Wedding Books

Odly enough,I actually used some of the strange things in this book for my wedding. So,it was not only humerious in a very stressful time,but surprisingly useful, too.

Let's be honest - planning a wedding is not fun. The bride does most of the work, and after many months of planning, it's easy for a bride to lose her cool when something small goes wrong. This book totally puts the big day in perspective, and can give the bride a little stress relief. Yes, it's mostly silly and contains hints such as how to make a dress out of a tablecloth or how to make a ring out of a chewing gum wrapper, but that's exactly what a stressed out bride needs to take her mind off of the planning process! Your invitation envelopes got mangled in the mail? Big deal! Brides can rest assured that worse things could happen, such as your band doesn't show up, your cake gets dropped, or your groom goes missing. It's a fun escape from the stresses of wedding planning and makes a great gift for brides to be!

I bought this book on a whim, and while it is definately not what I would ever call useful - it's a cute and provides a nice break from any actual wedding planning that needs to get done. The events that might actually happen at a wedding have pretty obvious suggestions, and the more creative suggestions are reserved for things that I hope would never happen (a bridesmaid coming to the ceremony drunk).

I like this planning book due to the tabbed pockets to put information in, but there were not a lot of helpful/creative ideas that I didn't already know about. I did enjoy the section on Invitations and Stationary to help with the wording of our programs and invitations. If you need a step by step guide of "how to's" and organization this planner is perfect, if you are looking for some creative planning ideas, opt out.

I purchased an older version of this wedding planner 10 years ago when I was getting married. It was my "bible" and kept me on track. Back then, it did not have tabbed dividers for the sections, so I added my own. What do you know?! This new revised version now has the tabbed dividers! Purchased this new revised edition for my sister who is getting married. She loves it as much as I do.

I liked it but I think that if you are planning your wedding on your own I would recommand getting "The Knot"

This book has plenty of pockets and forms for filling out information and forms for just forms. I have had this book for a while now and it has saved me a lot of time and trouble. I would definately recommend buying this book. It's organized and absolutely beautiful which inspires my creativity. The only thing I wish it had are deadline and time of arrival sheets for members of my wedding party and venues so that I can tear them out and make sure each person has one. Other than that -- this book is awesome!

I found this planner to be very helpful but when it arrived it looked as if it had been purchased before, The outside cover had dirt stains and the binding was worn. I sent an e-mail with my concerns but no reponse...I am a little disapointed.

I am three days away from my wedding right now, and this book has helped me through every step of the planning process. The tips and lists in the book are extremely valuable, and the lists of questions they give you to ask vendors includes things most people would think to ask.

I bought two other bridal books the same day I bought this one, and I barely looked at the other two. Definitely pick this up as soon as possible.

I bought this book because I needed to have a concise list of questions to ask as I was planning my wedding. The questions were great, insightful and very useful when interviewing vendors. I highly recommend this book.

This book has it all! Best of all, it is not very big or heavy so you can easily stick it in your purse. It has pockets for receipts or business cards. The checklist is so complete - it will definitely make sure your wedding day goes smoothly.

I give it to all my friends who are newly engaged!

I made my own fairly thorough checklist of all my wedding tasks, but this book's suggestions are so complete that it really helped me round out my checklist and make sure I didn't forget anything for the big day. Highly recommended.

This book is so complete that I have barely scratched the surface of all that it has to offer, and I've had it for over a month! Complete with timelines, questions that I never would have thought to ask, and "keep in mind" helpful hints. Fantastic!

I could read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter over and over - such an awesome story. As a McCullers fan, I enjoyed reading her other works.

THIS BOOK IS FULL OF GREAT STORIES. " THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING" IS MY FAVORITE! I THINK IT TOOK C. M. 7 YEARS TO WRITE THE PLAY AND STORY! ANYONE INTERESTED IN WRITING OR GREAT WRITERS SHOULD BUY THIS BOOK. IT'S A MUST-RED NOW BOOK!!!!!

Carson McCullers, one of America's greatest Southern writers, was often misunderstood, as many people were put off by or unwilling to deal with her (at the time) controversial subject matter. MCCullers used the grotesque as exaggerated symbols of everyday experience. The loneliness and isolation of her gothic-like characters were merely extreme examples of feelings we all have, though magnified and intensified to the nth degree.

Tennessee Williams, in his introduction to MCCullers' "Reflections in a Golden Eye", posed the question (in a mock dialogue) most people asked about writers of the 'gothic' school such as Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter and Eudora Welty: "Why do they write about such dreadful things?" Williams replies, " In my opinion it is most simply definable as a sense, an intuition of an underlying dreadfulness in modern society.. Why have they got to use..symbols of the grotesque and the violent? Because a book is short and a man's life is long... The awfulness has to be compressed."

