Better late than never, I always say. I saw this article about Disney teaming with a wedding dress designer to create princess-themed wedding dresses for grown-up brides about a week ago but I haven’t had a chance to comment on it until now. (In the interest of full disclosure, as I write this, my five-year old daughter’s heart-shaped Disney Princess plate is sitting on my desk. I believe she used it to snack on some carrots while she was playing games on my PC earlier.)
Having purchased at least one Disney Princess dress-up costume for my own daughter, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by this headline. Is there truly a market for women to wrap themselves in bright yellow tulle (Belle, for those out there in non-Princess homes) or bright pink organza (Sleeping Beauty) on their wedding days? And if so, could Seven Dwarf-themed bridesmaid dresses be far behind?
Never fear, says designer Kirstie Kelley, these gowns will not simply be adult-sized versions of the character dresses already available on DisneyShopping.com. Rather these gowns will “attempt to channel the personality of each princess in terms suitable for a real-life, modern woman.”
Yeah, I didn’t quite get that part either.
Kelly goes on to explain key differences between the Disney Princesses to illustrate (hah!) this point.
A mood and fashion sensibility was assigned to each princess-themed gown: Cinderella is for the classic glamour bride; Sleeping Beauty is about pretty romance; Snow White is sweet elegance; Ariel is sultry allure; Belle is stylish sophistication; and Jasmine is bohemian chic.
“It actually touches on every type of wedding,” explained Kelly, who also has her own bridal couture label. “For the destination wedding there’s Ariel or Jasmine, but if you’re having 500 people in a ballroom, you’re definitely the Cinderella gown.”
Um…okay. That clears that up.
I’m really not sure how I feel about this. I fear that weddings in society have already moved so far into the fantasy realm, especially for women, that many have trouble understanding the difference between “getting married” and “having a wedding”. In fact, much of the wedding industry is built around this “princess for day” sense of entitlement that translates into brides spending thousands of dollars on horse-drawn carriages and swans.
As Susan Jane Gilman wrote in her hysterical and insightful book, Kiss My Tiara:
At age five, I perceived marriage as a dress, a party, and a spotlight. Unfortunately, there’s a whole industry dedicated to perptuating this idrea for females until we’re oh, fifty…. Many woman [have] grown up beleiinvg that their wedding will be “their day” – the most improtant day of their life. The problem was, their wedding day was not just “their day”, but their only day…the one time they were allowed to run the whole damn show, demand exactly what they wanted and be the center of attention.
Maybe that’s what bothers me about the creeping influence of the Disney Princesses in the lives of little girls. With few exceptions, the stories of the princess characters bear little resemblance to realties of love, relationships, romance, and work that they will encounter as they outgrow those brightly colored dress-up gowns. After spending your formative years being fed one ideal of life and love, it’s not hard to imagine that girls are more than a little shaken when they enounter the reality.
Am I reading too much into this? It’s certainly possible, but the fact that the word “princess” comes up hundreds of times during the planning of the average American wedding, makes me think that maybe I’m not. Wth or without Disney-themed dresses, Gilman hits the nail on the head about the wedding industry.
Of course, I can’t simply blame Disney for planting the princess idea into every little girl’s head, and I can’t even claim that I’m immune. I got married in a pale pouffy dress with something that looked suspiciously like a tiara pinned to my head. I can’t deny it. There were witnesses. Of course the best man at this blessed event was named Jennifer but that’s a story for another time.
I suppose it’s all about balance. As Disney becomes more effective at inserting their Princess brand into more and more related products and services, parents of young girls need to be more proactive about supplementing that princess image with other examples of the roles woman play and can still play in society. I realize that it’s hard to compete with pink organza and a marketing budget roughly equal to the GDP of China but we should at least try.
That’s all I have to say on this for now save this last comment: Is anyone else out there as disturbed by the idea of as “Ariel is sultry allure” as I am?