The wedding industry takes a regular beating for being over the top. But there are also good aspects to it.

As a designer of high-end wedding dresses, Justina McCraffrey (full disclosure – a  friend of mine) sees a lot of the inner workings of weddings.  Her work brings her closely in contact with the bride, as described in a recent piece for The Huffington Post. She gets a chance to watch the dress reveal to the bride the woman she once dreamed of becoming, a woman she forgot a long time ago when dreams of Prince Charming faded away to the reality that fuels movies like The Hangover.

Recently, my husband and I watched Horrible Bosses. Like the Hangover movies they belie a deep crisis in masculinity. Forget any idea of Prince Charming or even a somewhat competent man capable of taking care of himself and possibly thinking of someone else’s well being. (Knocked Up was a brilliant exception in this genre of movies.) A charitable take would be to say that these men missed out somewhere. They missed out on knowing how to be men – how to love someone else, how to be strong for someone else, and how to give themselves. They’re so void of any self possession that they will never be able to be very present for anyone else, especially a woman who’s learned how to take care of herself.

Justina writes about a very specific type of woman – the highly successful, competent, driven woman. She shows up to get something done; she’s there to buy a dress and cross it off her list. But the experience of the dress ends up being somewhat transformative. Justina describes a sort of self discovery that takes place:

It is the abandoned dream and vision of herself that was once forgotten somewhere between the divorce of her parents, high school exams, and her first broken heart. It is the internal struggle of regrets versus survival and that suddenly in the mirror a vision of herself looking like she is in love, and looking like she is vulnerable, and even giddy with joy makes her uncomfortable. It is a woman that she does not know. It is the woman she used to be, even as a little girl.

Sure, fairy tales and the Disney princess motif can be taken to excess; but the fact that children, especially girls, are drawn to them seems to suggest that there’s something good and pleasing in them. After all, is it so bad to teach a young girl that she can grow up to love a good man and be loved by him?

I’ll let Justina’s words conclude this post, but do read her entire article for yourself.

They [Women] are taught not to rely on others, especially men. Reality and dashed expectations have given them a somewhat hard edge.

…

My work isn’t just about making dresses, it’s about helping women reclaim their identity, and embrace the truth of who they are. It is showing these beautiful, dignified, and intelligent women through the silence of the gowns, that they should expect to be coveted, loved, and admired not just for what they do and whether they’re successful, but for living within the acceptance, truth, and beauty of who they are.

Part of the creative process for me is not just creating the dress, but watching the bride become who she is. There’s a transformation from the woman who entered the salon as a manager of sorts with a massive to-do list that included buying a dress, to the woman who sees herself as a bride, someone to love and be loved.