Customer Reviews

Mazel Tov!

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3 star:		(1)
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Mazel Tov! The Complete Book of Jewish Weddings by Lea Bayers Rapp has proven
to be everything I hoped for and more! This book is not only
super-informative, but it's fun to read, and interactive, too. It gave my
fiance and me so many great ideas and practical advice on not only actually
making the wedding, but gathering the money to do so, offered us tips on how
to save money, decide and find a rabbi, etc. I learned some solid facts on
selecting my wedding gown, the groom's and attendants clothing, music,
flowers, you name it. I was having a problem with my bridal party but no
more. (How did the author know and solve my exact problems here?) But in
addition to being a wedding planning guide book there are etiquette tips,
quizzes (some of them so funny our sides ached from laughing). There's also
some really interesting historical facts and customs. For example, I never
knew that a Jewish couple actually marry themselves!
My fiance and I have learned a lot about introducing technology into our
announcements and the wedding, and also on the other hand, about many ancient
customs. We decided to incorporate several into our wedding--and it should
make it really interesting.
Since my fiance is reform and I am conservative, we were happy to find that
various streams of Judaism and cultures are included, as are interfaith
marriages (a few of my friends could use that part of the book).
And best of all, there is great inside advice from experts, including a
famous make-up artist that does TV stars. If I had to find something that
could be improved, it could be that it could use some photographs. In all, I
highly recommend this book. Instead of providing information on a particular
aspect of weddings only, this sure does cover it all!

This book really helped save our wedding. We were running around like crazy trying to get everything done, however, once we read the book we had a much better understanding of how to plan our wedding. We calmed down, picked up and finished planning based on ideas from the book. It felt like 100 tons was lifted from us as we easily finished our wedding plans and had the time of our life doing it.

Since we had a Jewish wedding, this book is much more helpful and better written then the other two books we were using which included information that didn't really give us any jewish traditional ideas while planning.

No doubt some of the discussion of planning finances and choosing helpers could be helpful, and helpful to any bride-to-be of any religion.

But please get the Diamant book and/or Lamm's "The Jewish Way in Love & Marriage" if you want to know about meanings behind Jewish wedding traditions. For example, in LBR's suggested wedding music playlist, "Here comes the Bride" is listed, with "Traditional" as the composer, as an option for announcing the bride and groom. This is a Wagner composition, and some rabbis will decline to perform a wedding with music by that extreme hater!

No doubt I run in very different social circles than the author, but all that means is different books for different folks. Don't take this book as the final guide to Yiddish or Hebrew terms, but if the other reviews sound like what you need, go for it.

I have read many books about Jewish weddings and been to dozens of celebrations ranging from Reform to Orthodox, from Renewal to Conservative, and this book in not impressive or helpful at all. It helps when an author does quality research about the topic. I have no doubt that this book is useful for general wedding planning, but for important details about Jewish traditions and customs, this book is highly flawed. From the first page there is a mistake (the groom does not sign the ketubah, the marriage contract, only the witnesses do this). Even the cover is problematic: it pictures a traditional (Orthodox) dressed man next to a man without a kippah / head-cover picking up a chair with a bride while one of the men is holding on to the woman's leg. This does not happen in an Orthodox setting in this manner.

If you are want a good book on this topic check out the one by Diamant book or even the old-style one by Maurice Lamm. If you are part of a Jewish wedding, Mazel Tov!