Who writes these wedding books?

Goldlie11

I bought one of the wedding binders/books.  It's pretty useful and helps keep me organized.  Sill, some of the advice is either ridiculous or just plain poor etiquette.

Poor etiquette examples found in the book:

-Hand out bridesmaid and groomsmen responsibility cards.  

-Have a cash bar to keep prices down.

Dumb advice:

-Don't flirt with other men on your wedding day.

-Don't forget to eat.

Seriously, I really didn't need a book to tell me that flirting in front of my husband on my wedding day was  a bad idea.  Has anyone else come across ridiculous wedding advice?

MLekathLEEN

I almost bought one today at school but wasn't sure if it was the "best". When reading them before, I thought some of the stuff was sort of WTF but I can't remember anything exactly..

Sidetrack- Anyone have one they recommend?

Goldlie11

This book was helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/Emily-Posts-Wedding-Etiquette-5e/dp/0060745045/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284057274&sr=1-1

Like I said, the binder itself is useful.  It has checklists and great comparison guides. Just some of the advice sucks.    

rickylee244

Actually the "Dont forget to eat" advice is pretty sound.  I barely ate because I was too busy roaming around - i didnt even know we had chocolate shots until afterward!

dwest2201

Hmm... I have a planning binder that has lots of pages with words, but I honestly haven't read more than 2% of it.  I mainly just use it as a binder to store all my wedding crap in... the dividers are useful atleast!  Now I'll have to actually look at it and see what ridiculous advice is in there!

MLekathLEEN

Chocolate shots like pudding shots? I'd be pissed!

rickylee244

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_writes-wedding-books?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special Topic Wedding BoardsForum:136Discussion:816e5ea2-6246-4bf4-b003-c302cc331ac7Post:39cc9f93-2a35-4133-81bf-caae793eb209">Re: Who writes these wedding books?</a>:
[QUOTE]Chocolate shots like pudding shots? I'd be pissed!
Posted by MLekathLEEN[/QUOTE]

Aparently the venitian table that we had to add last minute had chocolate cups with baileys and vodka that you filled and then ate.  I was super pissed lol DH had one and didnt even bring me one!

Hazel_B

This thread reminded me of a friend who is Catholic and her FI is Jewish. Her FMIL gave her some books about Jewish weddings because they were wanting to incorporate aspects of each religion in their ceremony.

Apparently the one book was a bit of a lecture on marrying within the Jewish faith and implying that men that didn't were similar to Hitler.

They both understand the whole mother having to be Jeiwsh concept, but I think their reaction was "isn't this a little late?"

Goldlie11

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_writes-wedding-books?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:136Discussion:816e5ea2-6246-4bf4-b003-c302cc331ac7Post:e069794d-f0c1-4477-a840-4ee81f9267f8">Re: Who writes these wedding books?</a>:
[QUOTE]Actually the "Dont forget to eat" advice is pretty sound.  I barely ate because I was too busy roaming around - i didnt even know we had chocolate shots until afterward!
Posted by rickylee244[/QUOTE]
<img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-frown.gif" border="0" alt="Frown" title="Frown" />.  I'm such a pig that I guess not eating never crossed my mind.  Did you get to take home any food?

Hazel_B

Ricky - How on earth could your DH not bring you a chocolate shot?!

rickylee244

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_writes-wedding-books?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special Topic Wedding BoardsForum:136Discussion:816e5ea2-6246-4bf4-b003-c302cc331ac7Post:5d64c7dd-591c-4bc3-884c-21ad67b86fc8">Re: Who writes these wedding books?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Who writes these wedding books? : .  I'm such a pig that I guess not eating never crossed my mind.  Did you get to take home any food?
Posted by Goldlie11[/QUOTE]

My parents are still eatting deserts that they froze!  Yeah we were able to take home some stuff to eat which was great when we got back to the hotel

MLekathLEEN

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_writes-wedding-books?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special Topic Wedding BoardsForum:136Discussion:816e5ea2-6246-4bf4-b003-c302cc331ac7Post:7d7ddf2f-643f-42cd-b910-54e4fe70b912">Re: Who writes these wedding books?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Who writes these wedding books? : Aparently the venitian table that we had to add last minute had chocolate cups with baileys and vodka that you filled and then ate.  I was super pissed lol DH had one and didnt even bring me one!
Posted by rickylee244[/QUOTE]

OOH! Even better..or worse in your case. I could see FI mentioning them and then says "Oh, you didn't know? They were good"

katanne9

Other dumb advice I've read... on THE KNOT no less:

