jilted husband blows up wedding. A suicide bomber in northern China, apparently angry at the break-up of his marriage, is reported to have killed himself and 36 people at a village wedding.
posted by chrish on Apr 3, 2000 - 3 comments

politically incorrect may air a gay marriage. if they can find two guys who will exchange vows, P.I. will air it on febuary 18th. hmm. "The on-screen wedding will kick off an episode devoted entirely to gay marriage, a particularly timely topic given Vermont's recent block of an anti-marriage bill, California's upcoming Proposition 22"
posted by palegirl on Feb 11, 2000 - 0 comments