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Brides of Art History with Jane Thompson
220 Plays1 year ago
We're welcoming back Jane Thompson co-founder of @womensartwednesday! As 2023 brides, Jane and Gianna discuss brides throughout art and pop history. Jane introduces us to the hella symbolism in the Arnolfini Portrait, the wedding gift that is Birth of Venus, what is presumed to be the first wedding portrait captured through photography, and more! In the later half of the episode, we take a closer look at iconic brides from royals, celebrities, and fictional characters.
For more Women's Art Wednesday, click HERE.
For more Artpop Talk, click HERE.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Theme: Brides in Art
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome to Art Pop Talk. I'm Gianna. And I'm Jane, co-founder of Women's Art Wednesday and friend of the podcast. Jane, where's Bianca? Didn't you hear? Today's Art Pop Talk is all about brides of art and pop history. And as your fellow 2023 bride, it's only fitting that I co-host. So let's Art Pop Talk.
Jane's Return and Imposter Syndrome
00:00:34
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that literally brought me so much joy. Jane, welcome back to the podcast. We are literally so excited and thrilled that you are here. And as a fellow 2023 bride, I just stanned everything about today's episode. So we have done a prior episode on the history of bachelorette parties.
00:00:57
Speaker
And for today, we are so getting into, we're just doing a nice deep dive on brides of art history and pop culture. I also loved how I just kind of made Bianca out of this episode. I know. She just come on. I feel like such an imposter right now. I'm like, I'm not Bianca.
00:01:16
Speaker
The imposter syndrome is also just real, I think, on any day of Art Pop Talk. I'm like, who am I to have this podcast? Oh, it's very big shoes to fill also. I listen to Art Pop Talk all the time, and now it feels weird. I'm like, where is she? Where is she? No, we do miss Bianca, but I think that she is more than happy to pass her mic along to you for this episode. It's so exciting. She's probably busy doing made of honor duties, because let me tell you, it's like a lot of work.
00:01:45
Speaker
She literally is. That is very true. Yeah, I have definitely put her to work this year and am eternally grateful.
Spring Wedding Plans and Challenges
00:01:55
Speaker
So Jane, you're getting married this spring. That's correct. I am. It's like alarmingly
00:02:00
Speaker
close but there's like I said it's a lot of work and it's right around the corner for us actually so um yeah spring wedding coming at you we're gonna do it outside so hoping for the best weather wise and uh yeah very exciting it's it's gonna be great is it a colorado spring wedding it is a colorado spring wedding so it's kind of like you know like I said a complete gamble when it comes to the weather end of things and stuff like that but
00:02:28
Speaker
You know, I think that it's like as a, your wedding planning and we were only engaged for a year. So I know like you've had a little bit of a longer engagement. Um, and I was like, I know that I need to get this done in a year because otherwise I'll just overthink every detail and like, you know, be too excited and stuff like that. So, um, it like went by so fast, the planning process and getting everything set. And so now I'm kind of like in this phase of like, well,
00:02:53
Speaker
gonna happen. Either way, like we've got the day in the place and like, it's going down. So you know, if all the little details don't come together, we're kind of in this stage of acceptance at this point. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to get to that stage. I'm not quite there yet. I'm still in the kind of scrutinizing stage. But I think the best thing that someone told me, and I feel like multiple people have said this is that if details go wrong, or they're not what you thought they were, the good news is that
00:03:21
Speaker
that information only exists in your brain and nobody else knows that that wasn't supposed to happen. Oh, that's great advice. That's so good. Yeah, we love some perspective. You're a fall bride, right? You're coming up in the fall.
00:03:36
Speaker
I'm a fall bride. I kind of have a little bit of ownership over the fall season because my birthday is on the first day of fall, and as much as I love the spring, it just doesn't matter in the state of Oklahoma. You could get married in the fall, the spring, or the winter, and you could be getting married on the most beautiful day or the most tragic day that ever existed in the world. So fall, so September in Oklahoma,
00:04:02
Speaker
Honestly, I couldn't even tell you what the temperature is going to be like. We're just going to see. Our ceremony is outside, but our reception is going to be inside. If for some reason the weather is horrible, we can always get married inside.
00:04:17
Speaker
That is just, that is something that I have just accepted and it just is what it is, right? Because that's just something you can't control and you just have to move forward and pick a date and not know what the weather is going to be like. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Women's Art Wednesday Updates and Future Plans
00:04:32
Speaker
Well, Jing, tell us a little bit about Women's Art Wednesday.
00:04:36
Speaker
we had you on with your co-founder Paloma back in. Oh my gosh, seems like a hot minute ago. It was definitely 2022. Yeah, obviously. But what has been going on? How did the book launch go? Any updates to share with the art pop tarts? Yeah, so you know, I can't come on without talking about Women's Art Wednesday, even if I'm here in like a personal capacity today. And that's like speaking of missing Bianca. I'm also like, Oh, I feel like
00:05:00
Speaker
you know, a limb has been chopped off to not have Paloma being here to fill my silences and stuff. But yes, we're doing well. So Paloma and I released the Women's Art Wednesday book on International Women's Day last year. So we just hit the one year anniversary of the book coming out, which was super exciting and kind of surreal because, you know, talk about like big projects that take a lot of planning and, you know, you build up a lot in your head and then it finally happens and it feels crazy.
00:05:30
Speaker
um so we did that and then we kind of took like a massive break after that happened um just because we were you know tapped out and tired at the end of the project but it was really great um it was like in a great way because it was from like so much support and like events that we were getting asked to speak at and classes we were going to so like the book came out and we really hit this like whirlwind of people wanting to talk to us and learn about the project and do things so
00:05:58
Speaker
It was like the best possible problem to have. Um, but we weren't going to tie it over the summers. We kind of took some time off of like, you know, talking to classes and doing book sales and all this stuff. And then we sort of geared back up in the fall and are kind of now getting back at it. So we've been running a couple of like women in art history workshops with a few different universities. Um, and just kind of like trying to tie things back to the women's art Wednesday project and the goal.
00:06:25
Speaker
We've been talking to a couple little art groups lately and things like that. So, we're really just kind of hyping the book right now. And when we, when people ask us about kind of the next project or the next phase, I think that they'll probably center around the book. So, I know one thing we're really interested in doing is like a Spanish language edition of the book. Because Ploma is a native Spanish speaker and also like we would just love to do that, love to expand like the reach of the book and stuff like that. And then also possibly a children's book, which I think could be
00:06:55
Speaker
really exciting. Remove some of the saucy language from the original copy and like do some different illustrations to kind of do like a more youth targeted stuff because we've also been doing a little bit more lately with like youth outreach and like supporting young women artists and kind of like getting the info in front of kids to be like hey like when you go throughout your life and learn things and look at the world like think about why women are or are not included in the book you get in school and stuff like that. So
00:07:25
Speaker
All of that is kind of what's going on. That brought my heart just literally so much joy. I love that you guys are doing more youth outreach to talk about women in the arts. When I hear people talk about that, also such a full circle moment for me, because I had access to learning about art at such a young age and such a, I think, well-rounded
00:07:49
Speaker
way where that information was coming to me from multiple points of entry. And I think also too, when I look at children's books that highlight historical figures,
00:08:01
Speaker
It's such a distilled down version as well, which we kind of understand the reasons why that is. But also some of those books celebrate really problematic figures that isn't giving the whole picture. And, you know, I know that like someone like Coco Chanel is APT's like problematic example. And I know you all are so tired of that. But she is a good case study for looking at
00:08:27
Speaker
Like I have seen like children's books where you know they celebrate icons, you know, like Coco Chanel and
00:08:35
Speaker
to have a different kind of perspective come from a platform like Women's Art Wednesday just literally brings me so much joy. I just I love the information that you guys are putting out into the world and I think doing that so it's accessible to different groups of people is just chef's kiss. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Well, it's also like the realization I had to start Women's Art Wednesday was like, wow, I'm like three years into a college degree in art history before I even started thinking about
00:09:01
Speaker
like why can most people not name five famous women artists and I think kind of getting ahead of that curve and showing kids you know this is an important part of history and then it just becomes kind of like second nature to see the world that way and I certainly wish that I had you know more of an awareness of that as I started school and looking at the arts and you know all of that so yeah and then certainly like you said the things of who do we choose to put in those books and well women I can be pretty critical as well so
00:09:31
Speaker
Although I will say I was going to tell you guys about your episode on Coco Chanel and the Met Gala and stuff like that. We wanted to do a Women's Art Wednesday feature on Scapparelli.
