Divorce party
Encyclopedia
A divorce party is a way to have a ceremony that celebrates the end of a marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 or civil union
Civil union
A civil union, also referred to as a civil partnership, is a legally recognized form of partnership similar to marriage. Beginning with Denmark in 1989, civil unions under one name or another have been established by law in many developed countries in order to provide same-sex couples rights,...

. Types of divorce parties vary greatly, and can involve either one or both members of the separating couple. Divorce parties have been called the final frontier in the wedding industry complex, and often involve a toast that emphasizes the couple beginning new chapters in their lives.

Similar to weddings, divorce parties take on many tenors and serve different purposes. Divorce parties in which couples have become independent of one another are often an announcement of new found singledom. These divorce parties are often equated to bachelor
Bachelor party
A bachelor party , also known as a stag party, stag night or stag do , a bull's party , or a buck's party or buck's night , is a party held for a man shortly before he enters marriage, to celebrate his "last night of freedom" or merely to spend...

 or bachelorette party and involve tongue-in-cheek items such as divorce cakes, wedding ring coffins, just-divorced banners, and divorce rings (a notched, or broken, circle). Shanna Moakler
Shanna Moakler
Shanna Lynn Moakler is an American model, actress, reality television star and a former beauty queen. She was the winner of the Miss New York USA pageant in 1995 and was originally the first runner-up at Miss USA 1995. She was later crowned Miss USA after Chelsi Smith won Miss Universe...

 hosted her now-infamous divorce party in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

, complete with a cake-topper of a dead groom. Las Vegas is widely considered as the divorce party capital of The United States.

Divorce parties that couples co-host often have a serious tone, and are aimed at healing the rifts among family and friends that divorces may cause. The idea is to acknowledge the good, even as the marriage is ending, and to let go of the accompanying anguish. When a couple co-hosts a party, they often celebrate what they’ve shared and ask friends and family for support as they separate from each other. A recent CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 article on the subject of divorce parties noted that divorce parties are growing exponentially in popularity, and helping alleviate the stigma surrounding the end of marriage.

Laura Dave
Laura Dave
Laura Dave is an American novelist. She is the author of London Is The Best City In America and The Divorce Party . Her most recent novel, The First Husband, was released in May 2011. Dave's fiction and essays have been published in The New York Times, The New York Observer, ESPN, Redbook, and...

 wrote the first novel about divorce parties, which is entitled The Divorce Party.

East Asia

Divorce ceremonies have gained currency in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

. In Mandarin, they are known as Líhūn yíshì or Líhūn diǎnlǐ ), and in Japanese they are known as Rikon-shiki .

Sources

  • CNN story about Divorce: Divorce ceremonies for healing ... maybe a toaster http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/18/divorce.celebrations/
  • Laura Dave's website: http://www.lauradave.com
  • Gawker Article About Divorce Being The New Marriage: Divorce Is The New Marriage: http://gawker.com/news/trends/divorce-is-the-new-marriage-316734.php
  • The Chicago Tribune: article on Las Vegas being the divorce party capital of America--The newly divorced toast their freedom in party capital: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0310divorce_vegas_fillmar10,1,5581304.story
  • Divorce Celebration's website: http://www.divorce-celebration.com
  • Divorce Party UK' website:Doing something positive will get post-divorce life off to a great start. http://www.divorcepartyuk.co.uk/?p=9

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37899750
  • O.K., It's Over. So Now Let's Party - RACHEL DODES = 2/13/2005 - NY Times Sunday Style Section http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/fashion/13DIVO.html
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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