Customer Reviews

Weddings by Design: Guide to Non-Traditional Ceremonies, A

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After going through several wedding planners at my local library, I thought I had a feel for them. Quick reads, usually well-laid out, with about 50% actually having more than one or two new ideas. I was not prepared for a thesis-thick presentation on currrent and historical marriage customs throughout the world.

This book was sorely in need of an index.

However, it was also useful. So many customs were detailed that you could probably find justification for about 70% of anything "non-traditional" you wanted to do and seek out a tradition that matched it. Very handy. This book will be especially good for anyone who wants astrology to figure prominently in their wedding, as it's one of the author's favorite subjects.

If you're interested in a New Age-like report on marriage and related lore throughout the world, get this book.

Although this book has quite a bit of information, it doesn't provide much for actual application. It was time consuming and not good for a bride trying find ideas for her wedding. What this book needs is a good index and some copy editing.

I haven't finished this book yet, but I am impressed. Some areas are a bit "all over the place", but I love the way it was written. I agree with the other review in that it is in dire need of an index.

We have been looking for a tasteful, modern alternative to traditional religious ceremonies - something that would express our joy about being together, yet still be palatable to our families. This is NOT such a guide. This book is all about astrology.

Would you like to know the most auspicious date and place on earth for your wedding? Then you need astrocartography, and to consult an astrologer for your wedding date, as the author did.

Other books have better coverage of wedding traditions around the globe, but this book is a rich source of wedding SUPERSTITIONS. Did you know that in ancient England, it was considered bad luck to marry on a Saturday?

The book was nothing like what I expected from the blurbs on Amazon. If you are trying to plan a beautiful and modern wedding ceremony, I recommend Weddings from the Heart by Daphne Rose Kingma.

I enjoyed this book. As for another reviewer's oppinion that it's all about astrology, did you get past the second chapter???
This book is well researched and presents information from many cultures. It isn't suited to someone who is looking to add quirky traditions to their ceremony but more to someone who wants to understand what the rite of passage (the wedding) means globally. It addresses all the stages from engagemnet to the ceremony itself. A very good read.

First off, caveat emptor: This book offers very little in terms of actual ideas or suggestions for planning a wedding, "non-traditional" or otherwise. It starts of looking into astrology and astro-cartography and how you can use them to help select an auspicious place and time for you nuptials. However, it offers little actual information of this, instead pointing to other sources.
This leads into the bulk of the book, which is more or less an overview of different cultural traditions around marriage, from the Fez of Morrocco to the Guatemalan village of Chichicastenango. This does offer some fascinating information from an anthroplogical perspective, but in a wedding planning book, it comes across as suggesting that it is not only Ok, but a Good Idea to plan your wedding as a multi-cultural smorgasboard, picking and choosing "fascinating" traditional practices from whatever cultures strike your fancy. The information given is cursory at best, no one culture gets enough representation to actually be useful to someone looking for guidance in planning a wedding in keeping with (let's say) their Basque ancestry. Unfortunately for the author, cultural traditions are embodied with meaning by the context of the culture they arise from, and simply do not translate well to a wedding planners buffet table. And while this book is not clearly written enough that it entirely endorses this sort of cultural appropriation, the implication is is clear. As the back cover says, this is supposed to be "A uniquely entertaining and eclectic sourcebook for desigining a wedding ritual."
Ironically, the cultural smorgasboard of "ideas" presented here is constantly self-contradicting and often as cultural backwards and patriarchal as any of the "traditional" western ceremonies the book is supposed to be getting away from. When you read on one page that "The Morroccans contend that Sunday is a good time to commence married life because it's the start of a new week, but don't introduce a bride to your home on Tuesday (say the Tsul tribe) or Friday (advise the Ait Warain)" and on the next page read that you should "Marry Tuesday, Marry for Health", well it gets to the point where it is no longer interesting, only laughable.
Mr. Leviton has compiled some fascinating research in the volume, and deserves some recognition on that basis. However, before it is actually a useful and engaging read, much less a good wedding planning guide, the author ought to read up a little on the perils of cultural appropriation, and also submit to the sword of a vicious editor or two!
Until then, this book does more harm than good.

I have been using this book in the course of my wedding planning business since 2002. It is absolutely not a how-to-plan-your-wedding type of book. Readers looking for this sort of thing are better off with one of Martha Stewart's tomes. This is, however, a lyrical, poetic, and fascinating study of dozens (maybe hundreds) of wedding traditions and their origins in all world cultures. Along with meditative passages to help you find your own way. It is, as other readers have noted, lacking an index. I never noticed this lacking, as I have read it cover to cover, like a history of weddings from ancient times to the present.

When I bought this book, I thought it would help us out in planning our marriages ceremony with our UU minister. Unfortunately it was more a history on how marriage is the way the man keeps women down( sorry I am not a femnazis), the psycho-social history marriage and some antidotes that were not what I expected. I thought since this book had some things about handfasting and such, this would be great for us. However we did not get anything out of it. My fiance' read the first chapter and thought it was a joke. I read the whole thing and it was a waste of my time. Would not recommend it if you are looking to incorporate interfaith, and other culture traditionals into your ceremony.

It is so refreshing to find an intelligently written book on weddings. No mind numbing, cookie cutter fluff here. While it could use an index, the information was presented sequentially, beginning with traditional ways of choosing a mate and the task of choosing the wedding date. Although a lot of information is presented, it is not a difficult read.