00:09:43
Speaker
And oh my god, we're like, hold on. Let's just like go through like make sure this is an unproblematic figure in fashion history. Which of course, we were like, Okay, we start with a PT like we got don't start with AP. We're so biased when it comes to ska for LA. We're like, we can do no wrong. Yeah, I love loved it. But we were it was one of the things that like that discussion on coconut snow like
00:10:10
Speaker
really made me be like, Oh, especially when you're talking about fashion, because fashion is like such celebrity, you know, and like, I just feel like there's a lot, there's a lot there that can get like dredged up. And so now we're like extra careful when we're doing a fashion related women's art Wednesday feature. But yes, scap rally. Amazing. Love her. Also
00:10:30
Speaker
What an incredible segue in today's discussion, which is particularly fashion heavy. If I could get married in a Schiaparelli wedding dress, I would absolutely die. Schiaparelli recently also just hosted an event and they have these beautiful play settings with their classic kind of ornamental body part that was placed on top of a napkin on top of the plate. So they had like
00:10:57
Speaker
the lungs or the legs, like just covered in gold that was on the place setting. I fucking died, Jane. I was like, I now my wedding is trash because I don't have this scapularly place setting. It was literally stunning. But to Jane's point, I think that there are so many kind of interesting intersections with fashion, and that is something that we'll be particularly exploring today.
00:11:25
Speaker
So I think without further ado, for today's Art Pop Talk,
00:11:35
Speaker
Jane and I will be discussing brides throughout our impop history. Jane will be taking us through some art historical examples of maybe a little bit of wedding portraiture, some quintessential examples as we like to say, and then also discussing wedding dress fashion. And then we'll discuss how these visuals translate and shape our modern perceptions of bridal and wedding culture.
Event Planning Expertise Through Weddings
00:11:58
Speaker
So Jane, how do you feel you want to kick us off? Oh my gosh, yes. I'm so excited to talk about this topic because it's like really nice to have an excuse to be like, I've been thinking about weddings constantly anyway. And so now I can like bring it into my love of art history and visual culture. It's definitely not useless knowledge. It's I've I have felt like now half my brain is taken up with this information and it is
00:12:25
Speaker
so satisfying to be able to do something with it. But I feel like we should be able to have jobs as corporate event planners now with the amount of work it takes to plan your own wedding. I'm like, if you planned a wedding, you're qualified for these kinds of things. 1,000%. But it is interesting because I know when we initially talked about me coming on for this, it was about doing a lot of stuff with wedding portraiture, which I will for sure talk about. And there are some very cool examples in art history
00:12:55
Speaker
um but it's hard with weddings because there's actually so many interesting histories and then I really started to rabbit hole on like where did this come from and where did this come from um so one of my favorite little random tidbits that I learned while doing some wedding research was about the history of bridal parties and I just wanted to mention this because I thought it was amazing um that some early mentions of like having
00:13:22
Speaker
people stand with you during your wedding that are also like dressed up and your close associates and stuff like that have to do with traditions in the Roman Empire and some beliefs that like you needed these doppelgangers around you to distract any kind of like bad vibes, bad spirits, like anything that meant you harm on your wedding day to kind of like protect you and the groom from this like, you know, whatever possible like bad things could happen to you.
00:13:51
Speaker
Um, by kind of being annoying relatives. Yeah. So I've learned that I've had a really good time telling my friends like, Oh, Hey, like you're just here to like protect me. You are my bodyguards today. You know, it is such a, the bridal party is such a funny like concept because to me,
00:14:11
Speaker
they have just felt like human props. And like, I don't know how to say that in any other way that is not like demoralizing or dehumanizing. But it does feel kind of like a dance for me puppet kind of moment. And it's kind of, um, can be not necessarily it hasn't been uncomfortable for my bridesmaids. But like, for me, I'm like, Is this okay? I'm like, I don't want to like how to like I just, um,
00:14:34
Speaker
a chronic people pleaser. So it's just been more so uncomfortable for me. Like people are asking me, what do you want me to wear? And I'm like, it feels so weird. I know it's what you do, but it feels so weird to like dictate what somebody's gonna wear or people are like, well, what kind of shoes do you want me to be in? How do you want my hair? Give two shifts.
00:14:53
Speaker
You can do whatever you want. I know. And our three-year-old nephew had requested to wear his Spiderman suit for the wedding, and we were like, yeah, do it. And his mom was like, absolutely not. Not going to happen. Well, as a fellow auntie with a nephew that just stands Spiderman and who recently FaceTimed me with a Venom mask, as much as I love him, I might draw the line at the Venom mask. You were like, this is actually terrifying.
00:15:23
Speaker
So I kind of digress there because I just thought that was a fun and interesting tidbit. But it is kind of to the point that like there is so much tradition and like expectation and symbolism that go into weddings, even in our modern world, which I will say like, I think even from our parents generation to ours, there's been kind of a shift in like
00:15:45
Speaker
weddings don't have to follow one traditional model and like you can incorporate these different things that you like or do it in a lot of different ways. But it's interesting to me how many things have kind of persisted through culture and particularly like Western culture when it comes to weddings and where those things sort of come from. So actually doing research for an episode like this is kind of hard because there's so many interesting weird facets of the wedding experience these days.
00:16:13
Speaker
So one other thing that I think would we'd be like remiss to not mention is the history of wedding portraits is kind of taken up in the western canon by the Arnold Feeney wedding portrait, which is for those of you who haven't seen it, it's a painting by Jean van Eyck, who is a Dutch Renaissance painter. And particularly with the Dutch Renaissance, there's like an insane amount of symbolism in
00:16:40
Speaker
pieces of art and in fine art. It's like they literally had to publish guides to reading the painting because there are so many things in it that are symbolic of something else. I must note that Jane has taken full ownership of our doc and has put hello symbolism in, which just is amazing. Yes, hello symbolism. It's honestly a little intimidating. I'm like, how do I even begin to talk about this thing?
00:17:07
Speaker
So I will get to the Arnold Feeney wedding portrait, but it's not like so much of its own stuff going on that I'm going to actually leave that to the end because it's just kind of a lot. But yeah, I think that that's kind of another thing about the wedding portrait tradition in art history is that a lot of it is heavily Western. So I tried to kind of do a dive on like, what do we have as far as like non-Western wedding portraiture or how they mark these things?
