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Aug 814 min read

I Do Reimagined: Weddings of the Future

Updated: Oct 24



This week we explore the evolving world of weddings and some trends that are reshaping this age-old tradition. We discuss how different generations might view marriage, some signals on unconventional ceremonies, and even the possibility of changing legal marriage ages. Is there a future where platonic friendship weddings are normalized? And pets are not only invited, they can be your witness or even officiant? But it's not just about the big day--we also dive into how these shifts reflect broader changes in our society, relationships, and communities. Whether you're planning a wedding, dreaming of one, or just curious about how love and commitment are adapting to our modern world, this episode offers some thought-provoking ideas that might change how you think about tying the knot.





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Episode Transcript:

Raakhee: Welcome to Signal Shift, by Horizon Shift Lab. We're your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha, and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals in technology, culture, and society, uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more? Go to horizonshiftlab.com.


I'm Raakhee and I'm joined by Sue and Lana as always.


So, we're talking about weddings today. There's really nothing more traditional than a wedding. But some things have changed with time in ways that we couldn't have predicted forty years ago. 


A few examples. A study showed that now roughly one in three couples say having a lab-grown stone is really important to them. In fact, half of the center stones were reported to be lab-grown in 2023, which is about four times as high as it was in 2019, so it's an upward-moving trend.


Couples spend about seven hours per week planning their weddings when they're engaged. And a lot of that time is actually spent online planning, it's 91%. Roughly three in 10 couples included eco-friendly or sustainable options in their weddings through things like the usage of flowers or the type of material that maybe their invites are on or even their clothing, right? 


So there's certain things that have definitely changed about what's important in a wedding, how we prepare for weddings, what we're doing in them. A lot hasn't changed. And that's what we are going to examine today. So I'm looking forward to hearing what Lana and Sue have to share. But yeah, today we are talking about weddings. So who wants to kick us off?


[2:14]


Lana: This is Lana. I can go. So I got married in the early pandemic, so kind of the lockdown part of pandemic. And you know, I can tell you, I wasn't someone who spent a lot of time as a child thinking about their wedding, but I definitely did not plan to have, or could have ever even imagined having a private ceremony that was on YouTube, right? With a reception that was on Zoom with people from all over the world kind of calling in and watching us eat cake, like on their computers, right? And so I think this is a really fun topic for me, you know, to think about even further on the future of weddings. 


And so, you know, I was interested in what the future of weddings could look like as families change, right? And the definition of family and the definition of partnership. And so I found like a couple of things. So one is a wedding chapel, a destination wedding chapel in Nashville. They hold Elvis weddings, but they also started a new service which is called the Bestiemony™ . And so it's where you can come with your bestie and have a ceremony in the chapel to really recognize your friendship, right, and what it means to you. And so they exchange vows, they have like a videographer, and, you know, so there's a very special ceremony package specifically for this type of ceremony. And so I thought that was really cute, but also just a recognition that there's a market for that, right, to celebrate and honor friendships with this type of ceremony.


The other one that I found is actually on Reddit. It's in the Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread. And it had 13,000 upvotes and over 3,000 comments, I couldn't like get into the whole thread. But it was a 31-year-old man who wanted to marry his best friend, who's also in their 30s, a man.


They're living together, they're roommates, but they're not, I mean, most of the thread was about trying to define their sexual orientation, that they're straight, or described as one straight, one maybe not, but they have a very deep and loving friendship. And so they're not that interested in dating. They're not that, they don't think they want to have kids, but they live together and they love each other and they wanted to have a ceremony to celebrate that. 


And so, you know, I think this is just, you know, that people want to recognize, like in a ceremony, just like a wedding, what love means to them in sort of all the different ways that we can feel love and support for each other. But I think also want to claim some of the benefits that come with marriage, right? Like in terms of there's financial benefits when you kind of live together or share assets, those medical benefits and others. And I think that'll be increasingly important as we navigate the world. And so, and doing it together in like kind of maybe creative ways. So anyway, so those are some of the things that I found.


Raakhee: Oh, that's so interesting, Lana, and so much to unpack there. I mean, it speaks to so many different signals we've been picking up in different ways. So really exciting, cannot wait to talk about that a bit more. Sue, what do you have today?


[6:27]


Sue: So my signal is a bit lighthearted, but possibly controversial. And I say this because one issue historically around wedding strife, maybe between the couple and their guests, has been the decision on whether to make a wedding kid-free or essentially adults-only wedding. But now there's also an issue that may cause additional controversy, which is a policy around having a pet-friendly wedding. And so, Rover did a study last year, and it was the first one apparently around weddings and pets, and they surveyed pet owners who are engaged or about to be engaged.


And 81% of them plan to include their pet in their wedding somehow. 72% actually said they would favor removing some of their human guests in favor of making room for pets. And even 32% said they'd consider actually having their pets serve as their witnesses in their marriage. 


