Much like weddings that take place on plantations for the antebellum aesthetic, prisons are also venues for those who disregard what once took place there.
But these ceremonies weren’t the first.
Before the tourists, enslaved and formerly enslaved Black couples established marital traditions on plantation grounds, refusing to limit themselves by denying themselves love. Incarcerated people and their loved ones outside of prisons resist these institutions by insisting on having their weddings, too.
For our enslaved ancestors, this celebration of love came with the possibility of being forced apart.
With prison, that separation already exists, but the choice remains the same. There are dress codes, guards, and gates. There are no wedding cakes, first dances, or bouquets. Some couples can kiss, others can’t.
Still, people carry on with their ceremonies and insist on celebrating and officializing their love, however that means to them. Over a million people are incarcerated in U.S. prisons. How many of them love and are loved?
The dominant culture attempts to diminish the lives of incarcerated people, from reality TV to labor spectacles. When we think of prison weddings, let’s think of their love and resistance. It's existed long before those who marry behind bars because of an aesthetic and not because they have to.