We live in a time when all the rules are being rewritten blindingly fast — when, for example,
an increasingly smaller number of people can do increasingly greater damage.
On a very basic level, as a sort
of cultural trend, weddings themselves are becoming
smaller and
smaller affairs: They are
increasingly getting cheaper and
people are inviting fewer guests (in 2009, 149 came to the average American wedding; last year, that
number fell to 141).