- Tell all your guests to wear a certain color for a fun theme
- Promotion of "pot luck" receptions
- BM "duty lists"
- Promotion of Cash Bar (I know, I know, it's a touchy subject)

dwest2201

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_writes-wedding-books?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:136Discussion:816e5ea2-6246-4bf4-b003-c302cc331ac7Post:7d7ddf2f-643f-42cd-b910-54e4fe70b912">Re: Who writes these wedding books?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Who writes these wedding books? : Aparently the venitian table that we had to add last minute had chocolate cups with baileys and vodka that you filled and then ate.  I was super pissed lol DH had one and didnt even bring me one!
Posted by rickylee244[/QUOTE]
 
Ricky, that's absolutely ridiculous!  That is grounds for an annulment in my book! ;)

jeanacorina

I had a wedding binder. It was really handy. But all the timelines and advice in the world (I read it all) didn't seem to help that much. And some of it (even on the Knot checklist) was redonkulous.

Goldlie11

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_writes-wedding-books?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:136Discussion:816e5ea2-6246-4bf4-b003-c302cc331ac7Post:c910a192-80c4-46a6-8e47-c2fd9462768c">Re: Who writes these wedding books?</a>:
[QUOTE]Other dumb advice I've read... on THE KNOT no less: - Tell all your guests to wear a certain color for a fun theme - Promotion of "pot luck" receptions - <strong>BM "duty lists"</strong> - Promotion of Cash Bar (I know, I know, it's a touchy subject)
Posted by katanne9[/QUOTE]
My binder actually says to go out and buy duty lists.  Seriously?  I'm going to spend money on that?<div>
</div><div>And don't get me started on having everyone wear the same color.  I've seen that on wedding shows.  Who comes up with that?</div><div>
</div><div>
</div>

jeanacorina

Everyone as in guests?

You know, I had several guests.... especially my grandmothers... expect that they should wear purple because it's my favorite color. I was like "Uhh. No. If Nana wears anything but pink it will be weird."

Pink is to my Nana as purple is to me, btw.

leia1979

Maybe a duty list isn't what I think it is, because it doesn't sound that bad to me. I would have liked an upfront list of expectations or things I could have helped out with. Instead I just kept asking and didn't get much of an answer.

ETA: I think the "Don't flirt with other men" advice is straight out of the gold digger's handbook.

[Deleted User]

I had a friend make me a binder.  I've put a few things in it so far, but actually, I keep forgetting about it.  What I love about mine is the calendar and the stickers that came with it (stickers like dress shopping, cake testing, etc to make it fun).  Mine also has a great section in it to keep all my wedding contact info (phone #'s, websites, etc) in one place. 

Not in my book, but I saw it in a magazine I was given, it's a list of wedding day responsibilities - a place to put the name and cell # for each thing so no scrambling wandering what's going on. For example - who has the rings, the license, flowers and most importantly - my cheeseburger for just before the ceremony!

One piece of advice my book gives is to get the measurements of all of your attendants and write them down in this book for future reference.  Sorry, no, they can discuss their measurements with the dress shop, I really don't need to know that - don't want to be one of those Bridezillas who goes measuring their BM's a couple days before the wedding to make sure they're just 'perfect'. 

prodigalgirl

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_writes-wedding-books?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special Topic Wedding BoardsForum:136Discussion:816e5ea2-6246-4bf4-b003-c302cc331ac7Post:5d64c7dd-591c-4bc3-884c-21ad67b86fc8">Re: Who writes these wedding books?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Who writes these wedding books? : .  I'm such a pig that I guess not eating never crossed my mind.  Did you get to take home any food?
Posted by Goldlie11[/QUOTE]

I was married once before (VERY bad situation) and I ended up the same way.  My stomach was in knots before I got dressed, so I couldn't eat then.  When I had my dress on, I was afraid to eat much.  Then, our stupid photographers took OVER AN HOUR after the ceremony so we got to the reception so late that I was barely able to take my bite of wedding cake before we had to leave.  I was trying to greet as many guests as possible and my then-new-husband left me to go and get some of the food.  He didn't bring me any.  His wonderful (truly wonderful) parents gathered up some food and boxed it up for us to put in the limo.  He yelled at them for boxing up our food (as we were heading to the limo in front of our guests) and then threw the food away when we got to our hotel because he was SO upset that his dad didn't help him change out of his tux.  <img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-frown.gif" border="0" alt="Frown" title="Frown" />

Our marriage went downhill from there until I finally left (like I said, BAD situation). 

Even toward the end of our marriage, he would still complain that he didn't get to try EVERYTHING at the reception.  Well, he certainly had more than me!!

Sorry for the long vent, but this is one thing I've learned:  MAKE SURE YOU GET TO EAT AT YOUR RECEPTION!!!  I'll be planning things differently this time around to make sure I have a more pleasant experience (although, a much better groom makes a huge difference).