00:17:34
Speaker
And there's just not a lot that you can find in kind of the more traditional means of research like JSTOR or museum websites or things like that that aren't happening in Europe and America when it comes to like wedding portrait art history. And that's because like weddings kind of take a lot of different forms around the world and like what they mean for people. And so a lot of what you can find kind of outside of the Western European canon
00:18:02
Speaker
is what you're talking about too is like fashion history and things
Symbolism and History in Wedding Portraits
00:18:06
Speaker
about like what different cultures around the world wear to symbolize weddings and stuff like that and then another really interesting thing that I learned in looking this up was that you know it's a fairly modern concept that people get married for love and for a lot of human history it's been kind of this transactional like okay we are combining resources like there are people so there's a lot of documentation of it but it wasn't until um like a more quote unquote modern time so like
00:18:32
Speaker
medieval era that we really started to be able to find things in art history that are like, oh, this is like a marking of like a special event in these people's lives. So I think that that is kind of just worth noting as sort of a caveat on the wedding portraiture that some of this is going to be pretty Western heavy. And I think actually a better historian than me should go through and start doing like a more global history of how weddings are documented throughout time and like how that changes.
00:18:58
Speaker
But yeah, one of the earliest examples I was able to find was a portrait of two people that they assume were married. It's considered a wedding portrait and it was actually found on the wall of a home in Pompeii.
00:19:11
Speaker
And it dates back to the first century. Just love that everything goes back to Pompeii. My God. And it's also just like, it's one of the most fascinating places from an art history standpoint, because this is something that was probably only exists because of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, because it was a wall fresco that probably would have like deteriorated over time. You know, there's not a lot of things comparable to it from that time period. But the, you know,
00:19:37
Speaker
the chemical interactions of things that are, you know, far beyond my knowledge of how that works kind of the preserved a lot of what was in Pompeii to a degree that you just don't see elsewhere. So that's kind of cool. And that's one of the things that's considered like one of the first known distinct wedding portraits
00:19:57
Speaker
of a husband and wife who are depicted in their home. And it also has these hallmarks of things that I think is a really common thread throughout wedding portraiture, which is depicting these symbols of wealth with them. And I think it's not necessarily surprising to a viewer to realize that that is a prominent element of wedding portraiture in history, because there's only so many people in a lot of time periods that could afford to have a portrait of themselves commissioned.
00:20:25
Speaker
let alone for like a specific life event. So I think that, you know, you typically find people in the Western canon in wedding portraiture that are on the wealthier side of things, you know, and have kind of means and then also go out of their way to represent that. So I thought that was really interesting that you can kind of find that trend happening all the way back in the first century in Pompeii.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, when we think of something even as intricate as a fresco and all of the frescoes that they've kind of unburied from Pompeii as well. I mean, it is, it is interesting when you look back at any archaeological site, like when I visited like Kenosos or Akrotiri.
00:21:02
Speaker
Like you can see those kind of statuses of wealth happening at such an early period. So it's definitely the trend. And I think I will even get into that too when we talk about the modern wedding, how when we think of something that is like an iconic wedding, it is this kind of elaborate display of wealth. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think that that's something that is still really interesting that like average people, you know, I think with like weddings today, we look at like, oh, celebrity weddings and like these big things and
00:21:32
Speaker
Um, having planned my own wedding there, it's like ruined me on looking at celebrity weddings because I look at things and I'm like, how much did that flower arch cost them? Like, I'm like, um, I'm a peasant. Like this is, this is real. This is real. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think that that is such a strange part of our modern life that average people are kind of expected to, um, display this like wealth that they may or may not actually have at their wedding.
00:22:00
Speaker
Um, and it's kind of, it's a pretty common thing of like things we don't do every day, like paying for makeup and hair and expensive clothes and like all of the stuff, getting it documented by a photographer. Um, and I think that it's interesting to see how that really ties to kind of a tradition of wealthier people being represented in art history throughout time, because they're the ones who could afford to represent themselves and to kind of display their wealth at these life events, like a wedding.
00:22:30
Speaker
via portraiture and I wonder how much of that actually plays into like what we think of today as like what a wedding should be you know with these kinds of like oh I need these very specific specific dresses and like flowers that are expensive and and things like that kind of like tying back to how that's always been a part of wedding documentation.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that's totally fair. And I think to your point as well, and kind of like our whole today when looking at wedding and bridal culture on a global scale, I think from my own experiences, the display of wealth I think is always there like trans nationally, but I
00:23:08
Speaker
It is kind of different, I think, based on culture to culture, kind of how that is done or incorporated. And I can kind of speak from my very kind of limited experience in going to kind of different cultural weddings. Like, for example, like going to Malaysia just recently to go to my future brother-in-law's wedding, I think the kind of the different things or like focal points, aspects, visual components, decorations,
00:23:35
Speaker
There are just these minuscule little things that someone with a visual lens, I think, will pick up on in terms of what is taking the precedence in ownership versus what is taking the precedence in my wedding, for example. I think sometimes those displays, they're a little bit different and it is interesting. They're all still there, but I think that's also
00:23:58
Speaker
where the hole is to in in kind of today's research and helping like paint that kind of global picture. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's another thing too, that was like we could do a whole other episode about like wedding decor, and the history of different like elements of how you style a wedding and how that happens all around the world. That's just something that I think is
00:24:22
Speaker
really interesting and it is fun about planning your wedding and you're like how do I you know put in my personal style and like personal touches to this and things like that but yeah absolutely it is an interesting kind of world when it gets into weddings and there's so many different little like niches about it and I I've really enjoyed looking back through portraits in art history of like what represented a union of two people in art history and how did that differentiate from regular portraiture
00:24:51
Speaker
Because I also think that it's a really interesting example of like, it's so common for us in the modern era to just document life events, you know, we're taking pictures all the time and posting them like, I graduated, I'm getting married, I had a child, you know, anything like that. And if that's not always been true throughout history, because of like the resources, especially pre photography being everywhere. So yeah, I think that that is kind of an interesting example of like,
00:25:19
Speaker
marking an event and it's not necessarily in art history with wedding portraits a lot of the time like you know showing oh this is like a realistic depiction of this wedding that actually happened it's kind of a like stylized uh like amalgamation of these people's whole lives and what that event symbolized in their life which
00:25:40
Speaker
Um, it's just something that I think like we still kind of do through modern means. Absolutely. And also enter Arnold Feeney portrait as well. So yes, it is probably time to talk about that one.
00:25:53
Speaker
Um, and I feel like we can put some like pictures of these wedding portraits up and stuff like that. It's always like interesting to talk about a painting without directly looking at it. Um, because, yes, welcome to the other end of the microphone. Yes, it is. Uh, I will do my best to paint a picture here of, uh, what's going on in this portrait, but there are just like so many things. So the Arno Sini wedding portrait is one of those pieces of artwork that like, if you say the name, somebody that
00:26:22
Speaker
isn't necessarily considering themselves like an art historian or an art lover might not be able to like bring something to mind, but I guarantee most people have seen it because it is all over the place. If you have watched Desperate Housewives, it makes an appearance in the opening. So case in point. Yeah, case in point right there. Desperate Housewives. Again, it's like it's in terms of pop culture. I feel like it's just one of those things that you like
00:26:45
Speaker
randomly see on like a poster in a doctor's office or things like that. Like it's all over the place. At your OBGYN, so she's hanging out. Be fertile. We're green. Right. There you go. So it is a well-known portrait of a husband and wife. One thing that I think is hilarious about this is that I enjoy research. They're not even really sure this was the Arnold Phoenix.
