Anti-Bride Guide: Tying the Knot Outside of the Box [Spiral-bound]

Carolyn Gerin (Author), Stephanie Rosenbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2001

Into a sea of pearl white and pale blue comes the hot pink and orange Anti-Bride Guide. The perfect book for anyone alienated by the high-brow wedding industry, this practical guide fills a huge gap in the wedding planner market. A riot to read and filled with sassy illustrations, each chapter offers up fabulous advice and unusual ideas for those brides looking for more than the standard fare. Hundreds of fantastic tips give great insider advice on how to deal with any and all wedding eventualities (lipstick stain on dress, caterer from hell, wedding day breakout). A handy planner and resource guide keeps the bride on track, and tabbed chapters have pockets for stuffing brochures and clippings. For the bride who wants her wedding her way, this is the ultimate guide.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a fun book to help brainstorm alternatives to the traditional bridal options." -- Washington Post - City Edition, September 30, 2002

About the Author

Carolyn Gerin is the principle of her own graphic design firm in San Francisco. She is the co-author of Anti-Bride Guide .

Stephanie Rosenbaum lives in San Francisco and is a regular contributor to the Bay Guardian and San Francisco Magazine.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 144 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811829677
• ISBN-13: 978-0811829670
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #581,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new to see here., February 12, 2005

By 

Jenny Jupiter (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anti-Bride Guide: Tying the Knot Outside of the Box (Spiral-bound)

Meh. The other negative reviews were right. This book was about as "out of the box" as the wedding sections in Cosmo or Glamour and seemed geared towards women with lots of money, time, and inclination to plan a wedding.

The format of the book is like this:

Veils: Who says you have to wear a veil? You totally don't. But if you want one, here is the same advice on veils that you get in any bridal magazine of wedding planning book.

Bouquet: Who says you have to carry a bouquet? You don't have to! But if you want to here is some completely unoriginal crap that the authors copied and pasted out of a tepid and shallow bridal article...

The book actually listed alternative colors for wedding gowns, such as green, brown, orange, silver, and ruby. You mean, if i don't want to wear white, I can wear another color??? How utterly original! I never would have thought of that one on my own!

You get the idea.

There's some serious product placement going on here, too. So the author is "friends" with someone at Benefit Cosmetics who then gives advice on wedding make-up. (First tip: Use Benefit Cosmetics!) Surprise, Benefit Cosmetics is the first listing in the Make-up section of the Resource Guide. Give me a break.

I was irritated by the author's constant reference to her own wedding but in the third person, as if she had collected testimonials from other brides. Gerin's wedding stories are about how she had to have a wedding on each coast and a party in France and offered such innovative and fresh advice like "Drink lots of water on the plane."

The practical advice is okay, but was covered with more accuracy and completeness in the other books I bought.

I did get a couple solid slices of advice from this book which is how it earned one star. I honestly appreciate the "Anti-Bride Timeline" on page 128, the Beauty Countdown on page 122 (get waxed two days before your wedding... check!), and the Day-of Checklist on page 135. I am hard pressed to imagine that I will use much else from this book, however.

If you find this used for less than $1, go for it. The checklists are worth it. But if you already have any other bridal guide, there's no point in getting this one. Putting a retro-graphics cover on the same, tired old crap doesn't make it interesting. It just makes it another bridal industry rip-off.

85 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Anti Bride, August 2, 2002

By 

Elizabeth (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Anti-Bride Guide: Tying the Knot Outside of the Box (Spiral-bound)

This would not be a bad wedding guide if it didn't claim to be different. It is, generally, about the same as the others I've read. The most "anti" theme is the book is that you don't have to do what your family wants you to. But, there is plenty of discussion of etiquette, what to do, what not to do, etc. Sure there are a few nice ideas, but all bridal guides tend to have a few nice ideas. I was looking for a book that could really assist me in having a wedding that is *different.* I wanted something to help me get past all that brainwashing about what a wedding looks like. This book, instead, offers slightly alternative-ish ideas about how you might adjust existing traditions and how you don't have to listen to all your family. Not a bad wedding book, but just doesn't live up to being anything that different from what is already out there.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Skip this book, December 3, 2006

By 

Holly M (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anti-Bride Guide: Tying the Knot Outside of the Box (Spiral-bound)

When I finally came to grips with fact that my fella was not as exited about eloping as I was, I hypervenilated at the thought of a wedding... then eventually pulled up my boot straps and promptly bought every book on Amazon that purported to be about planning low key celebrations far, far from the land of bridezilla.

While the Anti-Bride series of books (oh yes, I did buy all three in a fit of panic) claims to be about not getting sucked in to the Wedding Industrial Complex, I found it to be just the opposite. To wit, the opening sentence from the planner: "A film reel of your wedding has probably been playing in your head since you dressed up Barbie and Ken and walked them down the aisle." Um, no.... and in fact this is precisely the kind of drivel I was hoping to avoid.

So don't judge a book by it's SexandtheCity cover, and instead spend your $ on the two sleeper hits from my book-buying spree: "How to Have an Elegant Wedding for $5000 or Less" and "How to Have the Wedding you Want (not the one everybody else wants you to have)"

I have found a creative use for these books, though: They've become the symbol of all wedding evil in our house. When I am really, really irritated with some stupid wedding detail my fella keeps these books handy for me to stomp on, curse at etc....