16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good follow-up to their last book, February 13, 2008
The authors of Being Dead Is No Excuse are back for another rollicking good time recounting the foibles and frustration of the Delta. Like Being Dead, this friendly tome wields its wit like a Union saber, slicing through the niceties of southern living and getting to the heart of the matter. "A Southern mother might be tempted to marry off her daughter to Jack the Ripper (who reportedly was a member of the royal family--so there) if it meant she could get out all her tea napkins." As the last vestige of decorum, pageantry, beauty, gallantry and, yes, good taste, the perfect wedding can be a backyard event or a multi-tent pageant, but it should never be tacky.
The South has more aphorisms than mosquitoes, and they are peppered throughout the book like crawdads in a burgoo:
* "By the time a Delta girl is eight years old, she knows more about wedding etiquette than a Yankee bridal consultant."
* "A Southern bride will write a gushing thank-you note almost before you get home from mailing the gift."
* "Southern mothers have a dictum: Even if it kills you, be nice."
* "You will smell (a genuine Delta bride) before you actually see her--we are a people of the perfume bottle, and other bottles, too."
* "A wedding announcement that begins, `Mr. Billy Wayne Garrett, 5, is pleased to announce the impending nuptials of his parents, Nelda Jean Akers and Billy Wayne, Senior,' has already said too much."
From the rehearsal to the reception to the wedding, authors Metcalfe and Hays lay out a beautiful buffet of tales involving funny and dysfunctional people you probably already know. One snobbish mother describes her daughter's disappointing fiancé--an elevator operator--as a "vertical engineer." Another plants trees and shrubbery when her daughter is born in anticipation of her daughter's nuptials and, twenty years later, has the magnolia flowers clipped on the wedding day when they are the exact shade of the gowns. The explanation of the term "shotgun wedding" includes one tale that involves an actual shotgun.
Each chapter is followed by several pages of recipes, and they all sound scrumptious (And, as with all really good things, they'll likely turn your blood into syrup). Somebody is Going to Die is warm and welcome like a fresh pecan pie. There is nothing to offend. Remember it when you are shopping for a nice remembrance or birthday gift; it will be enjoyed and shared for years to come.
You can count the days until the thank-you note arrives.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Age-Old Deltan Traditions, served STRAIGHT-UP..Ice takes up too much room, April 12, 2007
Once again, the comic combo of Mrs Harley Metcalfe III and Ms. Charlotte Hayes ( a recovering Washington Post society scribe ) have hung the dirty laundry of the Grand old South ( in the form of white wedding gowns this time ) for the close examiniation of Sountherners and not-so Southerners alike. They whipped up another batch of their highly successsful pate of insider knowledge, tongue FIRMLY in cheek irreverence, a useful and easy to conjur collection of wedding\celebratory nibbling treats while managing to keep their values true ( e.g. " Olive Oil is like whiskey..Buy the best you can afford.") and garnishing it all with an aspic made of "It actually happened" Deltan disaster/delights--depending on which side of the wedding party you were on. Though this book comes hot on the tail of "Being Dead is No Excuse", don't assume it is a carbon-copy knock off with the words changed to convert the funereal references to the nuptual ones. The humor is still deadly in this book, cept nobody has to die for you to get it off the bookshelf.
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