McCullers, unlike any writer I have ever read, pierces the heart of themes such as love, isolation, and loneliness with her lucid, poetic prose. Tennessee Williams, in Virginia Spencer Carr's biography of McCullers summed up McCullers' writing as follows: "I have used the word 'heart', but it is not an adequate word to describe the core of Carson McCullers' genius....I believe, in fact I know, that there are many, many with heart who lack the need or gift to express it. And therefore Carson McCullers is what I would call a necessary writer: She owned the heart and the deep understanding of it, but in addition she had that 'tongue of angels' that gave her power to sing of it, to make of it an anthem."

Until very recently, it was quite difficult to find a nice hardback copy of Mc Culler's novels. Each one of them is absolutely priceless and unforgettable; believe me when I tell you that "The Ballad of the Sad Café" is one of those stories that long remain on your mind. Mc Culler's novels, clearly influenced by Faulkner, surpass the master himself in magnetism, , power of storytelling and above all, characterization. If you add to all this a dose of gothic dark strangely ambivalent sense of humour, the result is certainly a writer utterly impossible to classify, novels that you really enjoy reading and characters that you are very unlikely to forget. Besides I am fully in love with the Library of America hardback editions and Mc Cullers certainly deserves to be included in this collection.
Later, if you want to give yourself a treat, go and buy her autobiography, although unfinished, a memorable book.

I have read many novels by many writers, both American and foreign, but it's been a good long while since I've read something so penetrating and perceptive as Carson McCuller's first and last novels. The characters in the books, their lives and personalities, are so well thought-out and delineated that you have to wonder how a woman of 23 could put something like this together. Anyway, below is a synopsis of each story in this volume.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is the longest of Carson McCullers' novels, and the first. She wrote it in the late `30s, and published it in 1940, when she was 23. It's an incredible first novel, and amazingly prescient and wise for someone of her age, era, and upbringing. The story revolves around a deaf mute, John Singer, who works engraving silverware in a small city in the South somewhere. He has only one friend in the world, another deaf mute who works for his cousin, making candy. As the story begins the candymaker (named Antanopolous) is committed to an asylum, and Singer moves from the home they shared, and slowly begins to acquire a circle of other friends. Principle in this circle are four people: Mick, the daughter of his landlords at the rooming house he lives in; Biff, who runs the diner where he takes his meals; Blount, another denizen of the diner, who wishes to unionize the local mill-workers; and Dr.Copeland, a black man who rages against the injustice of white society towards him and his race. The heart of the story is a character study of these five people, with alternating chapters following the one and then the other. Each is intelligent, in his or her own way, and each has special insights into the world around them. How these characters interact, and the relationships between them and the rest of the world, make the heart of the story and most of the book.

Reflections in a Golden Eye is a shorter story, one of McCullers' novels that is really more of a novella. The plot revolves around a love triangle that develops between two officers on an Army base, and the wife of one of them. There's also a strange, solitary, enigmatic private who tends the horses on the base, and he interacts with the other characters. Frankly, I didn't enjoy this story as much as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The characters weren't anywhere near as believable, and their motivations weren't as transparent or understandable. The ending was also somewhat predictable.

The Ballad of the Sad Café is the shortest of McCullers' novels or novellas, weighing in at 60 pages. It's the story of a strange, unpredictable relationship between the standoffish businesswoman who dominates the culture of a small town, and a dwarf hunchback who shows up one day claiming to be her long-lost nephew. How the two of them interact in the story is strange, to say the least, and not wholly explained in the story. This creates an enigmatic atmosphere, and as the story progresses and it becomes obvious we're not going to receive an explanation of things, you find yourself re-reading passages looking for clues as to motivations. I enjoyed this story much more than Reflections in a Golden Eye, perhaps almost as much as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

The Member of the Wedding is perhaps McCullers' most strange work. The heart of the book is built around the fantastic intentions and beliefs of a twelve-year-old girl. In the first portion of the book, she's known as Frankie. Later, when she gets the idea she's going to leave with her older brother on his honeymoon, she changes her name to F. Jasmine, and the book follows that convention. Once it develops that she can't go with the brother and his new bride (you knew this was going to happen) she becomes Frances. There isn't much of a plot other than this girl fantasizing about all of the things she's going to be or do, and looking down her nose at all the common people who surround her, who she thinks are beneath her.

Clock Without Hands is the best of McCullers' books other than The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I now wonder if the length of the books had something to do with whether I liked them or not. She seems to have been able, in the longer books, to build her characters more, and have more plot twists. Clock Without Hands is about a dying pharmacist in a small Georgia town, and the events surrounding his death, but it really turns out to be more about one of his acquaintances, a senile old judge who imagines himself a great leader of the opposition to the desegregation movement. The episodes of the Civil Rights movement, as McCullers recreates them, become at times farcical and silly, and the resistance to the movement altogether silly and irrational.

