I Do but I Don’t: Walking Down the Aisle without Losing Your Mind [Hardcover]

Kamy Wicoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2006

Why is the stereotypical image of the bride before her wedding day that of a stressed, moody, indecisive, and frustrated woman cracking under pressure and snapping at everyone in sight? Why does being a bride feel like going through a second adolescence? And why, with the rate of couples seeking counseling for wedding-related debt doubling from year to year, do we continue to spend absurd amounts of money on this institution? Examining how the pressure to give into the crowd (mothers, mothers-in-law, caterers, dressmakers, bridesmaids, the groom himself) and the associated traditions (wearing white, being given away, being introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Groom) is sometimes at odds with the "progress" the bride and groom may have made on these issues in private, Kamy Wicoff answers these questions and more in this sure-to-be-talked-about look at the modern bride. Through poignant and funny personal experience, eye-opening conversations with other brides, and scholarly and popular research, she strives to find both the personal and cultural meaning of all the trappings and traditions-from the proposal to the ring, to the dress, and even the bachelorette party. Her insights will blow the roof off the proverbial wedding tent. Her passionate argument for conscious marriage will ring true to the thousands of women planning weddings every day. To keep our sanity, our integrity, and our relationships intact, Wicoff says, "the way we marry matters."

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

A contributor to Salon.com, Kamy Wicoff lives in New York City. She and her husband have two children.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (May 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738210129
• ISBN-13: 978-0738210124
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,225,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Self-absorbed tale of World's Scariest Bridezilla, February 17, 2007

By 

Charismatic Creature (Anywheresville, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Do but I Don’t: Walking Down the Aisle without Losing Your Mind (Hardcover)

I was sucked into this book by the modest cover, and title, and a quick skim of the first chapters....which indicated this was going to be a book about a feminist new age bride, who quickly realizes the whole Bridal Industrial Complex about to suck money from her and her family, and who responds by having a simple, down-to-earth, meaningful wedding.

Well, that's not THIS book.

Ms.Wicoff is a spoiled, pretentious Texas debutante who claim to being "a feminist' are laughable. All she and her homemaker mom can think about is her upcoming wedding, and how to make it largest and fussiest and most expensive one on earth. In fairness, Kami was apparently harassed continually by her mom from her mid-twenties on to get her rich, investment banker boyfriend to propose....to the point that she has to throw hissy fits and public tantrums until Mr. Perfect coughs up the Perfect 2 Carat Emerald Cut Platinum ring (I don't think I give anything away here, because she mentions it constantly....how big it is, how other women envy it, how she can barely stand to wear it, etc.)

The first couple chapters I thought had some real interest going, because it appeared that Ms. Wicoff was actively questioning her own desperation at wanting a 'real proposal" (i.e., from the man, down on one knee, etc.) and her complete inability to simply ask herself if he wanted to marry her. But she never goes beyond simply describing her extreme angst about getting 'asked' (desperate at the tender age of 27!), and her laughable "research" consists of her asking her girlfriends what they think (they are all desperate to be asked too, with the desperation increasing with age). This pretty much made me want to hid my head in shame and desolation that THIS is what has become of the dream of feminism and women's independence -- that baby boomer feminists have given birth to a generation of women who have every access to work and education and big dreams and yet they are more desperate and marriage obsessed that the corniest 50s housewife.

Interestingly, Ms. Wicoff appears never to have held a job (she's in graduate school at the time of her nuptials), and doesn't even briefly mention a career interest except she'd like to do 'freelance writing', something she expects will be subsidized by her new husband's investmant banking career, along with the maids and nannies she also mentions that she expects. (He's really, really wealthy -- did I mention that? because Kamy Wicoff does on nearly every page.) Furthermore, her bio on the book jacket describes her only as 'a contributor to [...].com", although Salon's archive contains no listings at all for her.

Other reviewers have done a good job of describing the rest of the book -- Ms. Wicoff's alternatingly hip, post-modern, ironic contempt for rings and fancy dresses, only to find that she goes and does every single solitary thing she criticizes as overly expensive or ridiculous, right down to a wildly overpriced Vera Wang original dress. Her "wedding for 200" is a premium affair, with every person man-hauled across country to attend luxurious event on a remote ranch in the Colorado mountains, just the logistics of which are coma-inducing, and the cost almost incalculable. This is the stuff of celebrity wedding, although I am not aware of Ms. Wicoff being any sort of celebrity -- she's just a rich girl who has snagged a very rich boy.

This whole, deeply offensive thing has the over all effect you get when you visit some self-aborbed, newly-married couple whose whole home is dotted with pictures and platters and keepsakes from the wedding, and then they force you to set through their wedding videos and look at their photo albums! Fascinating for them, hideously boring for you. And in the end, you are left with a nagging feeling that they just want to show off, "see what I have that you cannot possibly afford'.

I remember my grandmother, who used to say (usually after seeing some ridiculous movie star wedding covered on TV) that the lavishness of a wedding is in direct inverse correlation to the liklihood that the marriage itself will succeed long-term. And she was a very wise woman. A marriage is a lifetime of hardwork and compromise and not being the center of attention -- a WEDDING is a party that lasts one day. Anyone who makes it the pinnacle of their life, fritters away their parent's retirement money on it, brags and shows off to total strangers, and still can't get over her Emerald Cut Ring or her Vera Wang dress SIX YEARS after the event, and is still writing about it (and not, apparently, writing or working at any other endeavour) needs to get a life! and soon!

In conclusion: as a boomer generation feminist, this makes my skin crawl in shame, for both Kami and especially her mother.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't offer much, December 18, 2006

By 

E. Harris (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Do but I Don’t: Walking Down the Aisle without Losing Your Mind (Hardcover)

Don't buy this book if you are planning to get married and are in need of a resource on "how to walk down the aisle without losing your mind" as the book states. Really it is just a re-cap of the authors 200 person wedding, with her wealthy husband, her vera wang gown and her picture perfect family. She points out many interesting anti feminist points that are involved with a wedding but instead of breaking the mold and doing anything different she does it all to the max. The book is basically critical of all of these things (like the vera wang etc) but then she continuously mentions how wonderful everything turned out at her wedding. It was fairly well written but really it is just a story nothing helpful here if thats what your looking for

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Shameless Display of Yuppie Angst, July 27, 2006

By 

DarlinLilly (The South) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Do but I Don’t: Walking Down the Aisle without Losing Your Mind (Hardcover)

First, I have to give this author a certain amount of credit. The book is well written and researched. But, it is essentially a memoir of a rich, spoiled girl who confused her own wedding with a presidential inauguration.

For those of us who could not afford Vera Wang gowns or $10,000 engagement rigs, this author's story is pure yuppie angst. Most readers would kill to have the resources to deal with her "stresses" and "problems." The rest of us have to deal with the real world, which does not cater to our every whim.