b
efore Covid), weddings were big business, a highly lucrative industry worth $55 billion in the United States alone. And prior to the global shutdown in early 2020, they were trending ever more extravagant. This isn't news: for decades these events have been as much about showing off wealth and status as they were about celebrating love, but the rise of Instagram only seemed to push weddings into higher and higher strata.
Multi-day affairs in far-flung locales became
de rigueur, with all of their requisite extracurricular activities, from welcome parties to farewell brunches. And then came the double wedding (see: Karlie Kloss and Josh Kushner; Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas; Charlotte Casiraghi and Dimitri Rassam): an intimate celebration followed by a bigger party later, creating a perfect excuse for well-heeled couples to now throw