And the reason I brought this up was because I know I've talked about animals a lot. I swear I was not looking for this, but I saw this in passing a few weeks ago that New York State actually is now allowing pets to serve as witnesses to your wedding. So when you get your marriage certificate, they can actually put their paw print on it for a dog or cat, say, right? And actually, they're one of 23 states that allow this. And even more so, there are eight states in the United States that allow pets to serve as your wedding officiant or celebrant. And in case you're wondering how this is possible, it's because either some of these states allow primary witnesses who are human, but you can have a secondary witness. And so pets can serve as a secondary witness. Or in other states, they have what are called self-solemnizing laws, which means you don't need an officiant, you don't need witnesses to get married. Yeah, there's no law around saying you can't have a pet as a witness.


And so, you know, this isn't the most thought-provoking signal, but it just made me really say, “Wow, really?” Like, I saw this. And so I wondered, you know, what does this look like and what kind of strife could this possibly cause, right? So I think the biggest opportunity is for the pet industry to have yet another thing to specialize for pets, right? So like, there are further job opportunities around here, like you can serve as pet attendants, you can offer behavior training for weddings, you can get special spa packages for the day of, you can offer honeymoon packages, like you name it, you know, pet-friendly hotels may have a leg up on non-pet friendly hotels for wedding guests. 


But I thought really for wedding guests, this might be the thing, like, in addition to asking, are you a kid-friendly wedding? Are you going to then ask, are pets allowed too? And so you might see this on wedding invitations, like, oh, this is a kid-free pet-free wedding, or for ones where no pets are allowed, it may say, like, this is a human-only wedding. And I actually saw some coasters that said that. 


And then I just wondered, like, yeah, what is the tension as a pet owner, like, you may have your bestie, your dearest friend who you want in your wedding party who also happens to be deathly allergic to your pet, who you also love? What are you going to do? And, you know, like, are you going to get in arguments with family members who are saying, like, really, I can't bring my kids, but you're going to bring your pet, there's definitely stories about that. Or vice versa, like, only kids are allowed, but my pet is like my fur baby, why isn't my fur baby allowed, right?


So it's really underneath all of this, I think, is just one trend continuing, which is just the emotional support of pets, and really what they mean in our lives. If they've helped you get through your worst day. It's kind of natural to want to have them there at one of the most important days of your life. Yeah, I think it's just going to be an ongoing question. I think one thing for a certain is that there is a lot of opportunity if you're in the pet industry of how to think about this going forward.


You know, like, wedding planners, couples, they're all starting to think about this, like, what is the pet policy-- we need to have one.


[10:40]


Raakhee: I love it, Sue, it speaks to constituting the rights of animals, right? And that has come up so often in different trends. And of course it would for a wedding, I mean, that's your pets, your family. So such different signals, and actually, yeah, really interesting in different ways. I think it's going to be a really interesting chat, I'm breaking these down today. Yeah, I'll share, I'll share my one. I think mine is a little bit data, and then it's raising a controversial question as to something we might see.


Yeah, I saw lots of different trends with weddings, but I went in with confirmation bias. And so I was looking to really see data that would say, Gen Z are going to get married less, and Gen Z are not going to care about weddings, and, you know, we're going to see less weddings. Because I just had that, I don't know, somewhere lurking in my brain. 


And what I actually found was a study done by The Knot, and they are one of the really big wedding companies online, and sort of media companies and planning companies. And yeah, they did a study, it was relatively small, it was just a thousand survey respondents, but it was last year, so it's very, very recent. And really interesting in this study, the Gen Z respondents basically said that 81% are open to the possibility of getting married. In fact, pretty much half of that, right, about 53%, so they definitely see themselves getting married, legally married, in the future. And, you know, they were, their feelings were basically 66% said excited, 72% said it's something they'd anticipate, only 8% of Gen Zs said that marriage is outdated. 


Now, at the same time, what I then found is this dichotomy in marital perceptions between Gen Z and Millennials. And it's really Millennials who are kind of waiting longer, you know, have a different idea on marriage, and have waited much longer than other generations to get married.


So, yeah, it shows what we see now is that there are more single people over 40 than ever before. This sort of, you know, Millennial group, and yeah, so there are more single people over 40 than ever before. In 2021, it was, it was a quarter of 40-year-olds in the US had never been married. And this was up from 20% in 2010. So it's, you know, that is an upward trend. And there's a lot of things, right, women are more educated, right, and all of this is leading somewhere, but coupled with that, what we also know now is that marriage rates are up, and divorce rates are actually down.


So somehow this whole thing of like, oh, I think we all just believe divorce is like 50-50%, that's not true. There was a peak that was actually hit in like the 80s. And right now we're looking at the divorce rate is about 2.4 per thousand people. And that shifts, and it's just going down also over the years. So divorce rate is literally going down, okay? And some of the things that are happening here is that the whole taking longer seems to be working. You know, people co-habitating first seems to be working, things like therapy, couple therapy, clearly it's working. I mean, you have to add in there absolutely, it's going down because there's also a percentage of the fact that less people are getting married, yes, absolutely, that's a part of the data. But for those who are getting married, it's, you know, it's clearly not a hit or miss, right? You know, there's a number of things that can work for certain groups, and we might be getting a handle on that, or the right handle on that finally. 


