There are few life events where a person can feel as loved and supported as they did during their marriage. A full calendar of celebrations celebrates a bride or groom and their new spouse, from engagement parties to destination bachelor and bachelorette trips, bridal showers, rehearsal dinners and, of course, the big day itself. They are given gifts — honeymoon money, a good knife set, a hand drill for DIY home projects — to set them up for a successful start to a happy marriage.
What if we did the same for people going through divorce?
This story first appeared in The Highlight.
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Increasingly, some are doing just that: They’re throwing divorce parties, signing up for divorce registries and asking loved ones to pitch in and even “Divorce“These trends bookend the growing list of traditions surrounding weddings, fill in the gaps at the other end of the journey, and bring a little $70 billion wedding industry For modern divorce. After all, a divorce is arguably a time when one needs support and goodwill more than ever.
something 40 percent First marriages end in divorce, second and third marriages have higher rates. “Yet we still don’t talk about divorce very realistically,” says Olivia Dreizen Howell, who started Fresh Starts Registry 2021 with his sister Genevieve Dreizen. The company offers pre-made divorce registries and other helpful services when you are ending your marriage. Divorce bundles contain many of the same quotidian household items you’d find in a wedding registry, except this time they’ll help you turn over furniture, house plants, or even turn over a new leaf after a split in half. Household stock of toilet paper.
Howell divorced in April 2019. “Half of my stuff was gone … and what was left was very sentimental stuff,” she says. “The sheets we slept in together, the food we got from our wedding registry — we donated a lot of those items, and then my house was really empty.”
In June 2021, Dreizen ended her engagement, and Fresh Starts was born later that year. Dreizen took no furniture with him when he moved out, only clothes and heirlooms. Friends asked what they could do to help as she sat in a mostly empty apartment. After going through their own divorce, they officially launched Fresh Starts in 2021 to host a cornucopia of pre-made divorce registry bundles that suit budget, the room you want to decorate, and even decor style. D cheapAt $99, it includes basics like a sheet set, towels, some cutlery and a toothbrush holder — things you might need for your first night in a new place — when most expensive The basic bundle contains about $500 worth of stuff. The kitchen-specific bundle includes a handy jar opener (a must-have if you don’t have another adult to help loosen the lids), and a single-serve coffee maker.
“These are things you touch every day, so your sheets, towels, dishes, cups, plates, dishes,” Howell says.
For a bundle to furnish a child’s room, Howell made sure that all the furniture could be put together by an adult. “I just thought it was such an incredibly thoughtful thing from one single mom to another single mom,” says her sister.
For Scarlett Longstreet, a 36-year-old writer and influencer who posts content about divorce on social media, the idea of a divorce registry was foreign at first, and yet it made practical sense. “It’s so sweet that we get showered with gifts when we’re getting married, but I didn’t have three little girls to take care of when I was getting married,” she tells Vox. She chose not to take much from the home she shared with her ex-husband. “I really wanted a fresh start,” she says. Using the Fresh Start bundles, in all, she left about $1,500 worth of household products on her registry to start fresh.
For comparison, the average cost of a wedding registry last year was approx $4,853According to The Knot. There’s nowhere near the same adulation and well-wishes showered on people coming out of marriage, even though they’re arguably more financially strapped than people joining a couple. Even if you’re scrambling, it might cost you to furnish a one-bedroom apartment for yourself Several thousand dollars At least, not including rent, security deposit and any other lease signing fees.
“I think the biggest hurdle is saying, ‘I’m going to do this registry,'” Longstreet says “I would encourage people to do that, because it’s a way that your loved ones can show up for you.”
Fresh Starts primary revenue streams come from offerings Tested experts Who can walk people through their entire process — divorce lawyers, coaches, therapists, even hair stylists. Experts pay $55 a month to be listed on Fresh Starts, and the site currently has about 120 professionals connecting with interested clients. People often think that divorce is surprisingly difficult Taking care of the little things in life that add to the creaking emotional burden on their shoulders: how to find a rental, how to separate a bank account from an ex-spouse, how to refinance a mortgage on your own, or how to make sure your child stays in the same school district. can Fresh Starts’ coterie of experts, Howell says, can help.
