Miss Manners' Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding [Hardcover]
Bride and mother-of-the-bride rebel against today’s monster weddings and explain how weddings can be charming, affordable—and excruciatingly correct.
Today’s brides are bombarded with wedding advice that promises perfection but urges achieving it through selfishness (“It’s your wedding, and you can do whatever you like”), greed (choosing the presents that guests are directed to buy), and showing off (“This is your chance to show everyone what you’re about”). Couples wishing to resist such pressure see elopement or a slapdash wedding as the only alternatives to a gaudy blowout. But none of these choices appealed to a bride who happened to have been brought up by Miss Manners. Judith Martin and her newlywed daughter, Jacobina, explain how to have a dignified ceremony and delightful celebration without succumbing to the now-prevalent pattern of the vulgar, money-draining wedding that exhausts families and exploits friends. 6 illustrations
Judith Martin, author of the “Miss Manners” columns, several best-selling books on etiquette, and two novels, lives in Washington, DC.
Bride and mother-of-the-bride rebel against today’s monster weddings and explain how weddings can be charming, affordable—and excruciatingly correct.
Today’s brides are bombarded with wedding advice that promises perfection but urges achieving it through selfishness (“It’s your wedding, and you can do whatever you like”), greed (choosing the presents that guests are directed to buy), and showing off (“This is your chance to show everyone what you’re about”). Couples wishing to resist such pressure see elopement or a slapdash wedding as the only alternatives to a gaudy blowout. But none of these choices appealed to a bride who happened to have been brought up by Miss Manners. Judith Martin and her newlywed daughter, Jacobina, explain how to have a dignified ceremony and delightful celebration without succumbing to the now-prevalent pattern of the vulgar, money-draining wedding that exhausts families and exploits friends. 6 illustrations
From Booklist
How to insert humor into the often deadly dull prose that details
wedding niceties? Ask Miss Manners’ daughter to coauthor the collection
of advice; Chicago improvisational teacher Jacobina, along with her
mom-author (Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior,
1979) Judith, writes a disarmingly dry yet wonderfully funny account of
the dos and don’ts for getting married. Every conceivable subject gets
its space, including the absolutely right (and wrong) proposal, avoiding
the “bridezilla” factor, coping with invitations, chief
responsibilities of the parties in the wedding, and the three terrible
ideas: weddings as (choose one) “my day,” fund-raiser, or show biz. A
question-and-answer format usually follows each major block of content;
it’s here where the authors let loose their humor. An amuse-bouche that,
despite its humor, provides more than a dollop of great common sense.
--Barbara Jacobs
About the Author
Jacobina Martin teaches improvisational comedy at Chicago’s Second City and just married Ronald Kroll.Judith Martin, author of the “Miss Manners” columns, several best-selling books on etiquette, and two novels, lives in Washington, DC.
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