Take Back Your Wedding combines wisdom from the world of family therapy with a realistic picture of how couples and families behave under the stress of planning a wedding. Weddings bring out the best and worst in all of us because they combine romance, money, loyalties, jealousies, new in-law relations, and endless practical decisions-all played out in front of your whole community of family and friends! No one get through this without times of frustration, confusion, and sometimes anger. This book is an essential guide to handing the stress, avoiding the common pitfalls, having a great wedding, and launching a successful marriage.
This is such a great book for brides to be. As a wedding planner I will recommend it to all of my clients. As someone already married, I wish I had it before my wedding! If "What to Expect..." is given to every newly-pregnant woman, then "Take Back Your Wedding" should be given to every newly-engaged couple. This book is not only for people having a really difficult time with family and friends during the planning process. It's really for everyone planning a wedding becasue it clearly states ways to avoid problems and issues before they happen. The book even provides dialogues that you can use to get through the tough talks that you must have with friends and family during the planning process. The dialogues and examples are realistic and useful. Thank you, Elizabeth and Bill, for this great tool for engaged couples!
I really liked this book as it just confirmed for me some ideas I was having about the whole wedding planning thing which weren't being affirmed anywhere else. E.g. though the wedding is 'ours' mine and the groom, there are many other 'stakeholders' whose interests we should keep in mind when planning. I guess it gave me a chance to see things from my parent's perspectives as well as other friends and family members. I also like how the authors deconstructed comments on wedding forums, showing how negative and selfish attitudes do not help wedding planning and bring more stress upon the bride and groom. Definitely a must-read for Brides who are interested in the emotional intelligence side of wedding planning.
Everyone knows of a "Bridezila" wedding, when the bride or groom just lost it and started issuing demands and melting down. Sometimes these outbursts, or things that happen or don't happen at weddings, will lead to problems FOREVER with family and friends on both sides. This wonderful book walks couples through the pitfalls of wedding planning, helping them to see what is the motivation of the "suggestions" others make to them and how to handle the people around them. It's full of great suggestions to help engaged couples manage this huge event, and it's very practical and funny, too. I recommend this to anybody with a family wedding, not just for the engaged couple. It may change the way you act at wedddings, too.
Elizabeth Doherty Thomas is co-author, along with her father, William J. Doherty, Ph.D., of Take Back Your Wedding. While planing her wedding she saw the same wedding advice over and over: "It's your day, do what you want." The only problem she saw was people were in great distress and were looking for real solutions, not a quip that ignores the emotional connections we have with family and friends. Bill is a well-regarded marriage and family therapist so the two began to build principles around the most common wedding relationship issues that occur.
Elizabeth and Bill won a Modern Bride Magazine Trendsetter for their advice in 2007 and have been expanding the books advice and message through their website, www.TheFirstDance.com