Beyond the practicality of a registry when you’re newly single, there’s a growing number of people who choose to celebrate divorce with a splash party. The end of a long legal process can be a joy — there’s no one who hasn’t seen a paparazzi photo Nicole Kidman after her divorce was finalized May disagree.
Marina Hoffman, a 49-year-old preacher, threw her divorce party at the same venue where she got married 15 years ago. She used the same event planner, the same cake designer, and invited (using proper paper invitations) the same people who attended her wedding. There was a taco station, a 10-piece band and flowers decorating the venue. She was wearing a pink dress. Calling it a “next chapter” party, Hoffman spent $25,000 to $30,000 on the blowout divorce bash. “I had 100 people, and it was an amazing party,” Hoffman said.
Savannah Pruitt, a 26-year-old in digital marketing, got divorced because her best friend was getting married. The two enjoyed a joint bachelorette-and-divorce beach weekend. Both Pruitt and her best friend wrote their Venmo accounts on the back window of the car they drove, following a trend at bachelorette parties where people display Venmos so passersby can buy the bride a drink. “We both got maybe $10 a piece,” she recalls. Her friend had a “white sash that said ‘bride to be,’ and then I had a black one that said, ‘I do, I do, I am.’ $500
Christine Gallagher, former divorce party planner and author Divorce Party HandbookSays there are more people in the divorce party planning business today than when he first started. “More party companies are branching out and offering it, which is great,” she says
Throughout his career, Gallagher estimates that he planned about 450 divorce parties. Some themes were particularly popular, such as divorce parties based on cutthroat reality shows to survive. “You survived a shipwrecked marriage,” Gallagher explains. Sometimes the events were not joyous, but more cruelly observed — such as a ring burial ceremony, complete with Ring caskets — but for many people it was crucial to have some tangible ceremony to mark the end of one part of their lives so that they could enter the next. “Most of the big events in our lives, we have some kind of public ritual or event,” she tells Vox. “It’s a way to bring your friends around you to help you make a transition, and it’s primitive.” The only bad divorce party she remembers was planned as a surprise.
Everyone Vox spoke to experienced some negativity because they spoke publicly about their breakup — being anything other than down and ashamed about the divorce was seen as difficult, or even ungrateful, to those who invested time and money in the marriage. “I get a lot of people who say, ‘Oh that’s just boring. You shouldn’t even be talking about it — you’re airing your dirty laundry,” says Longstreet. Gallagher remembers online comments calling divorce parties “ruining our country.”
“I think it’s healthy to work things out and not sit around suffering,” Gallagher says. “My grandparents were terribly unhappy, but they were Catholic and couldn’t get a divorce.”
Because of the stigma, there is a lot of self-consciousness around asking people for support as a person going through a divorce. Most people don’t look past the few splurge options listed on a couple’s wedding registry — but Longstreet is sensitive about what people might say if she doesn’t list only the most essential, budget-friendly items on her registry. “It was like, ‘I can’t really ask for that, can I?’ I’ve really tried to focus mostly on things for my girls rather than me,” she says. was not Vitamix Blenderno Balmuda Toaster OvenAnd of course not 157-piece Le Creuset Kitchen set.
For Longstreet, a divorce registry was a way for her to say out loud that she was divorcing. “It’s okay for me to be open about it,” she says
For now, the scope of the Divorce Industrial Complex is limited. But divorcees are learning from marriage: It’s okay to find some joy (or relief) in acting, and it’s okay to expect your loved ones to be there for you. The end of a marriage does not mean it was a failure. As a poet Jack Gilbert put it: “Everyone forgets that Icarus flew too.”
