Wedding Planning Narratives of First-Generation University Graduate Women from Transylvania

In my study, I examine how the experience of upward social mobility is reflected in the wedding planning narratives of first-generation female university graduates, and how this mobility experience influences their decisions, emotions, and their relationship to both their social background and the new social environment they have achieved. The empirical data for the research consists of 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with young women from Transylvania who, besides being first-generation graduates, had either married within the last 3–4 years or were actively planning their weddings at the time of the research. The analysis reveals that the narratives are dominated by the difficulties and uncertainties of the early stages of their mobile life paths, rather than by reflections on their expected class transition. Overall, it can be stated that in the life and career stage the interviewees are experiencing as young adults, the experience of mobility is not yet prominent enough to produce a conscious representation through the wedding, and class transition is therefore largely absent from their narratives. Instead, wedding planning is shaped by the dilemma between traditional and modern elements, with the adoption of new patterns being largely unreflective and dependent on experiences gained through exposure to new social contexts. As a result, elements of the new middle-class habitus tend to appear indirectly and without conscious reflection, rather than as deliberate representations of status. Keywords: social mobility, habitus, first-generation university graduates, wedding planning narratives