Weddings: The Magic of Creating Your Own Ceremony [Paperback]

Henry S. Basayne (Author), Linda R. Janowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1999

The magic that begins with the writing of your own wedding vows lights the way toward a stronger and happier marriage.

If you're a couple who chooses to create all or part of your own ceremony, your wedding celebration will glow with the personal and distinctive warmth of a ceremony that is truly your own. If you thing that the wedding ceremony is more than food, fashion or flowers, then this is the book for you.

"Weddings -- The Magic of Creating Your Own Ceremony" guides you step by step increating a wedding that will be inspiring, festive and memorable. Secular or religious, traditional or contemporary, interfaith or cross-cultural, this book helps you achieve the precise tone and style that match your dreams and celebrate the unique couple you are.

Henry S. Basayne and Linda R. Janowitz, Ph.D., have expanded their earlier book, "Let Us Make a Wedding," to include a wealth of fresh material, new helpful hints and a wide array of descriptions of personalized weddings. In short, the authors have created a classic to help you make your most special day even more extraordinary.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The book compels the reader to reflect, organize and then create a ceremony that is both personal and meaningful. -- The Bridal Connection, March 2000, by Leslie Gould

From the Publisher

Henry Basayne and Linda Janowitz, authors of Let Us Make a Wedding, have expanded their original book to provide a valuable resource for brides, grooms, clergy, members of the wedding party and wedding planners. By including a wealth of fresh material, new helpful hints and a wide range of distinctive wedding elements, the authors have written a classic that will help readers make their most special day even more extraordinary.

Praised as "the best book of its kind," Weddings: The Magic of Creating Your Own Ceremony is not about food, fashion or flowers. It is a guide to creating innovative ceremonies. Couples will discover an inspiring array of rites: secular and religious, contemporary and traditional, interfaith and cross-cultural; along with quotes from popular and classical poetry, literature and song -- something for everyone's taste.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Bookpartners (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885221924
• ISBN-13: 978-1885221926
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #769,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #54 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Weddings > Ceremony

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Ceremony Book of the 8 I read, May 9, 2001

By 

Amy Bradley (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Weddings: The Magic of Creating Your Own Ceremony (Paperback)

I don't usually come back to write reviews of the stuff I read, but I felt I really should for this book. My fiance and I are writing our own ceremony (not just the vows) and we kept coming back to this book for ideas. It poses questions to you that get you thinking in the right direction, has several good examples and is appropriate for those planning a non-religious ceremony or a religious ceremony. So many of the books I read focused on the vows only, or still had the traditional church overtones we were trying to avoid. It focuses on what's important to you as a couple, and it's been a great process for us to go through together. I highly recommend it!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A guidebook to help lovers make their special day their own., February 28, 2000

By 

Mark Mitchell (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Weddings: The Magic of Creating Your Own Ceremony (Paperback)

It's February. St. Valentine's Day is rushing hard onus all, with its thoughts of love and flowers, cards and kisses. Perhaps this Valentine's Day will go particularly well, and you'll decide to marry the person you're kissing this February 14th. That's when the hard work starts. You have to plan a wedding. There may be conflicting religions, conflicting beliefs. You have to learn to accommodate one another and to work together to make this launching of your lives together successful. Friends and family will have a lot of advice to offer, but ultimately the decisions belong to you and your partner.

Henry S. Basayne and Linda R. Janowitz have written a book to help you navigate the passage to the altar. Weddings, subtitled The Magic of Creating Your Own Ceremony, is a guidebook to help lovers make their special day their own. Not so much a book to be read as a book to be worked through, Weddings doesn't offer any dogmatic solutions but offers readers a number of alternatives. The authors note that even if a couple is involved in a traditional religion, the celebrant will want their input on how the ceremony should be performed, so this book has something to offer even those couples who think all the decisions have been made.

Mr. Basayne and Dr. Janowitz pose questions for couples to ponder: What sort of ceremony? Who should be included? What are we promising to do? How should we promise it? Recognizing that no two couples are alike, the authors don't anticipate the answers to any of their questions, but they perform the valuable service of asking them. Planning a wedding is often the first big thing a couple does together. It is a time when they learn a lot about each other, and an opportunity for learning that shouldn't be missed. Weddings is a workbook that can help couples find their way through this process, especially the process of composing vows. When you're making vows that are meant to last a lifetime, it's very important to be sure of what you're saying.

Mr. Basayne and Dr. Janowitz also cover more practical matters: the choice of music and the choice of celebrant. They offer a selection of poetry and prose readings that might be useful, and examples of a number of contemporary ceremonies. None of these are meant to be definitive, but rather they are points of departure that are meant to help a couple think about what they want to include. Weddings is likely to be a useful tool for a lot of successful valentines.

by Mark Mitchell, reprinted with permission from The New Fillmore, vol. 14, No.10, February 2000. (MARK MITCHELL is a neighborhood poet.)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent source of vow and ceremony ideas and styles, September 25, 2003

By 

Ginette (Novato, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Weddings: The Magic of Creating Your Own Ceremony (Paperback)

This book is proving to be an excellent source of ideas, wording, and suggestions for our ceremony. It covers everything from formal, traditional content to very informal and untraditional approaches, including same sex unions, etc. .

Everything from openings, vows, ring exchanges, vow renewals, closings, thanking people, prose, poetry, music, and even how to handle stage fright. Lots of detailed examples and material to work with for ideas. What a gold mine! I dreaded writing vows from scratch -- this makes it fun and it stimulates ideas.

When I first flipped through it (lent to me by my sis-in-law) I didn't yet appreciate its value, but now that we are writing our vows it is *immensely* helpful and really helps us formulate what we're trying to express. It's got a wide range of material, and has lots of non-religious material also. Once I see the examples, then pretty soon my own unique words come tumbling out. Tons of great real text from what feels like real people and situations.