Book Review: How to Have the Wedding You Want, by Danielle Claro

[bluedaisy]

This was recommended to me by a recently-married friend, so we picked
it up off Amazon. Mostly, I liked its tone, but didn't get a lot out
of its suggestions that I had not gotten out of the other 20 tons of
wedding-related advice I've read recently. I got much more from the
Miss Manners book, since at least it was funnier.
(That review will be coming soon.)

In general, this is a nice couple hundred pages of feel-good stories
about other people who had situations that may or may not sound
familiar (some did, some did not), with some commom-sense suggestions
for how to address them without anyone killing anyone else. Sadly, I
think I picked it up too late to be helpful with the initial "Ack, I'm
throwing a party!" stress, and the more specific conflicts we had with
our families were either already resolved or really not addressed by the advice in the book.

(For some reason, nobody has advice on whether people will be insulted
by the lack of meat or alcohol at the wedding, or on how to deal with
passive-aggressive attempts to claim that someone not-the-speaker will
be insulted. I can't imagine why not. The book did have a bit about
a vegetarian couple whose family was surprised, but not a lot about
how she dealt with it.)

Books Read in 2006: 14.5

Comments

[gmpe.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine anyone would be insulted. Surprised, perhaps, if they don't know you particularly well, but not insulted. The same way I don't expect my kosher-keeping friends to serve a cheeseburger, I don't expect you to serve meat.
On alcohol, I know some less socially adept people who feel like they need alcohol to be comfortable being social/sociable. I don't really think this means it is your problem or that you should serve alcohol. You might try looking for suggestions on one of the wedding chat boards like weddingchannel.com. I found some useful advice there when I was planning our wedding. (There are lots of totally-obsessed bride-zillas as well, but their comments are easy enough to filter out of your brain.)

[bitterpoetry.livejournal.com]

It's your wedding and your wedding reception; you get to choose what food and drink is served. Also, people are there to see you get married, not to eat ribeye and drink wine (if that was the only reason that they were coming, they shouldn't have been there in the first place). Frankly, if they're so appalled that there won't be any alcohol, they can always go hit the local liquor store afterwards and drink all the alcohol that they want.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

I'm with bitterpoetry. Your wedding is your day. I find bizarre the whole idea that a guest might feel entitled take umbrage at pretty much anything a couple could choose to do at their wedding this side of hiring strippers for the entertainment. Let alone feel insulted. (And in my book they're only entitled to take umbrage at the strippers if the invitations failed to warn that the entertainment would likely be unsuitable for small children.)
In short: relax. It's your wedding, you're the only one it has to make happy. The guests' enjoyment is rooted in yours. Don't fret about them.