A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding [Hardcover]

Kate Cohen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

In this modern age, why do we carry on that most traditional of all traditions: marriage? When Kate Cohen decided to marry her longtime boyfriend, it seemed like a natural choice. But why? In an age of widespread cohabitation and divorce—when marriage is no longer the master key to sex, a shared home, or security—what reasons did she have for marrying? With charm and honesty, A Walk Down the Aisle addresses our desires to wed traditionally, and also to break with tradition. Illuminating familiar wedding customs by showing us those from other cultures and eras, and enlisting the ideas of figures from John Milton to Lyle Lovett, Cohen looks at how we wed today, how we find a true love, or how we find a china pattern. We join her during the summer before she walked down the aisle, and with her we face the questions her restless mind encountered—including the most troubling and, finally, exhilarating ones: What does that walk mean? And why does it feel so right?

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is a poignant memoir of a modern, educated, cohabitating couple's decision to marry with an honest discussion of why they embraced some wedding traditions and modified or rejected others completely. Cohen (The Nepii Modona Diaries) has thoroughly researched wedding customs of many eras and cultures and slyly educates readers about the traditions that many Americans continually embrace without fully understanding. Her story is likely to appeal to and comfort those who are sure about marriage but leery of the customary hoopla.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Cohen's longtime love, Adam, didn't get down on one knee and propose to her. Instead, the two simply discussed getting married and decided, after seven years together, that it was time. But a lot of thought and preparation goes into a wedding, and Cohen's book is a meditation on everything involved in the physical and mental planning of a wedding. She examines the rituals and objects associated with weddings--the rings, the dress, the photographs, and the ceremony itself--and their symbolic meanings. Why are women willing to spend so much money on a dress they will only wear once? Why is death so deeply associated with weddings that it is mentioned in the vows? Why do couples who are otherwise not religious marry in a church and observe the customs of their ancestors? Cohen asks these and other questions as she analyzes both her own wedding and weddings in general. A thought-provoking study that challenges tradition even as it acknowledges its power and worth. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393049485
• ISBN-13: 978-0393049480
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,774,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth about Marriage, November 15, 2001

By 

Tracy L. Sonafelt (Newport News, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding (Hardcover)

A Walk Down the Aisle is a beautiful and powerful book--witty and wise, poignant and moving (but never maudlin), intimate and communal at the same time. Cohen's writing is lyrical and her messages are profound. Above all, her book is incredibly real and authentic in a way that no other book I've read about marriage has been. (Plus I cried all the way through the last chapter, and it was a good, cleansing cry.) I have been married to Jeff for twenty-two years, but Cohen's book led me back down that aisle, and my reflections on "my" day (it was definitely the bride's day for us), on dozens of weddings since, and on my marriage have been fruitful for me. If we were to marry again today, we would do almost everything completely differently. I don't think Kate and Adam will ever need to say that.

When I got married, a well meaning Sunday school teacher from my church gave me a book of "devotional readings for the newly married." Reading it was a miserable experience for me. It created all sorts of guilt and anxiety; there was just no way Jeff and I were ever going to conform to the images of the perfect couples who filled those pages. After a while, I realized that I didn't want to be one of those cardboard cutouts. So Cohen's is the flesh and blood book I'm going to give to all my engaged friends. I encourage you also to read it, share it with your friends and loved ones, and return to it often.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To Marry or Not to Marry, May 28, 2001

By 

Judith Frank (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding (Hardcover)

To marry or not to marry. That is the question, and Kate Cohen answers it masterfully. For anyone who has lived with someone and is now contemplating marriage, (is there anyone else?), this book is a "must read"!

Not only does Kate Cohen write like an angel, she offers an unusual blend of intense and scrupulously honest self-scrutiny with an extremely scholarly and comprehensive storehouse of knowledge about the customs of weddings. From Dante and Milton to Brides magazine, she presents information that is fascinating and often hilarious.

This book should provide comfort for anyone wondering what love is, if they even are in love, and especially, why they should get married in the first place.

Listen to Cohen describe her own love for Adam (the man she eventually marries):

Love "is a slow process...we did not instantly see on one another's faces 'the one' that eternal love songs promise us. We didn't see blessed perfection, the moon and the stars and the sun all rolled up into one. We saw a possibility, one among many."

I chose this quote because it is representative of Cohen's commitment to the truth, and of how well she writes.

So, to all of you who may have cold feet, who are in a quandary of when, where, why, and how to marry, this is the book for you!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Book on Tying the Knot, April 18, 2001

By 

Max Fardella (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding (Hardcover)

A friend wholeheartedly recommended this book to me, which I found odd because I'm neither close to getting married nor contemplating marriage. But it absolutely didn't matter. This book is incredible. Kate Cohen writes beautifully, her prose is gorgeous, but what really blew me away was the depth with which she thinks through her arguments. I've always been intimidated by the thought of "till death do us part" but Cohen gets at the meat of why a wedding is a melancholy thing. She examines overly simplified statistics about marriages ending in divorce. But this isn't drearily academic; Cohen weaves together statistics and autobiographical moments seamlessly and gracefully. She also dedicates hilarious chapters to the lighter sides of wedding: picking that song for your first dance; the insidious wedding industry; the commerce of wedding, i.e. your registry. I will buy this book for anyone who's tying the knot, yes, but I'll also buy it for anyone who has ever sought out thoughtful articulation on the topic of marriage.