Library of America volumes are wonderful to hold and read, and this is no exception. The type is clear, the book handy to hold or slip into a pocket. Given McCullers' stature as a writer, I think I'm going to value this book for a good long while.

I loved all of the stories in this anthology because of the special and magical plot about the dress. My very favorite has to be GLAD RAGS by Connie Brockway though because she gave that plot a very funny twist. I don't want to give it away because it's so cute but I can say that only Ms. Brockway (and maybe Cary Grant) could have pulled it off!

Giving an overall rating to an anthology is always VERY difficult. Some stories hit and some miss. Yet, I always enjoy reading an anthology, because you USUALLY come across an unfamiliar author . . . someone new and satisfying.

Scotland, 1790. As she quietly sewed, Aileanna MacEwan moved her weary fingers over the beautiful wedding gown, but alas, the exquisite dress was not for her. It was for her spoiled, ungrateful mistress. Sadly, Aileanna winced. All seemed so unfair, for she was in love . . . in love with the intended groom. Yet, Aileanna knew she COULD give her beloved a lifetime filled with happiness, for inside her flowed the blood of a sorceress and for the man of her dreams, Aileanna WOULD cast a spell . . . and so the legacy of the bewitched wedding dress begins . . .

1). Barbara Metzger: "A PERFECT FIT." - Rating: (4 Stars) (Grade: B+)
This was my first trip into Ms. Metzger's world and the adventure pleasantly surprised me.

Katie Cole may be an earl's daughter, but she spent the last eighteen years raising chickens and an illegitimate daughter. Tanyon Wellforde, Viscount Forde has a very unpleasant task. He must reluctantly cancel his nephew's wedding. It seems Gerald is too young and too inexperienced to deal with the designs of a rural gold-digger. As Gerald's uncle and guardian, it is Forde's duty to find out exactly what Miss Susannah Cole and her mother are!

A PERFECT FIT is delightful, witty, and pleasantly poignant. However, the rushed concocted ending (specifically her unforgiving father's reappearance) caused an otherwise intriguing story to slip a notch.

2). Connie Brockway: "GLAD RAGS." - Rating: (5 big Stars) (Grade: A+)
In an anthology format, I was beginning to think that the perfect story was impossible. Connie Brockway proved me wrong! GLAD RAGS is reading perfection. This little gambol has it all - humor, spice, and wonderful characters.

Innocent, strong-willed Lucy St. James was driving Alexander Thorpe crazy . . . he was love-crazy, lust-crazy, and he was leaving for the Crimea! Therefore, he staunchly resisted Lucy St. James' charms. Alex swore he would not make Lucy a widow nor would he allow her to spend a lifetime married to an invalid! Therefore, he did the next best thing. He crazily bowed out of their relationship.

Using the wedding dress folklore, Brockway successfully spins it with a surprising twist. This talented, creative author surrounds the entire phenomenon with a gentle sense of humor. This is a splendid read.

3). Casey Claybourne: "SOMETHING SPECIAL." - Rating: (5 Stars) (Grade: A).
Goodness another winner! In SOMETHING SPECIAL, Casey Claybourne intensely moves her heartwarming tale start into her reader's heart.

Wealthy, eleven-year-old Eliza Cooper was a lonely little girl. Although her frequently absent father tried, the lonesome child wanted a special friend. She wanted someone to share her life, someone to fuss and encourage her, someone to make every day special. Yes, Eliza wanted someone special - someone like a mother. As Penelope Martin arrived in Seattle, she looked forward to a new life. Although she lacked experience as a teacher, she was willing to learn and she knew she could create a wonderful world for Eliza Cooper. However, Josh Cooper had other ideas for his daughter and those ideas did not include this so-called `governess.' A governess? Why, the woman could not even read!

Through soft humor and likeable characters, Claybourne delivers a very good page-turner. SOMETHING SPECIAL is well written and very enjoyable.

4). Catherine Anderson: "BEAUTIFUL GIFTS." - Rating: (4 Stars) (Grade: B-)
In 1996, Catherine released "Keegan's Lady." This story circled child abuse - abuse by an alcoholic father. In January 2006, Ms. Anderson's Summer Breeze will be available. This book revisits the Keegan/Paxton family. BEAUTIFUL GIFTS is the connection between the two, allowing Anderson's reader to revisit the 1996 story and then move into 2006 and Summer Breeze.

Faith Randolph and her precocious daughter, Charity, are running away. They are running from the dark and sinister nature of one man - Faith's father. Through a quirk of magic, brought on by the wedding dress, Faith embarrassingly stumbles upon Patrick O'Shannessy. She is applying for the position of his housekeeper. Patrick is shocked, not only did he place the advertisement long ago, but also Faith Randolph is hardly the housekeeper type!