00:27:13
Speaker
It's called the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait. It's probably this guy Giovanni di Niccolò Arnolfini and his wife, Costanza Trenza. But that's like not confirmed. We don't know that for sure. And so that to me is also really amazing. It's called the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait. But it is a husband and wife and she is dressed in this like very iconic billowing green dress, which has a little bit of a contour to make it look like she might be pregnant.
00:27:42
Speaker
um and it is yeah like this symbol of fertility and renewed life and uh a fresh start and you know all the stuff that we associate with like green um but it's a very prominent piece of the of the image and it's clearly not the like traditional western white poofy wedding dress um so again kind of like the prominence of symbolism in those things there's also like
00:28:05
Speaker
The mirror in the background is a symbol of Mary. There's a cherry tree outside, a symbol of love. There's a dog at their feet, which is a symbol of loyalty. There's oranges and lavish rugs that are symbols of wealth. There's like a one single burning candle and a chandelier that's a symbol of the eye of God. Like there are so many things, hell of symbolism as I put in the document, that like are supposed to represent kind of what I've already touched on of like this idea of
00:28:34
Speaker
marriage reflecting these people's lives and who they are and also kind of like all the things that they want to be associated with at this life event. So that one is one that is just like to me it is the quintessential Dutch Renaissance painting because it is just full of all of this stuff and like layers of meaning through visual representation.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah, it also takes place in a very intimate space because there's bed we can infer that it's also in a bedroom. There's also, you know, Christian iconography, like there's like the Passion of Christ that kind of
00:29:09
Speaker
circle, the mirror in the background, the mirror also just for funsies has this optical illusion of the of this portrait actually being painted by the painter. So that's just doesn't have anything to even do with anything. He just was like, I'm going to make this way more complicated. He's like, I'm in this too. And the number one thing that I love is all of this carefully planned detail. And then the wall of their bedroom has ostensibly like painted on it. Basically, Jean van Eyck was here.
00:29:38
Speaker
like the artist has prominently signed his name in the middle of this portrait as though it's kind of like painted on the wall of the bedroom that they're standing in, which I just think is like hilarious. Yeah Van Eyck is just causing chaos but we're kind of here for it. Causing chaos and then one other thing that I thought was really interesting about this portrait is that it's and it's also sort of like art historians doing their art historian thing where they're
00:30:04
Speaker
super analyzing, but I love it. I'm here for I'm here for like the story and the drama of every painting. But they a lot of you know, it's assumed to be this wedding portrait, probably these two people. And also, there are some theories and kind of like research to support that it is potentially a painting that was created significantly after this couple was married. So, you know, possibly within like seven to 10 years after they were married. And
00:30:32
Speaker
potentially even after the death of the wife. So it might be something that was actually commissioned not so much as like, Hey, we got married today, so come out here and paint our portrait, but almost kind of like a remembrance of who this wife was and possibly commissioned by her husband to kind of mark the life that they did have together because it's commonly thought that this woman died in childbirth. And there's so much imagery of like fertility and pregnancy and like the bed and the dress and
00:30:59
Speaker
You know all of these things that I think it's really interesting to contemplate like why was this created as well as what's in it I I love that and you know I'm just even though I'm gonna save most of our modern content for the later half this episode I do feel the need to throw in one of the examples I was thinking about in terms of kind of a fictitious example of kind of portraiture
00:31:22
Speaker
was referring to the movie of a portrait of a lady on fire. Because at the end of that movie, you know, spoiler alerts if you haven't watched it yet, she there's this painting of this woman and like her now family.
00:31:38
Speaker
But in the painting, she's holding a book with an open page that looks very sexual. It's very kind of like reminiscent of like a vulva as she has this corner of this page turn. But it's to pay homage to her woman lover who and kind of, you know, just look back on the life that they couldn't have together, you know,
00:31:58
Speaker
because of the times because it was set in like, I don't know, like the 1800s or something. Right. And although that is kind of like a fictitious example, like, there is like that kind of undertone that symbolism that does remind me of this real painting that does exist, Arnold Feeney portrait of kind of paint homage to this supposed person or this kind of
00:32:18
Speaker
relationship. And so even though there are tones of, okay, this isn't quite a marriage portrait, or it could be, you know, just an item to have for this individual, I kind of, I debated on bringing up the portrait of a lady on fire, but it does kind of present some of the same information. Yeah, well, and I think also portraiture is such a personal style of art form, you know, and like, there's so many examples throughout history of like,
00:32:47
Speaker
the interesting and often problematic, but sometimes just interesting relationships between models and painters. And, you know, one thing that I look at a lot with Women's Art Wednesday is like, how many women actually became painters because they started out as portrait models or figure models, you know, and they, they were able to kind of like, learn by observing the process that way, and then start doing their own paintings and stuff like that. So, and then it's also a really good point, I think, to bring up that
00:33:15
Speaker
the history that we have of wedding portraiture in art history is not only heavily westernized, it's also heavily heterosexual, and not a lot of queer relationships are represented in the canon of art history, although I will say, and again, maybe a topic for a whole other podcast episode, but I think that there are more examples of that in art history than maybe traditional history has wanted to admit, and even if you see things in museums, you know, part of it,
00:33:43
Speaker
also with the Arnold Feeney wedding portrait is that we don't always know the actual histories of people that are depicted in portraits and their real relationships with each other. And I do think it's really fun and interesting to look at the ways that artists have hinted at their personal relationships with people that might not be openly accepted to put in a portrait in the Academy of Art in the Victorian England landscape.
00:34:11
Speaker
So yeah, anyway, I think that it's fictitious, but it also is something that I think is like not out of bounds for the reality of a lot of art history.
