“Real, but Glossy” – Technology and the Practical Pursuit of Magic In
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CSCW 2014 • Romance February 15-19, 2014, Baltimore, MD, USA “Real, but Glossy” – Technology and the Practical Pursuit of Magic in Modern Weddings Michael Massimi, Richard Harper, Abigail Sellen Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK {mmassimi, r.harper, asellen}@microsoft.com ABSTRACT A wedding is arguably the most transformative and mean- Planning a wedding is arguably one of the most complicat- ingful event in a person’s life. Particularly in North Ameri- ed collaborative tasks people ever undertake. Despite the can and British society, brides and grooms are encouraged commonplace use of technologies in “wedding work,” little by the wedding industry and the media to make their wed- research has looked at this from an HCI perspective. Based ding the “perfect day,” as the above quote makes clear. This on an interview study, we illustrate how technology is used day is expected to be an elegant, dreamlike affair that cele- to deliver the sought-after fantasy and a practical, yet enter- brates the personalities, history, and future of the couple in taining, affair. We identify four ways that technology helps the presence of adoring friends and family. In the United people do this: (a) by allowing much of the practical plan- States, weddings are generally one of the largest occasions ning work to become “invisible;” (b) by easing navigation for spending money - not as much as purchasing a home, through the delicate rules of family configurations made but certainly conspicuous in its scale and excess [16]. manifest in the guest list; (c) by helping create a spectacle- like event that adroitly balances excess and realism; and (d) To be sure, not all weddings are lavish, expensive events. by documenting the wedding in ways that allows re- The North American and British model – if it can be treated experiencing the magic after the event. The paper concludes as homogenous for the moment – is certainly not repre- by discussing the implications of this pursuit on social sentative of weddings everywhere. Even within this con- graphs, place, and photography, contributing to the litera- text, it is certainly not uncommon to hear about people opt- ture on technology and major life events. ing out of conventional wedding arrangements. However, a feature of weddings that is widely accepted is the need to Author Keywords create a special event that is set apart from the everyday. Weddings, magic, life events, spectacle, marriage, ritual. Making this day special is a significant effort, if not some- ACM Classification Keywords times a Herculean task that requires months of dedicated H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): effort. To begin with, planning a wedding unfolds in a Miscellaneous. unique social setting, where the needs and preferences of two or more families, as well as the friendship groups of the INTRODUCTION marrying couple, must be acknowledged. Beyond this, these “As one of the few recently democratized portals to diverse concerns must be weighed against financial costs reenchantment in life, the wedding does not so much hold and the desire to have a “once-in-a-lifetime” event that will up a mirror to who we really are, but instead offers a tem- be remembered for years to come. Of course, romance porary dream world for all in attendance, a celebrity-like needs to be sustained throughout; the couple must not fall world of elegance, elaborateness, emotion, and ease. Other out before they get to the altar. rituals can promise lavishness, but none can convey a memory of once having felt like Cinderella and Prince A range of technologies are mobilized in this process. Gen- Charming.” – Otnes and Pleck [22] (pp. 15-16). eral purpose websites such as Pinterest and Etsy provide inspiration and ideas for wedding themes, favors, flowers, Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or and dresses; this is to say little of the material to be found in classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed online bridal magazines, blogs, and portals such as The for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the Knot [28]. Productivity software such as Microsoft Office author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or or Google Docs are used to track invitations, balance budg- republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission ets, and manage to-do lists. Mobile users can find a thou- and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. CSCW'14, February 15 - 19 2014, Baltimore, MD, USA sands of mobile apps dedicated to wedding planning (a Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. search for “wedding” on the Google Play store yields over ACM 978-1-4503-2540-0/14/02…$15.00. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531682 1000 results, for example). Start-ups and established com- panies alike are also profoundly concerned with the event itself, launching products and services specifically for the wedding ceremony, for its recording and documenting, and 854 CSCW 2014 • Romance February 15-19, 2014, Baltimore, MD, USA much else besides; the bridal industry is a competitive mul- weddings. This suggests how technologies for weddings timillion dollar affair where companies try to acquire “a might unfold through sensitive, informed future design. customer for life” [20]. SETTING THE SCENE Weddings are, in other words, already suffused by technol- The Modern Wedding: Elaborate and Growing ogy. Yet, and to date, there appears to have been relatively Weddings are extraordinarily variable occasions within the little in the HCI or CSCW communities that focuses on North American and British contexts. From a “shotgun” weddings as a domain for technology use in its own right. elopement to Las Vegas to a formal weekend-long affair There are various papers that look at weddings indirectly, or with hundreds of guests at a Gothic castle, the wedding is a as motivating examples for a broader category of action. concept that is continually reinvented. In Martin King For example, Zarro, Hall, and Forte note that wedding Whyte’s book Dating, Mating, and Marriage from 1990, he boards are common repositories in their investigation of outlines some of the demographic trends associated with Pinterest [35]. Other studies focused on photography [18, weddings based on a large-scale survey held with a general 24], automatic video segmentation [4], and intelligent population of the USA. He points out that receptions have agents for wardrobe selection [17] have used weddings as become more common, and more people are attendance (an motivating examples. average of 50 guests in the 1940s, versus 150 in 1990). He There is also a growing body of literature looking at major goes on to point out that engaged couples are more likely to life events and HCI, including the birth of a child [9], di- hold bachelor or bachelorette parties now than ever before, vorce [21, 34], moving to a new home [26], and the death and participate in events in the lead-up to the actual cere- of a loved one [19]. All of this literature draws into focus mony [33]. When we consider that each of the approximate- the changing social, psychological, and technical infrastruc- ly 2.1 million weddings held in the US each year [3] may ture of the modern world. However, weddings themselves contain multiple elaborate events, a turn towards technolo- have not yet been studied, despite their importance in eco- gy to manage these affairs seems not only logical but near- nomic, social, psychological, and cultural terms. There essential. might be a range of reasons for this but as CSCW has Technologies for Weddings turned away from its origins in work systems towards tech- Like weddings themselves, the landscape of available tech- nology and society in the large, this absence seems all the nologies specifically targeted at weddings in the North more conspicuous: after all, weddings are fundamentally American and UK context is continually changing, and an collaborative and central to the organization of relationships exhaustive list is not possible here. However, blog posts between people. and articles frequently summarize the latest options availa- Following the framing of life events as crucibles for tech- ble for brides and grooms. One published on May 7, 2013 nology adoption, design and use, this study of weddings at PopSugar suggests “8 ways to completely digitize your provides CSCW with a fertile arena for studying how exist- wedding planning,” and overviews software packages for ing technologies are appropriated in a setting with height- coordination, design inspiration, shopping lists, registry ened stakes. Our findings provide material for future work creation, group communication, sketching, budgeting, and through design exploration, and highlight some of the defi- tracking RSVPs [23]. Applications can be found that inte- ciencies in current systems that cast weddings as a form of grate with existing platforms like Facebook (e.g., Weduary project management. It is finally our goal to provide the allows users to create a Facebook-integrated wedding site CSCW community with a rich example of how technology [32]). Other apps focus more squarely on mobile device is mobilized to make an event feel special, magical, and experiences, such as Appy Couple [1] which offers pre- memorable. Weddings, like other life events, push our un- designed wedding websites and associated functionality for derstanding of technology use beyond the everyday into the the iPhone. exceptional. Technology of course is not limited to the planning process; We organize the paper in the following way.