And so where this led me to is a big question around the legal age of marriage. And if the data is showing that it makes sense and we see less divorce, which has an impact particularly on children, right? Do you think government, state, cities, wherever it may be, would sort of start to have new rules around the legal age of marriage with that impact, right? So right now it's between 18, 19. Could we see down the line that maybe that's 24 or 25? The data, everything we know, everything is showing is telling us that it makes a lot more sense that your chances are higher. And so the legal age changes to like something like 24 or 25 to hit that, you know, the right stride. The data starts to show us something else when, when, when do the rules start to change a kind of a legality level?


So Lana, you said something so interesting at the top of the meeting and Sue, I'd love to hear this from your perspective as well, but you know, you never imagined your wedding and never been the one to do that. And I can totally relate, you know, this, yeah, to Gen Z romanticize this for whatever reason, is it a form of escapism because dating maybe is so hard? So I have to romanticize this thing I'd have in the future or I don't know, in a world where everything else is pretty tough for them, maybe that's something to hold on to. I wonder what it is that I really expected to see a different opinion from Gen Z. They, they're very liberal and open in terms of what, what constitutes who gets married and, you know, all of that, but they still bound to this traditional idea of union and a big celebration around it.


[16:17]


Sue: I think one thing reflecting on wedding trends that I've come to appreciate the more I've been to is the idea of the people who are there as your community to help not only your marriage, but also if you have kids, right, like you're part of your community. There's a section of vows, right?


And there's always an opportunity for a call and answer with your wedding guests to say that they will support you kind of through it. So it kind of went back to some of the themes we've talked about, like this idea of a village taking care of each other, community taking care of each other. I feel like I take that very seriously when I get asked that question. It would be such a great world if like those are things we followed through on and something I feel like I could do a better job on, but what if that look like a marriage is not really just to the person you're sitting across, but to the entire room, like you're all committing to each other. You all have different roles, but that is your own role as a wedding, as a wedding guest. It's not just that one day, but it's really for life. So I think, you know, we talked about that in the past of like being a friend who you can count on to hold you accountable for the next 10 years. What does that look like? How do you sign up for that?


Lana: I love that. You know, I did actually see a story of a woman who applied the concept of an arranged marriage to arranged friendship where she had put together a group of six women, they started as strangers, they developed a friendship, and then they had a ceremony to like an arranged marriage where they're arranged friendship group ceremony where they committed their friendship to each other. 


And so I just think that's like, you know, to what you're saying, Sue, just I love that idea of expanding it. I think that's what we're realizing, right? We know like it takes a village to raise a child, but maybe it takes a village to do anything, expanding that circle of commitment and making it really explicit, right? I think that's what I heard you saying is -- like it's, it's not implied, but maybe it's like, if you accept this invitation to my wedding, you're actually making a lifelong commitment to be in our village. And so I think that sounds, I just love that. And I love, I would love to see that just really formalized.


Raakhee: Yeah, I, yeah, I think, yeah, definitely something there. I think it speaks to all of us. And in some way, I think surely that was exactly the purpose of marriages way back, right? That's exactly what they were, right? They were done for, you know, that's how the idea even came up, right? Is to combine communities, to strengthen power together and support each other. So it's going back to that, but I think now extending that to include our pets, which is pretty cool. So even more power.


Sue: It's true. You’ve said this before, Raakhee, what's old is new again, and that's exactly what it was before. 


Raakhee: We just running through, you know, patterns and loops here. I think the one thing I'm coming out with is make no assumptions, make no assumptions about each generation as well and how they'll feel about marriage. I think we'll see different things. And I think expansion, like you both have said, an expansion of what it means, who should be involved and even the purpose it serves. But wrapping us up today, what are your final thoughts about weddings?


Sue: I guess for me, I'm just thinking if I have to do it all over again, or I have a renewal ceremony, this is making me think who's there and what is the role.


Lana: I actually had a similar thought. I was wondering like if we wanted to imagine like our own ceremonies of the future and how we would design it, I think that'd be a longer discussion. But yeah, so I was in the same mindset as you, Sue. I think because my wedding was the way that it was, it has come up, like especially from families have asked like, oh, do you think that you would do like an in-person, you know, reception or event, like now that it's that time in our life has passed in terms of COVID and pandemic shutdown. And so it's an open question. 


Raakhee: I love that idea. And yeah, I think it would be such a cool session. I'm dreaming up envisioning what renewals could look like for us. The three of us being married in this case. So yeah, you know, what would that look like in the future? I think it would be a really cool session. So we'll definitely leave that for the future.


And yeah, thank you so much, everyone, for listening. I hope you enjoyed this. I am sure there are some really cool stories just like Lana's COVID story and please tell us about them. If there's something really creative that you've done with your wedding or you're planning with your wedding, like we'd love to hear about it and talk about it as well. And just go to www.horizonshiftlab.com and you will see that we have a whole page that says Listen and all the podcasts are there. Just go to the one that you want to talk about, leave your comments there. But there's other ways to reach us. You can just send a message. We've got a message box, et cetera. So wherever it is, you can leave a comment or email us. Please do. We really do love hearing from people and we want to talk about what's relevant for you as the listener. So thank you for being here and we will catch you again next week. Bye for now.


[22:16]

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