Why do little girls dress like brides for first communion? A Progressive Catholic opinion

A question I got from a friend:

Genna wrote:

One of my cousins posted a memory on facebook that a year ago today her daughter recieved first communion a year ago.  And she was so proud that she wore her wedding veil.  And I am infuriated. A 7 year old. Wearing a wedding veil. And white.  IT just feels like the catholic church (and my cousin) is infantalizing and slut shaming women while objectifying them all at once.

I would like some help humanizing Catholics.

Here is my response:

Genna,

Okay, so I am thinking a ton of things and they might not come out in the most conscise way. So bear with me.

First of all people of all religions do practices that they love and find meaningful that sometime has problematic meaning or are messed up. Santa for example is culturally problematic- person breaks into your house and leaves shit for your kids without your consent. People lie to their children and even religious people accidentally ignore the holiday (Christmas) while emphasizing the Santa thing. BUT people LOVE SANTA. People will not let go of Santa because for them it conjurs up something magical. Sometimes people cannot let go of the myth even if they know it is fucked because they have too much emotion attached to it. A lot of people won't even acknowledge when things are fucked.

Okay- so the white dress- the white dress is actually not about a bride thing. Lot of people think it is but White dresses were not trendy in weddings until the 1890's with Queen Victoria. Christians have been wearing white garmets for rituals since the beginning of the church. White, a symbol of purity, is what people wear when they are freshly baptized. White is the color of baptism. . .so having kids wear white is trying to connect their first communion to their baptism.

Most people don't think about the connection of the white garments so it gets lost. It is the cultural forgetting that makes people immedietly jump to marriage.

The veil- so back in the day- women used to wear their heads covered in church. In fact, women have been keeping their heads covered in most christian cultures for most of the catholic church- think about bonnets, veils (like the ones that nuns wear), shawls, scarves, -even hijab-ish looking garb was common for most of the ancient mediterreanean. So when first communion happened it used to be that girls just natrually had something on their head anyway. In order to make it more fancy- because it is a special event it started to look more bridal. Only lately (in the past 120 years) has the bridal imagery really started to play out so starkly and grossly.

Finally, I don't want to ignore that the bridal image is part of the imagination. The idea that the church is the "bride" of Christ has been a metaphor that theologians have used for awhile. It often leaves the people (aka the church) in a subservient role. It is problematic. VERY problematic. Because people are now culturally attached to what first communion looks like (Like Santa) and often have their own special memories of this event the are not very wiling to deconstruct the sacramental complexity. People are not playing with this idea or re-imagining it. It's broken and messed up. In fact, my kids are not doing first communion at all. It is gross. I won't have them do that. When my partner and I decide they are ready we let them participate.

Does this help humanize Catholics? Or at least explain it?