Wedding Etiquette Hell: The Bride's Bible to Avoiding Everlasting Damnation [Paperback]

Jeanne Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 2005

Covering such wedding staples as attendants, invitations, registries, showers, the ceremony, the reception, and thank yous, Etiquette guru Jeanne Hamilton will give numerous examples of bad etiquette that should be avoided at all costs, such as:
-No bride owns the calendar. Insisting that everyone within your acquaintance had not dare schedule their wedding anywhere within a six month time period labels you as a classic Bridezilla.
-Sponsored wedding, at which vendors who donate their services are offered the opportunity to put their logos on various wedding related paper products.
-It is never wise to make bridesmaid offers while in the grip of fluttery, just-engaged emotions. You may have to rescind those offers later when you realize you were just a bit too hasty. Once having made the offer, it is extraordinarily ungracious to rescind it, unless you want a seething friend or sister using your engagement photo as a dartboard.
-Enclosing a blank deposit form for a bank account bearing the names of the bride and the groom with the invitation.
And much more! This is a hilarious exploration of how weddings can literally drive people mad.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rather than lecture couples about what they should do before, during and after the Big Day, consultant Hamilton (Bridezilla: True Stories from Etiquette Hell) warns them what not to do in this quick, easy guide to modern-day manners. Hamiliton runs through a list of nuptial no-nos, from invitations and bridal showers to receptions and the like. She provides pages of horror stories culled from www.etiquettehell.com, the Web site she started in 1997. Hamilton scoffs, for example, at the bride and groom who tried to solicit sponsors for their wedding in exchange for "signage at the reception venue." She shakes her head at the pair who took their registry "to a new low in greed" when they offered guests chances to pay for specific parts of their honeymoon in Hawaii-the airfare, the housing, the meals and activities. And she reprimands the couple audacious enough to send announcements a full year after the event, telling friends and relatives not invited to the wedding that they can "honor the union" with "contributions to the home purchasing fund." Tacky and rude, these instances of extreme faux pas make for amusing reading. Hamilton's discussion is slightly hampered, however, by occasional fictional asides. Meant to give further insight on the planning process, the fictional conversations between a generic "Brideweena" and etiquette expert "Miss Jeanne" are distracting instead. They add little to the overall project, a book some people-particularly those who revel in others' social blunders-will find infinitely fascinating.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Whether your dilemma is choosing bridesmaids' dresses or deciding where to seat your future in-laws, this book can save you from eternal damnation.”
--New York Daily News

“Jeanne Hamilton takes on the predictable (guest list woes, invitation wording) and surprising (scheming bridesmaids, greed-inspired faux pas) with savvy she's learned in the wedding world trenches.”
--Boston Herald

"Hilarious, real-life stories that drive the points home."

--Library Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (May 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312330235
• ISBN-13: 978-0312330231
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #212,464 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Weddings > Etiquette

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth buying, November 29, 2009

By 

Denise McAllister - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wedding Etiquette Hell: The Bride's Bible to Avoiding Everlasting Damnation (Paperback)

Clearly from many of the reviews I've read here, many of her sychophantic minions from Etiquette Hell have written their own "reviews" to bolster sales of their mascot's book.

There is nothing in this book that cannot be read for free from your public library. Jeanne Hamilton is too full of herself and mean spirited for my taste and many of the tales are just a retelling of what has already been posted on her website. Some of the stories are quite old and can be looked up online and read for free.

Save your money towards your wedding instead of wasting it on buying an unecessary book.

29 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Miss Manners would be horrified, July 29, 2006

By 

Gal (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wedding Etiquette Hell: The Bride's Bible to Avoiding Everlasting Damnation (Paperback)

This is not a guide, it's a collection of wedding horror stories other people have submitted to the author's website. You can read those stories for free.

The author's attempt at wit falls far short of the mark...she comes across as a mean-spirited boor. For real wedding advice, pick up Peggy Post's updated edition of Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette instead.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad taste is easy to recognize, December 17, 2011

By 

Charlene Vickers (Winnipeg, Manitoba) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wedding Etiquette Hell: The Bride's Bible to Avoiding Everlasting Damnation (Paperback)

Wedding Etiquette Hell contains stories of supposedly bad wedding etiquette from the editor's well-known Etiquette Hell website.

The book started off great, but then I got to the one that purported to show "bad taste" but which in reality was a smug, very subtle put-down of a non-WASP tradition. Soon I realized that many of the stories Ms. Hamilton chose from her website for this book aren't actually poking fun at individual foibles but at other cultures and peoples. It's all coded bigotry - bigotry against men, against non-WASP cultures, against non-Americans (especially the English - oh how does she loathe the English), and even against the poor.

It's really unsettling to find so much coded bigotry in a book purporting to be about avoiding bad taste. I mean, laughing at people who do stupid things is fine, but laughing at them because they don't fulfill the unspoken expectations of the rich, white, American elite? I can't think of anything less funny, or in worse taste.

The sad part about this is that the coded bigotry in this book could (and probably does) leave people thinking that good manners have more to do with contempt for other people than about not treating other people badly. Miss Manners does it better and without the undercurrent of contempt: she's funnier too.

I hardly have to add that this book doesn't actually give any advice that a bride could use: it's mainly just "point a finger and laugh at the stupid men/foreigners/poor/English; aren't we smug white female Americans better and smarter than they are?".