00:34:21
Speaker
Well, some things that we talk about with art history too is like we have to bring up these examples that are fictitious because we don't have the record of what actually did happen. And so it's just an, I think it's a very astute perspective. And sometimes we lose that within visual history is to not always talk about what is not there and what is not seen. But you know, it's equally important to kind of bring that
00:34:43
Speaker
into the analysis for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And I actually still haven't seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and I really want to. So now you're just putting this back at the top of my list. Now it's recalling it's, yeah, it's spicy. We like it. Amazing. Yes, I love that. I love that. So the, the talks of like, things that have heavily impacted our wedding traditions today, kind of bring me to my other non portraiture rabbit hole, which I know also can
00:35:11
Speaker
kind of go in with what you're going to talk about, about like modern fashion history. But it's also like such a huge part of the wedding landscape to look at the big poofy white dress. And you can't really talk about that without talking about Queen Victoria, who was also depicted at her wedding for I think maybe like the first time people assume it might be one of the first like photographed wedding portraits
00:35:40
Speaker
or at least one of the most well-known early wedding photographs. And I think that that's really interesting too, because when I look at that, those types of photographs, which, you know, given the resources kind of make sense, but they follow a lot more of the like traditional painting portraiture style than our like current modern wedding photography does. Because I feel like modern photography kind of leans on like
00:36:05
Speaker
more like a photojournalism mentality of like capturing candids or you know things like that and people do portraits but um just looking at this image of Queen Victoria at her wedding she's not only like kind of popularizing the big poofy white dress but she's also like in set up in this way that is very reminiscent to me of like these art historical like painted portraits um yeah so it's interesting to see like how those
00:36:30
Speaker
types of traditions have kind of persisted and where maybe some of our photography originates. But yeah, because to kind of give some, you know, visual kind of elements here, auditory elements on the podcast, it's interesting, because, you know, both, you know, bride and groom, husband, wife are looking at each other, they're not necessarily engaging with the camera, which is really interesting. So although we do have these early examples of, I think,
00:36:58
Speaker
people engaging with the viewer, as we say, in a painting is pretty intimate moment that I think is captured that also is starting to encompass that kind of curated set up like you're speaking to. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that you're also like really hitting the nail on the head that a lot of these like historical wedding portraits are very intimate. They're kind of like this peek into
00:37:21
Speaker
you know, a couple's private life in a way that can be really interesting and beautiful. And then the last thing that I'll say before turning it over to Gianna to talk about all the modern pop culture, bridal things, is that there is also kind of an interesting history in art history of paintings that are not necessarily depicting wedding portraits, but were maybe given as wedding gifts and a very prominent example being the birth of Venus, which is a yes, like
00:37:48
Speaker
I just love it. And, you know, sometimes those women's art Wednesday, people are like, do you even talk about male artists? And I'm like, listen, I love me some bottom jelly. So I will talk. I'll give you that one all day. You know, we can talk about male artists who, you know, depict iconic, stunning, amazing women and mythological figures. We can talk about that. And that's also kind of an interesting thing is that a lot of women depicted in art history
00:38:14
Speaker
are not actually real women, they are like mythological and fictitious women. So one thing that I think is really interesting to look at is kind of like where these images come from because Birth of Venus is actually commissioned as a wedding gift and it's kind of made popular this idea of like representing women and brides through mythology and then also the kind of quintessential motif of mythology of like
00:38:41
Speaker
rebirth and renewal and like the things that these goddesses in mythology kind of stood for, representing a lot of what we associate with what weddings are, which is kind of like a new beginning and a display of, you know,
00:38:56
Speaker
your innocence or whatever.
Art as Wedding Gifts: Botticelli's Venus
00:38:58
Speaker
So I think that that's kind of interesting too. There's a lot of examples in art history of not only the actual couple getting depicted through portraiture but pieces of art that are now like again talk about things you see everywhere and on every doctor's office like the birth of Venus is one of the most famous paintings in the world and it was commissioned because of a wedding.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. Well, you know, everything comes back to Birth of Venus here on APT. This is also just my unrealistic expectations. I'm like, well, great, my wedding's gonna be trash because no one's gonna give me the birth of fucking Venus.
00:39:35
Speaker
Oh, my god, I might as well just give up now. Like, that's where I start to become, you know, a Debbie Downer, because I just want a Botticelli. But no, I think the way that you kind of fast and furiously encapsulated that for us, because there is so much and you know, we cannot encapsulate it all in one episode, I think kind of gives us a nice segue to kind of talk about some of the fun things in
00:40:00
Speaker
pop culture. So before I start, Jane, I want to ask you, who is your favorite bride from pop culture? What stands out to you? Oh my gosh, my favorite bride from pop culture. That's like such a difficult question. But are we talking like celebrity bride or fictitious bride? You can give me either or you can give me both. There's no limit. Okay, so I think that I'm not necessarily sure she's my favorite, but the one from like
00:40:28
Speaker
that I think is just my generation's like quintessential bride is the Blair Waldorf gossip girl, like princess dress first wedding. It's just what comes to mind when I think of like, the most pop culture bride that I'm like, this is like maybe one of the first weddings I saw represented in a show that I was watching like as an adolescent, that yeah, yeah, she popped into my head. But I actually see in our document here that you have one of my favorite, like recent brides.
00:40:58
Speaker
for the bridal style alone, which is Alexandra Daddario, the actress. She has this amazing, gorgeous New Orleans wedding. And then just the dress that she wore with the kind of modern but old-timey vibes, I think I scrolled her wedding photos. And I don't even know that much of what she's in. I think I've seen True Detective, and she's in that. But I was obsessed. I was like, what is this wedding? How do I get it? Gorgeous.
00:41:27
Speaker
how do I get it? When I tell you how obsessed I was with Alexandra Daddario's wedding, I just dropped everything because if I
00:41:37
Speaker
could afford or could be a Daniel Frankel bride. I that is everything in my wedding is trying to encapsulate like Daniel Frankel and like Schiaparelli together but unlike my like peasant love also on our DIY like budget. I absolutely love it. And what you kind of spoke to is that I'll bring up her dress and kind of the stylized like photos of her wedding as well because I think there is
00:42:03
Speaker
this return to the old or kind of return to vintage that I think some weddings are encapsulating. But I also think that it is this, it's a display of wealth, but I think it's also this display of authenticity that does represent the vibe of a couple, which I'll get into and how I think like modern brides and weddings are really like encapsulating the
00:42:26
Speaker
kind of aesthetics of the couple. So it's very individualistic and representative of these people who are involved in their weddings. But wait, can I ask who your favorite pop culture bride is? Too many. I mean, it's not
00:42:46
Speaker
I would say the biggest thing that sticks out in my mind is Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella Disney version with Brandy and Whitney Houston. That movie was just like everything. Growing up to Bianca and I, we used to call it Big Cinderella because it was live action.
00:43:03
Speaker
And there's something about her like blue Cinderella dress when like Brandy wears her blue eyeshadow that will just forever be like ingrained in my brain. But when she also, you know, like Prince Charming is wearing white, she's wearing white, all of the guests are wearing white, it's just like so airy and like beautiful. And, and like, burn it up, Peters is like trying to climb, get into the wedding.
00:43:27
Speaker
I just love that. So brandy is forever and always like my number one Cinderella, like as Todrick says, and I think when I think of something so bridal and fictitious, it does come back to something princess esque sometimes like Cinderella. Yeah. And I do think of of brandy, like a lot. So if I did give one, I'm locking it in. Amazing. I love that. That's a good, such a good example.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. I did think about it for a while. I was like, I feel more thought into this ahead of time. Yeah, I was like, Brandy, well, and then I also saw that she is making like a cameo on like Disney's descendants.
00:44:08
Speaker
Yeah. As you know, like reviving her role as, you know, like the Cinderella in Disney. And so I'm definitely going to have to, I don't know anything about the descendants or have tuned in, but I will be tuning in for that. Yeah. I'm here for supporting my inner child. I'm like my previous self. 100%, 100%. So, um, let's talk about iconic brides and bridal looks. So we've talked about Royals, um, quite a bit on the podcast. Jane already brought up an example.
00:44:37
Speaker
And I think when we think of something like an iconic wedding dress, it goes back to Princess Di.
