Customer Reviews

I Do: A Guide to Creating Your Own Unique Wedding Ceremony

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved this book. My partner and I come from totally different backgrounds and were not comfortable going with either of our traditions. Metrick helped us draw the best from our histories and blend it with our values and desires for an original ceremony. The book is comprehensive and easy to use, offering lots of great examples. There are wonderful quotes, great humor, practical advice, and answers to many questions.

I'm a minister, and I collect books on wedding ceremonies, particularly alternative ones, because I end up helping the bride/groom to plan and organize things. When it comes to the actual ceremony, we sit and write the ceremony together. This book contains everything in ONE work that is necessary to do the job.

Had I bought this early on, I could have saved myself lots of money. It has lovely examples and explains how and why to put each part of the ceremony in, or to skip if you prefer.

Other books are more geared towards the bride only, and focus on all aspects of putting together a wedding. This is the best resource on just the ceremony.

This book is comprehensive and easy to use. I had no idea how many options there could be for a ceremony or how to put one together. Metrick, has provided a step by step guide with wonderful examples. I've seen reviews of her work as an officiant on the Knot, and apparently she's draws from many traditions with ease and is great to work with. I loved the excerpts of ceremonies that she includes in the book. What a good way to see possibilities.

This book is a combination of advice and worksheets for planning your wedding/commitment ceremony. It includes sample services with an emphasis on intercultural ceremonies.

It's ... okay. The author seems to concentrate so much on the types of ceremonies she's lead in her work, that this book is a bit more of a departure from the type of guide I was hoping for. While she's got some good ideas, I think the book's main strength is the author asking you about the parts of the ceremony she outlines, asking you what you find important. The rest of the book ... well, wasn't necessary to me.

The book is very readable, although I have not finished reading it yet. My reason for buying the book was that it was required reading for a Celebrants course I am doing.

I bought this book because I want to incorporate innovative ideas and special traditions into my wedding ceremony. This book offers irrelevant information like, "A photographer or videographer can record the event for you so you can relive the memories. If there is a reception afterwards, you will need to hire a caterer."

I didn't buy this to be a wedding planner. I bought it to be inspirational. It tried to do too much and misses the mark on the subject that it's supposed to be about. If the author had posted the title above their keyboard, we might have a book worth reading now.

Let's look at page 7. The author states that because traditional ceremonies often subordinate a woman's role in marriage, one might adapt the vows to highlight the symmetry of the relationship between husband and wife. As an example, she compares the standard Episcopal ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer 1945 with a modification that "still holds much of the tone of the original" I beg to differ. The former is a religious ceremony specifically mentioning God and Christ. The later is not at all religious and does not mention God or Christ. Thus, the tone of the original is completely lost on the modified version. It is interesting to note that there is not one mention of subordination of a woman in her role in marriage in the Book of Common Prayer example given. If the author wanted to give an example of taking religion out of the ceremony for the non-religious, that would have been fine. But calling the non-religious version a modification of a traditional ceremony to "meet the needs of modern times" was a farce. She needs to say "to meet the needs of the non-religious". The author needs to say exactly what she means. There are many religious people including same-sex couples who want a unique ceremony that is not completely stripped of all religious meaning.

Ok, so I understand that some reviewers are angry because they believe this book is clearly for atheists and that athiests could easily give a religious ceremonies book the same two stars. Not at all true. Let's look at who the BOOK says it is written for: "whether it's to celebrate an interfaith, intercultural first union, a second or third marriage (including one or both partners' children), a same-sex marriage, or a commitment ceremony." I am sorry, but it nowhere says this book is for non-religious people only or atheists only. The book purports to be for ALL different types of people, religious, non-religious and atheist who want a unique ceremony. I feel the book is very clear that it is written for the above groups of people. My beef with it is that it takes religious ceremonies and mangles them and calls it good. Surely the non-religious or atheist can come up with unique ceremonies without resorting to stripping down religious ones to be completely meaningless, then declaring the resulting mess to "still hold much of the tone of the original".