Wedding Industry as Experience Economy, Case Study Example

Budgets for wedding are continuously rising, and couples are increasingly less apprehensive with the financial system and are at ease spending more of their resources on a wedding experience since it takes place once-in-a-lifetime by making sure it turns out fabulous for their guests and themselves. People are quickly evolving in the manner in which they desire to experience their wedding. This means that they have access to everything that they imagined of their dream wedding. The wedding industry as a type of an experience economy provides couples with an experience of proceedings that is picture-perfect to encase the ceremony (Pine & Gilmore 2011, P. 12).

Experience economy refers to a theory where businesses are supposed to orchestrate unforgettable proceedings for their consumers, and that recollection itself turns out to be the produce, which is the “experience” (Hjorth, 143). To consider, it is basically an economic system that defines the condition by which consumers are able to experience matters that might not be necessary, but are satisfyingly effective in allowing people realize the possibilities apart from the realities that they are living in.

In relation to the concept of economic experience and weddings, it could be noticed that the current status of the American economy puts American couples in the disposition for bigger wedding parties and luxurious locations (Sundbo, 201). In a way, wedding ceremonies have become symbolical occasions that define the social status of marrying couples. Experience economy relates to conspicuous consumption in that, in wedding merriment, couples spend conspicuously because it regularly appears less reminiscent of life-altering ceremonies, and more reminiscent of the decisive consumer experience (Sundbo & Darmer, 132). Couples aspire to imitate or somewhat to show off, along with being connected to a standing of a higher class. For instance, Kim Kardashian’s wedding festivities were estimated at roughly 10 million dollars (Preseton, 133). Chelsea Clinton’s marriage ceremony was projected from a full amount of 3 million to 5 million dollars (Preston, 134). These examples show how lavish wedding ceremonies stand off as mere social representations that entail to serve as a social mark among the couples who are being wed. Notably, such condition of recognition brings about a sense of popularity and such experience satisfies the desire of the couples to be known and accepted.

To wedding partakers, cakes, rings, and wedding attire go jointly in a patently obvious way. As individuals are customized into the cultures of a particular civilization, these artifacts turn out to be a fraction of the structural and conventional characterization of what a marriage ceremony is believed to be (Mead, web). These conceptualizations crop up from habitus, which is basically the indication of social status, lifestyle directions that allow a person to be recognized to belong to a particular group (Pine, et al, 201). Habitus brings common sense into being; it is a rule that has been instilled in every agent given that their early on rearing and it is equally a structured composition and a structuring constitution (Pine et al, 202). On the other hand, for the mainstream of people getting married, the habitus ratified is not the one they occupy (Hjorth & Kostera 2007, P. 67). For example, for countless couples, the wedding ceremony turns into a performance of fake identity as an associate of a social class to which an individual does not fit in (Pine, et al, 21). Habitus brings about the yearning to own extraordinary, expensive or only one of its kind merchandise. These goods typically have a monetary value that is high, but low down practical worth. A distinct matter that is created when one becomes recognized to be part of a particular group or sector in the society while not really belonging to it. Everything seems to be just a façade of a status that the couples want to embrace.

The whole wedding industry is constructed on the prerequisite of provisions to assist an individual flee one’s habitus. Affirmed on standards of good taste, sophistication, and extravagance, wedding goods put forward the opening to surpass one’s “experience for requisite” and substitute it for an experience of the good quality life if simply for a single day (Sundbo, et al, 135). The wedding industry is disneylized in a way that it makes a set of progressions available that are designed to get the most out of consumers’ enthusiasm to purchase merchandise and services, which in numerous cases if they may not have been enticed to purchase or if they may have procured from a rival. This grants the consumer a sequence of events, which operated as a draw by offering an experience that reduces the logic of an financial transaction and raises the probability of purchasing goods, therefore, keeping the people getting married as long as probable within the wedding premise (Mead 2008, P. 4). Overall, it could be noted that it is the psychology behind the establishment of what the experience wedding ceremonies provide the couples and their families and friends that make such an industry relatively interesting and lucrative. It is not the desire of getting married; but instead, it is the desire of being known to the community that the couples specifically wanted to be counted in; the experience they get from such an occasion allows them to portray a possibility that could bring them a better sense of social status they might likely want to be recognized with.

References

Hjorth and Kostera, M. (2007). Entrepreneurship and the experience economy. Copenhagen, Copenhagen Business School Press.

Mead, R. (2008). One perfect day the selling of the american wedding. http://www.contentreserve.com/TitleInfo.asp?ID={44DB8996-4A35-48DB-B00E-E846806A985D}&Format=410. (Retrieved on December 17, 2013).

Pine, BJ and . Gilmore, JH. (2011). The experience economy. Boston, Mass, Harvard Business Review Press.

Preston, C. (2012). Event marketing: how to successfully promote events, festivals, conventions, and expositions. Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons.

Sundbo and Darmer. (2008). Creating experiences in the experience economy. Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10310485.