Princess Diana's Dress and Bridal Fashion Impact
00:44:44
Speaker
So I mean, although people love that dress or they hate that dress, I think we have already in our minds a visualization of what that dress is. It was designed by David and Elizabeth Emmanuel. It was an ivory taffeta gown with embroidered
00:44:59
Speaker
embroidered sequins, lace, 10,000 pearls, and also kind of bringing in a value to this dress as well, estimated at $115,000. So it is a stunning display of style, grandiosity, wealth, and it's been copied, replicated, and it's been a source of fashion inspo over the years. There are kind of these like on vanguard
00:45:25
Speaker
kind of anti-bridal lines that I've been seeing and a lot of them like have a kind of resurgence of this big poofy sleeve, which I think is really interesting how they target it for the anti-bride that's kind of edgy and cool and like I'm not like the other brides, but they're referring to one of the most iconic and kind of quintessential like design elements that is just this display of kind of royalty and just makes me think
00:45:55
Speaker
of Princess Die, which I think is kind of interesting. You know, we can look at some other modern or like recent examples and like, God help us, but I am going to talk about the Jonas Brothers wedding. That's like a goldmine of wedding content.
00:46:11
Speaker
It's a goldmine of wedding content. So we have like Priyanka Chopra and Sophie Turner who both had two weddings. So they both had multiple looks, you know, Sophie Turner had their Vegas elopement, where she wore just this really simple white jumpsuit. It was definitely giving like, you know, Elvis and
00:46:32
Speaker
Oh my god, why did I just forget her name? Priscilla Presley vibes. Yes. And, you know, then we can look at Priyanka Chopra, who, you know, they had two weddings. So they did, you know, a Hindu Eastern wedding, and then they had their like Christian Western ceremony as well. So for her Hindu ceremony, she wore red Langa. And it was designed by excuse me if I butcher this, but Sabasachi Mukherjee. And it was made by 110 embroiders. And it took a total of
00:47:01
Speaker
over 3,000 hours to create this custom piece. And her Western dress for the couples, again, Christian ceremony was paired with a 75 foot long veil that literally took five. So I think like, especially for that
00:47:19
Speaker
both those ceremonies and the branding and the publicity that particularly took place for Nick and Priyanka Chopra's wedding was just immense. And so I think that everybody has a visualization of this, you know, stunningly long veil.
Fashion as Fine Art: Priyanka Chopra's Dress
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, surprisingly. I also just to tie this back to a previous art pop episode,
00:47:43
Speaker
And again, hating on the brand Chanel. But the comment of Karl Lagerfeld of art is not, or fashion is not art, it belongs on the street. I can understand that to a certain extent, but I will say, when I hear something like, it took 3,000 hours to custom create this dress, and five people will hold this available, and custom embroidery, I'm like, how is this not in a museum? That is so much artistic effort and craftsmanship going into something that I'm like, this is
00:48:12
Speaker
fine art and it's ridiculous. You best believe that is archived somewhere. I think it was a very iconic look and I think it is something that we're already looking back on now, but I think it will be one. It's interesting because when I Google most iconic brides, it gives me some royals and then it gives me weddings like Beyonce's wedding, which to be honest,
00:48:38
Speaker
It's iconic because it's Beyonce and she's a celebrity, so this article is bringing that up. But I only have a visualization of what her dress looks like, which is this classic early 2000s mermaid gown. But it wasn't really iconic. Even Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's wedding, I don't think is something that was super iconic that Kim was this iconic bride at the time, and we were obsessed with the look. But I think when we look back on something, because there was so much branding and publicity for
00:49:08
Speaker
Nick and Priyanka's, I do think that is one to think about and look back on. Oh, yeah. Just like the amount of articles alone about the veil and the, you know, different designs and stuff like that. I will say too, I love your reference to the kind of like, you know, Vegas drive-through writing pinup look from the 60s because
00:49:27
Speaker
I just love that aesthetic and that vibe. But also one of my favorite modern brides was Lily Allen and David Harbour doing their Vegas wedding. And just like the little like mini skirt button up white dress and like poopy Priscilla Presley hair. I was like, I love it. Yeah, yeah. And it does kind of, you know, I think part of modern bridal culture is the elopement bride. And I think we're seeing that more and more for a couple different reasons. Again, I think it's just kind of like vibe that people like
00:49:57
Speaker
But there is also that kind of cost component. But I think it does also show what people do and do not care about. And I think that there is a level of kind of wealth and status that is kind of brought into the mix of this conversation because it's hard to avoid that when historically that is such a big part of celebrity.
00:50:19
Speaker
but also in art history as you were talking about Jane. But I just wanted to talk about kind of three looks that I have kind of in comparison because all these different weddings and these bridal looks are very, very different. I think they're all very recent.
00:50:35
Speaker
And I think it just kind of like encapsulates and culminates how weddings just look very different these days. But they're all these kind of displays of vibe authenticity for the couple, but also wealth. So I did bring in Alexandra Jadario's Daniel Frankel look in her New Orleans wedding. The photographer really captured this with this kind of vintage greenie.
00:50:59
Speaker
hue, which just is like literally stunning. Her now husband is wearing this striped beige suit. They did the umbrella dance like or dance parade. I'm like you guys forced it to rain so you could use these gorgeous lace umbrellas.
00:51:14
Speaker
Right. Clearly, everything about this wedding is curated, but it's curated in a way that looks very wholesome. It looks very intimate. It's curated to not, I think, look like this huge display of wealth, even though we know that it was because they're both the celebrity couples. However much they spend on their wedding is their business, of course.
00:51:41
Speaker
It's interesting how now we have the ability to kind of curate this particular aesthetic that was achieved by this photographer and by this artist.
Cultural Impact of Kourtney Kardashian's Wedding Look
00:51:50
Speaker
We can also look at, which we've talked on the podcast, a very controversial look, Kourtney Kardashian's Dolce & Gabbana corseted white mini dress with an intricate veil of the Virgin Mary. I think however you feel about it, this is a very, and is going to be a very iconic look to look back on, also giving some of that anti-vibe
00:52:10
Speaker
anti-bride vibe, excuse me, but also just another example of the Kardashian empire. And I think as that kind of builds, I think the more weddings we see from the Kardashians will, I think, be more iconic and present each bride's authenticity and their vibe. I don't think we really got that from something like Kim's prior weddings, but I think if she does choose to have a wedding in the future, I think it's something that
00:52:39
Speaker
will want to digest more than maybe we did. Yeah, well, and that makes sense. Totally. And to your point earlier, also just like how so much of the auntie bride look comes from, like referencing traditional bridal wear, and, you know, kind of like the very elaborate, like, church vibe that, you know, she had in this wedding. And I don't know, I think that that is very interesting to how it's like, it's all kind of like going back to the same thing, whether it's
00:53:06
Speaker
seen as like a stylistic commentary on that and alligator did Dario's wedding as well as like that kind of intimate vibe that is at the same time very curated and kind of all going back to the same reference point of what we associate as like the big
00:53:21
Speaker
you know, traditional white wedding. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And both having those cultural vibes, you know, like New Orleans style weddings, like we all have an idea of kind of the cultural components that come into something like that. And people just go to New Orleans to be a part of that. You know, people obviously have thoughts and opinions about
00:53:42
Speaker
what they think is commodifying Catholic iconography, which is very interesting. And we have talked about that on the pod. So we don't have too much time to get into that today. Again, it's kind of hard to commodify something that has complete and utter control over the world, but do without what you will.
Paris Hilton's Wedding Style and Cultural Significance
00:54:04
Speaker
Talking about also complete and utter control of the world, Ms. Paris Hilton. What a segue.
00:54:11
Speaker
What a segue. She did get married, I believe in I believe in 2022, maybe it was 2021, but very recently. And when I say like, the world's eyes were on her, I think that we were all really, really interested in what our kind of pop culture queen was going to wear, because Paris Hilton herself, I think has had somewhat of a rebranding moment in terms of talking about the character that she built up when she was on a reality TV show.
