I remember sitting in a first year ‘Business of Event Management’ lecture wondering what a dissertation was. Everyone else around me seemed to know what one was, and I was absolutely clueless. This lecture was titled ‘Sociology of Events’, and it was a lecture that I enjoyed very much. Having studied Sociology at A Level, I felt relaxed learning about something I had a background of knowledge in, and was excited to learn how sociology (one of my favourite subjects) linked to Event Management. At the mention of being able to do our dissertation on anything we liked – providing it linked to events – I stopped panicking, and instead my brain began wondering about linking sociology into my dissertation (whatever one was…).

Two years later, I’m very aware of what a dissertation is, and the idea to link sociology into my work never left my mind. I have always been interested to learn about social behaviour, trends and patterns in society, and I am a great believer that in order to succeed at something, it really helps if you enjoy it! The biggest problem I faced when it came to deciding what to write my dissertation on was how to narrow down this curiosity and decide upon a specific element of weddings, events and sociology. I enjoy working with people, and I spend a lot of my free time with friends and family. Naturally, the curiosity about the study of people and society has always been of particular interest to me.

My dissertation tutor, Marie, and I pinpointed the problem of having a broad range of research questions that I wanted to answer approx. 4 weeks into the semester. I had so many ideas flying around in my head, probably enough to write about 20 dissertations! By looking at the list of ideas I had, it is easier to understand how I came to decide to work on wedding consumption, sociology and events, and why my research is relatively broad yet specific.

• Do people get married for a marriage or a wedding?
• Why do people spend £20,000 on a one-day event?
• How have changes in culture affected the concept of marriage and the details of a wedding?
• Have the expectations of what a wedding should entail changed?
• Are wedding planners necessary in the wedding planning process?
• Do wedding planners help couples remain in their budget?
• Do couples spend more money on their wedding or honeymoon, and which is most important to the couple?
• Do ready-made wedding packages ruin the couple’s individuality and creativity in the wedding planning process?
• Has the recession effected the wedding planning industry, and if so, how?
• Why is a wedding so important?
• Does the “white wedding” still exist?
• The pressures of being a bride: why is a bride expected to look perfect and how is this achieved?

Many of these topics were thought to be sensitive issues, such as a person’s identity, or their reasons for getting married. I was advised by several people not to persue these topics as my dissertation is incredibly important, and the risk of not collecting enough data was too high a risk. I still worry that I won’t collect enough data for the dissertation I have chosen to carry out, but that is the risk you get when wanting to research into an engaged couple’s finance! Fingers crossed there are some kind couples out there who will be willing to help me out!

So, somehow, after experimenting with lots of different titles (that list isn’t all of them!) I chose: The Consumption of Weddings: An Exploratory Analysis of the Wedding Planning and Purchasing Process, and the rest will be history!