It's various industries with a "wedding" multiplier. "Wedding" dresses are thousands of dollars, but roughly equivalent normal dresses are hundreds. The minute you say "wedding cake" instead of "chocolate cake" the cost skyrockets.

> "Wedding" dresses are thousands of dollars, but roughly equivalent normal dresses are hundreds.

A lot of that cost differential is high-touch, small-floorspace, low-volume boutiques that throw a lot of effort into the buying experience; budget sensitive buyers can and do cut a lot out of that already, through discount bridal shops that have a sales experience more like traditional retail (despite providing all the same substantive services lie fitting and alterations/customization.)

The rest of it is the substantive services like multiple fittings and alterations, which tend to be priced in with wedding dresses and charged separately otherwise.

Why would anybody ever share that their cake purchase is for a wedding, then? Wouldn't everyone just say 'give me a chocolate cake' to save money?

Unless there's something about the cake design that obviously gives away the context of your request to the vendor --but beyond that-- it seems disadvantageous to disclose the information.

It really depends on if you want a "wedding cake" or not. If you want a wedding cake, you gotta say it, cause it has a particular look and feel.

I'm picturing a multi-tiered cake, but I don't really see anything unique about it. Maybe the designs/patterns they use to apply the frosting are different for wedding cakes?

I'll be honest, I haven't seen many wedding cakes. I've seen far more regular cakes. If I went to a wedding, and someone wanted to trick by serving non-wedding cake, I'd be fooled.

Oh yeah, we went full regular chocolate cake for ours. Wasn't a "wedding" cake, but was way more delicious.

I've been to weddings where people do cupcakes in lieu of cake. Everyone gets dessert faster, since you don't have to cut it up and serve it individually. I was a fan of the planned efficiency. The couple did actually have a small cake for the ceremonial cutting of the cake. Beyond that, everyone was OK with cupcakes, if they cared to eat dessert.

This is pretty insightful. I think I’d refine it slightly as “there’s no wedding industry despite people trying to create one” (cf Condé Nast and their magazine, mentioned in the article).

And after expanding the scope, as you do, you mostly get the same recursive problem the article concludes with: most of the expenses go to unconnected third parties like venue, band) who have little opportunity for roll-up.

Does the fact there’s a shoe industry mean there’s no sneaker industry?

It’s more like there’s no ‘driving to the airport’ industry. There’s a taxi industry that also drives to the airport.

The airport shuttle businesses might disagree on that. The fact that there's a larger more-generic group doesn't mean that a specialty isn't real.

But those are small business rather than a “sector” mainly existing due to external economics which vary rom airport to airport (parking costs/structure) and peoples’ willingness To put up with inconvenience.

It does mean the specialty is a relatively small market that isn't really worth talking about, though.

"Wedding-Industrial Complex"?