00:54:39
Speaker
and kind of breaking down that wall and letting people know that that was kind of a fantasy or like a persona that she was putting on and was not necessarily her and her ideal. But her wedding dress really encapsulated this Grace Kelly look. So also this return to something kind of like a, I mean, kind of very much like a princess dress.
00:55:03
Speaker
evoking someone as iconic as Grace Kelly as well. Now, Paris Hilton did wear multiple looks, but I think, again, these kind of three looks kind of encapsulate, you know, tying to different, like, cultural aspects, but you can see their individuality, which I think is interesting. Yeah, absolutely. And also, I feel like kind of an anomaly for having only one outfit for my wedding.
00:55:29
Speaker
Yeah. Are you only doing one outfit? I'm only one. Yeah. Because I was like, I don't know. It just felt like too much to try to coordinate. And I'm very lucky because my sister's sister-in-law runs a wedding dress store and she's helping me pick a beautiful one. And I was like, if I find this beautiful dress that I love, I just want to wear it all night. But my sister did do three separate looks for her wedding day.
00:55:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think for me to kind of paint a little bit of picture about what my wedding is looking like because my wedding will be a non-religious ceremony, but we are bringing in cultural elements of Malaysian Hindu culture and
00:56:13
Speaker
Western American culture, Oklahoma culture, if you will, yeehaw. It will not be a yeehaw wedding, but anyways. So for myself, I am wearing more of a traditional white Western dress, but I'm also getting my hands henned. There's going to be a lot of gold, colors, food that evoke the Hindu Malaysian culture. And Theban, my fiance, will be wearing a traditional wedding attire for a Hindu wedding.
00:56:41
Speaker
not called the jippah, I'm still with the lingo. So ours is very much a fusion. And I think what is interesting when I look at something like Nick and Priyanka's wedding, how
00:56:55
Speaker
They did two different ceremonies, right? And we don't really have the luxury to do that. But I think the other component of particularly looking at fusion weddings with, you know, Hindu and Christian weddings is both ceremonies are just so different. A Hindu ceremony lasts very, very long. It's like almost an hour.
00:57:15
Speaker
If not more, there are so many little visual ties, components, so many people involved in that ceremony that approach the altar. It just takes a lot of people to do that, that logistically. I don't see very many examples of trying to blend the two cultures into one ceremony because they're just, it's very difficult because they're so different.
00:57:39
Speaker
that's kind of the struggle I am having because even though people blend their weddings, typically what they'll do is they will do a traditional Hindu ceremony and then maybe they'll have a Western reception, which is not what we are trying to accomplish. And so it's very interesting when I look at Nik and Priyanka, although it was on this grandiose, highly publicized scale,
00:58:02
Speaker
It's very synonymous with what other couples do it's just not what we will be doing so it'll be interesting and i think that we have found ways to combine the two for it to.
00:58:15
Speaker
have a presence of both cultures, not necessarily religions, but it's definitely what we're doing is not, I would say, I don't want to say a norm, it's just been hard to find examples or research of that happening. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, like, again, tying it all to the imagery of weddings, there's such a kind of expectation and pressure and a really cool opportunity to bring in a lot of
00:58:39
Speaker
symbolism about your life and your background and your partner's background and all of that into a wedding ceremony. And so that seems like something that is like, when I think about like our weddings that we're planning this year, um, and you know, the Pompeii wedding portrait where it's like, this seems to be a thread where it's like, people have this, uh, it's like a, an event in your adult life, like one of the few where you're bringing in a bunch of different
00:59:04
Speaker
you know, elements to represent yourself and you know, kind of this new start with somebody else or like the blending of a new family and, and stuff like that. That's really interesting. There's a lot of like visuals that come into that. Definitely. And I and I'm loving the visuals. And so it's been, you know, obviously having that like lens, you know, knowing what I want, what I can wear, but also how to encapsulate all these things, I think has been really fun. But also, I am definitely
00:59:31
Speaker
putting that pressure on myself, but also it's necessary. I want to make sure that things are done the right way. I want to make sure that things are done appropriately. Not that I am doing that to please other people, but I don't want to do something just to do it. All those visuals are kind of
00:59:48
Speaker
encapsulated in all of that. So it is kind of interesting. When I do look at these brides and these weddings, how I see how individualistic and representative it is of that couple, I am going to be really happy when I see how our wedding is visually very representative of us. And I think
01:00:07
Speaker
that is something that is important to me. As much as I just love little pretty things, and if that's your vibe, go for it. But I'm happy to have those symbolic, overwhelming, Arnold Feeney portrait-esque. Get me out of here. There's too much symbolism. Absolutely. Well, also, you're an artist. I feel like that is just the way that you see the world
01:00:30
Speaker
too of like, you know, through this visual lens of how do I represent myself and my thoughts and my feelings and like, of course, a marriage is going to fall into that category. Also, it's like a huge life event. Yeah. So I love it. I'm here for all the Gianna symbolism coming up. It's fun to exist in my brain. Yeah. Like, should I get a wedding portrait commission now? Like maybe I don't do a photographer do like a fainted portrait.
01:00:54
Speaker
Well, Jane, I had that to talk about today as a placeholder too and this return to old. You had talked about photography being built in and having a presence in wedding culture and portraiture starting in the 1840s, but now it's funny to have this resurgence of wanting something so highly specific and I think
01:01:21
Speaker
Again, I think we know that the privilege to have access to art and especially custom art is
01:01:30
Speaker
is a tie to wealth and the means to be a patron. And I think having a custom wedding portrait painted is definitely encapsulated in all of that. I think I'm definitely here for it, obviously, but I think it's part of the grandiosity that's just adding to the wedding culture as well. Absolutely. And I mean, honestly, photographers in a way, which is completely a separate thing from having
01:01:57
Speaker
somebody who has the talent and background to commission a portrait painting of you. We're again, very, there's a lot of things with our wedding that we're doing kind of like, like DIY in a way, but like, we're lucky that we have a friend who's a photographer who's going to take the photos for our wedding. And so, you know, but when you look around, like, when I first started looking, it was like, Oh, yeah, like you can hire this like traveling wedding photographer for $10,000 or, you know, there is kind of a grandiosity with it. And it's built in expectations that
01:02:24
Speaker
you will document the experience in some fashion. Not only will you document it, but now our photographers are putting this specific lens to the photographs and artfully editing them in the way that is to the couple's stylized liking. Obviously, I very much respect these photographers' prices and their art forms, but it was definitely
01:02:51
Speaker
it was a struggle to find a photographer that I could afford specifically for a wedding. Yeah. Yeah. And so now I'm like, I need to brush up my painting skills and do my own wedding portrait. Definitely. Definitely. You know, you can always do that later. You know, you don't have to have a live portrait. You can do it every year. I can be like the Arnold Genies do it 10 years later. Paint myself in the back. Yeah, it's gonna be great. I was here. The other thing that it brings to mind such a cheesy example, but it's like the Bridgerton wedding portrait.
01:03:19
Speaker
And I think it's interesting. Like, my god, I love I thought when I was, you know, in in the pandemic binge watching Bridgerton, like everyone else. And I was like, Oh my god, that is a beautiful wedding portrait. And like, I want to see this painting. But it is funny, because when you look up things now of like, you know, what are things to do at a wedding reception, or like, as we've been planning, a lot of the suggestions I saw were like, hire a live painter for people to watch you like get
01:03:45
Speaker
your painting done and I was like this is like you said very much the kind of like return to the old and showing up in like current pop culture TV and stuff like that so.
