The Offbeat reading list
Posted by Ariel · Shopping

The Green Bride Guide was a great read for me as I was planning my wedding. Great tips (for ANY budget) on how to have a ecologically conscious wedding.

LOL I love the sly Anti-Bride Guide mention. That book was HORRIBLE. As I like to say, it's like this book was written by your conservative, traditional family member who wants to trick you into thinking it will help you plan an offbeat wedding…but really, it's completely full of WIC crap.

The Rebecca Meade/Selling of the American Wedding is MUST for any bride with offbeat tendencies, so I'm glad that was on there. I also liked "A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding," which wasn't a how-to book, but it raised some good issues about weddings and marriage.

I really liked "I Do But I Don't" – not exactly a how-to-guide but it covered the Wedding Industrial Complex and even some of the thornier issues of marriage and proposal in a world where feminism and tradition collide.

I haven't read Anti-bride, but it got really good reviews on Amazon… Anyone got any links to less positive reviews? I'm curious now!

The Anti-Bride made me want to stab myself in the eye. Not that I bought it, I just laughed/got very sad over it in the bookstore. It was tragically awful. THANK YOU for including Miss Manners. I don't agree with her on lots of stuff, but do agree with her spirit and wit, always.

These are both a bit specific, but so is handfasting, so I think they deserve a mention: The New Jewish Wedding, Anita Diamant (Feminist, fabby, best egalitarian queer friendly Jewish wedding book on the market), and Celebrating Interfaith Marriages, Rabbi Devon A. Lerner (note: this is on Jewish/Christian ceremony's, but is super helpful and well done.)

It depresses me how FEW really great wedding books there are out there, and how many awful ones.

One of my b-maids got me "Tied in Knots: Funny Stories from the Wedding Day" as a gift. It's a bunch of essays written by brides, friends, and family about odd/funny things that happened at weddings. It was one of the two wedding books that stayed on my nightstand (the other being OBB, of course), and I credit it with quite a few moments of laughter and a reminder not to take everything so seriously.

Im going to make a suggestion and just hear me out. "The Knot Guide to Wedding Vows and Traditions: Readings, Rituals, Music, Dances, and Toasts"

Now I know your all saying "THE KNOT IS NOT OFFBEAT", and in in every other case i agree with you. However this book is all about unique wedding ceremony traditions from both popular and obscure cultures and religons. For a couple like us who is spiritual but not outwardly religous it has been a huge help in crafting a unique and funky ceremony that is unlike anything I think my family has seen before.

Meg-
I totally see how you could think that and I'm glad you said something because I really don't think I emphasized enough: that book is all about the WIC WIC WIC WIC WIC.

But I really did find the check lists, open spaces for notes and explanations behind traditions to be really helpful…as in helped me realize what's a waste of money to me and what would make our wedding meaningful.

And for someone who really knows *nothing* about weddings (I've only ever been to 2 that I wasn't too young to remember) it was helpful just to have a jumping off point to create what works for our wedding.

But yes, Meg you are definitely correct in your assertion. That book is all about WIC and can certainly make the most important part of the wedding seem trivial while insisting every couple have at least a down payment on a house for a wedding budget. I just felt its useful pages outweighed the crap.

Wedding Industrial Complex. The acronym that makes me sing "money money money mooooney…MAAAH NAAAAAY!" every time I type it.

I would suggest "Instant Weddings: From "Will You?" to "I Do!" in Four Months or Less" by Jennifer L Shawne. I found it before I found anything OBB-related so I can't guarantee it was non-WIC, but I remember it was very much about doing what is important to you as a couple. Amazon has it's first sentence here:YOU and your fiance are the ones who have to live with this wedding, so you should be the ones to decide what details are necessary, superfluous, wonderful, overpriced, or just plain silly.

Bridal Bargains! Yes! I haven't really read any of the other books listed, but i will have to check them out (even though my wedding has already come and gone).

I can't remember if I added a review in the bookworms group or not, but we found Weddings from the Heart to be really helpful in crafting our ceremony. It had a list of the traditional elements of a ceremony (processional, invocation, address) and what order they happen in, and that helped us break things down. It also had examples of 4 different ceremonies, broken down into those elements so that you could see how they go into play, and a large section of readings and vows.

We did our ceremony from scratch and it gave us a really good starting point.

One I recommend for grooms is "The Engaged Groom: You're Getting Married. Read this Book." It treats dudes like active participants that aren't idiots.

Ok, so I'm already married, but wish I had seen this site when I was planning mine! My sister is planning her wedding and will definitely benefit from this!

My favorite when planning mine was just "The Bride's Mini 411" All this book is is a book of checklists–I had to take out a few items because they weren't relevant, but it really helped me in the final stages of planning to make sure I hadn't overlooked any details. I haven't tried The Bride's Book of Lists, but it looks like a similar thing to the mini version. I liked the mini version because I could easily throw it in my purse.