The adorablest wedding
Just a shout-out to friends-of-this-project over at Dinner Party Download.
This week, they discuss an historical wedding both incredibly adorable and somewhat objectifying/exploitative: the 1863 wedding of Charles Sherwood Stratton (aka Tom Thumb) to Lavinia Warren. I know that there's a degree of objectification in most weddings -- with the couple as object -- but with some weddings this is more true than others. When PT Barnum organizes your wedding, there's more objectification than most. And when your wedding is a piece of art, there's also more objectification than most.
To be clear: I am not trying to make any point about being an object or a tool (relative to Bettina or to GetHubbied) in the way that I think most of us suspect that Tom Thumb was primarily a tool for Barnum. Bettina is incredibly respectful, and has gone to great pains to ensure that there's no trace of exploitation in this enterprise. But from the perspective of The Couple, it's hard, at times, not to feel instrumental.
As a special bonus, this week's DPD contains an interview with Chris Burden. (Which, in an oblique way, is yet another wedding reference, though perhaps only for one-half of the creators of DPD itself.)
Anyhow, check it out. Good stuff.
-JZ