Reflection on Final Project Presentation of Weddings- (Extra Credit)

I attended the presentations in the professor's section today and thought were very interesting and were presented very well.
The first presentation was about weddings. The group began with a clip from the movie "Made of Honor," it showed the powerful gender roles embedded in marriage (maid of honor being hyperfeminized, importance of finding the "perfect wedding dress". It disrupted the typical norm of maids of honor being a woman.
Weddings, as a whole, are extremely heteronormative in our society. Homosexual weddings are deemed deviant and marriage laws against same sex marriage enforce this strict only heteronormative view of marriage. The group showed gay wedding clip from Sex and the City 2; this broke the usual heteronormativity. But even this clip of a homosexual marriage showed displays of heteronormativity--one man in a white tuxedo and one man in a black tuxedo, the man in the white tuxedo seemed more feminine than the man in the black tuxedo, (characteristic of bride and groom) there was an all male choir that sang in a feminine manner, no masculine voices could be heard from the choir.
The group also mentioned the importance of the engagement ring, bridal showers (being hyperfemininzed), and the marriage proposal. The typical marriage proposal has men dictating when he wants to get married and settle down, where the woman is just simply waiting for him. This is heavily used in engagement ring advertisements, where the woman is "sick of waiting," this puts pressure on the man to ask for the woman's hand in marriage.

In conclusion, there are many heteronormative views that are used to shape how weddings should be in our society. Gender roles are heavily influenced by the advertisements of wedding dresses, engagement rings, bridal showers, etc. Sexuality in advertisements puts pressure on the groom, and especially the bride to look her "best" on her "perfect day" (have a flawless complexion with make-up done perfectly, have the best figure, the best hiar etc). All these heteronormative views are engrained and enforced in our society and culture by the use of contemporary wedding advertisements.