Authentic style-fashion-dress consumption of lesbian married couples on their wedding day

Kelly L. Reddy-Best, Jennifer Paff, Karen Hyllegard and Courtney Morgan

Chapter 12 in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Consumption, 2026, pp 148-161 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In 2015, a United States Supreme Court ruling allowed same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Since then, there have been over 1 million such marriages in the country, with numbers increasing every year. This chapter presents an in-depth exploratory study on how lesbian married couples in the United States negotiated their style-fashion-dress on their wedding day. It shows that four themes emerged: (1) ambivalence, renegotiation, and labor surrounding the identity or concept of “bride” or what it means to be a bride; (2) gender expressions and experiences as central to the negotiation and construction of style-fashion-dress for the wedding day; (3) representations of the authentic self in wedding day styling/attire; and (4) heteronormative experiences. Findings suggest implications for retailers focused on the lesbian, queer, and heterosexual communities to consider in order to provide affirming experiences for the increasing number of same-sex married couples.

Keywords: Authenticity; Identity; Lesbians; Same-sex marriage; Style-fashion-dress; Weddings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035310500
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