Blog Assignment #3

Trainor, M. (June/July 2016). Planning without my mom. Brides, 83 (3), p. 108-110.

As I am getting married this summer, the only magazine that I had readily available to me was Brides. My mom had bought it for me earlier in the month as a way to pass the time while I waited with her at various appointments. Because I was with my mom when I originally received the magazine, a specific article caught my eye. “Planning without My Mom” is a personal story about one woman’s experience planning a wedding without her mother who had passed away from breast cancer six years prior. Her relationship with her deceased mother, her best friend, and her father are examined in the brief piece, as well as the blossoming relationship with her now-husband. The author recounted how her husband helped her through dress fittings, hair appointments, and other bridal experiences that are traditionally reserved for the mother of the bride. She mentioned ways in which she incorporated her mother’s spirit in her wedding ceremony, including holding her mother’s blue rosary as her “something blue”.

I was deeply touched by the article and was glad for having read it. On a side panel incorporated on the same page as the article, the editors of the magazine included various ways brides and grooms can honor lost loved ones on their special day. Having not lost any close loved ones myself, these suggestions did not apply to me. Nevertheless, I found them to be informative for others who have lost dear family and friends.

After reading the article, I browsed through the rest of the magazine. Brides is a publication that is full of photos of gorgeous wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses, tuxes, and more. Truly, it can feel like the magazine is more ad content than non-ad content. This being said, I counted only about 35 pages of advertisements that were not specifically wedding related. These ads were for items like deodorant, birth control, make-up, etc. and had printed the word “ADVERTISEMENT” on the top left hand corner of the page. This 35 page advertisement count in a 259 paged magazine would make 13.5% of the magazine ad-related content. However, as mentioned previously, Brides magazine has many pages devoted to wedding gowns and other bridal related imagery (like the image seen below) that are clearly ads for the designer. Taking these pages into account, about 200 pages of the 259 page magazine was ad-related content, accounting for 77% of the magazine’s overall content.

Brides magazine is specifically geared toward brides-to-be and so the amount of advertisements within its pages is not at all surprising to me. A bride-to-be myself, I am well aware of how expensive weddings are and how lucrative the wedding industry is. Wedding dresses, wedding rings, honeymoons, reception halls — these are all items couples feel the need to secure for their big day. With a countless number of magazines, shows, celebrity gossip, and even Pinterest content devoted to weddings, the want (and pressure) of having a fairy tale wedding is rather significant for brides and grooms alike. It is no wonder that Brides magazine fills its pages with mostly advertisements of these bridal elements. Brides-to-be will either spend the money to purchase a magazine like Brides, or, as my friends and I have often done, gather as many wedding related magazines together and sift through them without purchasing them. Whether or not the magazine is purchased, however, advertisers still have consumers willing to purchase items they have seen in the ads in order to have their wedding look just as in the magazine. In comparison to other magazines, I’m sure that Brides’ ratio of ads to articles is very high. Yet this does make sense to me given the bridal industry.