01:03:55
Speaker
Right, right. And I mean, I'm definitely not one to talk like I'm having my photographer throw in a role of like film. So she'll be shooting on film, which I definitely think is a trend. It's that kind of return to old return to vintage that I am a sucker for. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So most of the brides or I mean, I should say the three brides and three wedding examples that I brought up recently are, of course, all real
Iconic Bridal Fashion: Carrie Bradshaw’s Shoes
01:04:23
Speaker
people.
01:04:23
Speaker
But I think there's this other component that I wanted to end on within pop culture and looking at history of brides is this fantasy aspect. And I did bring up something like Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, the Disney version, even Disney in general. I think there's a very gendered hetero
01:04:47
Speaker
perspective that is involved with the ending moment of like a woman's life represented in these films where she gets married. Yay. But we do have some iconic brides and some iconic moments. I really think about Carrie Bradshaw and Sex in the City, not even so much the Vivian Westwood dress as I do think about the blue Manolo Blanc shoes, because
01:05:15
Speaker
I think like from a marketing or like a branding perspective, it's just so fascinating when something that wasn't even supposed to necessarily be like this like direct like marketing moment. Like now forever these shoes are marketed and stylized as bridal shoes. Like that just doesn't go away from this one moment. And so it's that component that I think is super interesting because this is something that's more tangible
01:05:43
Speaker
that not that they're not incredibly expensive, but as compared to thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars for a dress versus, you know, $1,000 just for a pair of shoes. Most that's something that people can obtain and consume, and they are using and their wedding. So I just am kind of fascinated by the blue manila blocks. Yeah. And like you said, too, also just how fascinating it is that is from fictional brides, you know, it's not even like real things that we're seeing in our lives.
01:06:13
Speaker
I would say that probably fictional brides play as much of an influence in like wedding aesthetic that people go for as, you know, royal weddings or celebrity weddings. It was like what we see on TV. Yeah, yeah, I think so as well. I mean, you know, I think other examples we have like, at least like for me, I think about like the Princess Bride or it's not even a bridal look, but I think about like Drew Barrymore and ever after and
01:06:42
Speaker
more recently, something like Schitt's Creek, like that wedding moment was very pop, culturally speaking, important. Schitt's Creek, I think, is very important to kind of look at that queer relationship as well. Since, again, like we haven't brought a lot of examples into the fold that are queer. So and, you know, at the end of the day, if you are
01:07:08
Speaker
a 2023 bride or future bride, you know, you can do whatever you want, sister. Live your life, live your dreams, do whatever you want. It's your day. Yeah, literally. That is the main takeaway is like, if you're gonna put this much work into something, just make sure it's what you like and what you want to do, because it's so fun, but it is a lot of work. It is. One thing Chang, you and I talked about like a month ago when I invited you on for this episode was
01:07:37
Speaker
I feel like when I am done planning my wedding, one, I feel like I'm kind of going to have my personality back because I kind of feel like I don't have, I'm kind of lost in almost like this identity or just wedding planning mode.
Social Perceptions of Brides and Wedding Planning
01:07:54
Speaker
So I'll be nice to have more well-rounded kind of other hobbies maybe in my life again. But I know that sometimes
01:08:03
Speaker
like the joke is that like brides are super annoying. And that like, it just is overwhelming to listen to this because it is overwhelming. It's a lot. But this is one of those things where Jane and I were kind of like, like, unsubscribe. I don't care. Like, listen or don't listen. I completely understand that like talking about like your wedding can be like super fucking annoying. But like happy that you're here. And if you're not, I'll catch you next time. Like I
01:08:31
Speaker
I don't expect that anybody besides us really cares about this, but... It's gonna be like you and me, just like, this episode has two listeners, like, just you and me. Well, just literally, like, on the kind of pre-episode... APT is a very professional operation and sends you a pre-episode, like, forum to fill out about, like, what are you working on and what are you talking about and stuff like that. And in the section that was like, what have you been working on lately? I was, like, planning my wedding.
01:09:02
Speaker
Literally nothing else. Right. Right. I just do. Yeah, I'm excited to get my personality back. But I will say one really fun thing that Phoebe and I are doing right now that we didn't think that we would enjoy as much as we are is we are doing dancing lessons. And I also think it's like kind of nice to talk about the way that we're budgeting things too. So in because we really doing in pain for
01:09:32
Speaker
like wedding dancing lessons, the markup for that is just incredibly expensive. So what we are doing is we are kind of doing biweekly independent dance classes, but we're doing them and just incorporating that into kind of like our date night budget. It's like $40 a class and not something that we're necessarily budgeting for our wedding because we're actually just really enjoying it and it's something just fun for us to do.
01:09:57
Speaker
That has been my little nugget of joy that it feels like I have something different to add to my personality that I'm just like, oh, I'm Gianna and I'm doing dance classes because I'm cool. Not because I'm just a 2023 bride and I can't talk about anything else. I'm doing these dance classes for fun.
01:10:16
Speaker
And that's it. For fun, because I'm a fun, carefree person with, you know, an exciting personality, which is untrue. I'm impressed, honestly. But for wedding or no wedding, I'm like, dance classes, that is next level.
01:10:33
Speaker
It's been really fun. Last night, we learned the Foxtrot. I'm really impressed with us. It looks better in my head than it probably actually looks right now, but it's really fun. That
01:10:51
Speaker
is just something for future couples. If you think that you might be interested in that, I'm just having a really great time with it. I would highly recommend. I love that for you. I would be tempted to do that had the one dance class my fiance and I put together.
01:11:07
Speaker
not almost ended in our immediate breakup because of the like severe personality clash that dancing particularly in like a structured environment brings out in us which is like he is a rule person like you know there are steps there's like a plan there is I am going to do this the right way type which is very
01:11:29
Speaker
actually how you're supposed to dance and do dance lessons. And I'm like, I don't know, I just want to have fun. So the whole time, I was like, like, come on, like, let's just do our own thing. And he was like, we are literally here to learn the steps and learn the rules of what are you doing.
01:11:45
Speaker
This is giving me like, CC and Schmidt from you girl where he had like, he cannot break away from the steps. And yeah, I love it. I love it. You're living your rom com fantasy. Yeah, yeah. That's exactly what's happening.
01:12:02
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Well, Jane, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Congratulations in advance on your wedding. We're so happy for you here on APT and we love having you on the podcast. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for your time and your research. This was really, really fun. Yes. Thank you so much for having me.
01:12:19
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Well, everyone, you can listen to this episode, as you know, anywhere you get your podcasts. Jane, where can people follow you? At Women's Art Wednesday. Best place. At Women's Art Wednesday. No, not Plug Women's Art Wednesday. So, at Women's Art Wednesday. We love it. Women'sArtWednesday.org. Check it out. Fantastic. Well, everybody, and with that, we will talk to you all into Tuesdays. Bye, everyone. Bye.
01:12:43
Speaker
Art Pop Talk's executive producers are me, Bianca Martucci-Vinc. And me, Gianna Martucci-Vinc. Music and sounds are by Josh Turner and photography is by Adrian Turner. And our graphic designer is Sid Hammond.