Catherine Anderson IS one my favorite authors; her books ARE an automatic buy. They are always tenderly written, poignantly moving, and commonly involve the unusual. Although BEAUTIFUL GIFTS is a lovely story, it does however bog down with information data. The reader is very aware this short story's main objection is its connection value for the Keegan/Paxton legacy. Nevertheless, Anderson's skilled hand manages a lovely soft theme, but in this brief anthology format, the information overload IS a problem.

MaryGrace Meloche.

Anthologies are always hard to rate because of the varying stories, and this one is no different.

"A PERFECT FIT".
I really found the first story so dull and slow-moving that I didn't even finish it. In it, a middle-aged woman who had a daughter out of wedlock is desperately trying to give her spoiled daughter a respectable wedding to a man of higher social standing. While the wedding is set, the girl doesn't have a wedding dress...the groom's mother thinks the family are social climbers so she sends Viscount Forde (the groom's uncle, I believe) to suss out the situation and get rid of the bride. While Catherine Anderson tries to create a mix of humor and tension through her characters and plot, she falls far short of the goal. In the end, their relationship is uninspiring, the plot is slow-moving and boring and, you're not really left rooting for anyone.


"GLAD RAGS"
Connie Brockaway's "Glad Rags," immediately had me wondering why I've never read anything else by her. In it, we meet Alex, Viscount Thorpe, a war hero recently returned home from Russia and his erstwhile love, Lucy St. James.

Two years before the story takes place, Alex and Lucy had an unofficial engagement but it was suddenly and publically broken when Lucy flirted with another man and Alex rejected her. Lucy's brother, Hugh, is convinced that Alex's actions have condemned Lucy to a life of spinsterhood so, out of revenge, he wins a bet against Alex and forces him to wear a dress in front of a ton party.

Although Alex and Lucy haven't talked since his return to England, she feels compelled to speak with him considering it was her brother who put them into their predicament.

I love the witty, sophisticated dialogue that Brockaway employs. These characters make you laugh and cringe, because their love is apparent even after years apart but their pride--which got them in trouble in the first place--is understandable.

In the end, Brockaway creates tension and a powerful love that has you hoping and praying these two will figure everything out and, for the love of God, just swallow their pride. This one is truly the gem of the anthology.

"SOMETHING SPECIAL"
This one, again, is a story that wasn't all that spectacular, it's really what'd you'd expect from an anthology. Eliza is an intelligent ten-year-old girl who lives with her bachelor father in 1850's Seattle. With the help of a local widow, Eliza brings Penny, an uneducated girl from Boston, to Seattle to be her governess, but really hopes she'll be her new mother.

The father, Joshua, returns from a three-moth business trip and is immediately attracted to Penny but resists the attraction--or tries to. While the characters are pleasant and the story was relatively entertaining, I hate stories like this because the romance seems to develop out of nowhere. The hero and heroine are physically attracted to one another and then, suddenly, they decide they're in love. Some authors can make this work, but Casey Claybourne is not one of them.

"BEAUTIFUL GIFTS"
The final story starts out rather slowly and, I honestly felt my eyes glazing over after the first three pages...I didn't finish this one, so, besides that, I can't offer an opinion.

In short, it's an alright book that would really have just been incredibly mediocre if it hadn't been for Brockaway and "Glad Rags." I'll definitely be looking for more books by her in the future.

I'm kind of sick of anthologies that have two good stories and three bad ones, but this antho is enough to change my mind. First of all, I loved the Brockway one called Glad Rags. Because it was hot: the hero is totally in lust, but he's going off to war, and he doesn't want to leave the heroine alone if he dies. So he backs out of the marriage--and I was DYING for him to come back and make love. Which he does. Fabulous story. I really liked the other ones too, although they don't stand out quite as clearly -- but this is one of those anthologies where I kept reading right through all of them. That almost never happens for me.

I highly recommend this one!

I agree with the previous reviewer that rating anthologies can be tricky as some stories are always better than others. This one is no different. The book starts off promisingly, with the prologue by Catherine Anderson (who also does the books epilogue). A servant, Aileanna, who descends from a line of sorceress', is stitching her selfish, mistresses wedding dress. Our witch, though, is in love with the groom-to-be, Halford, a highborn English gentleman. Though magic, the dress is blessed to bring good luck to whomever wears it and our couple run off to get married. Halford is willing to forgo his inheritance to be with her and even suggests going to America. Then the story ends.

I had thought that all the stories would be tied together not though a dress but though family connections to that couple. Aileanna had red hair and Halford incredible blue eyes and blond hair and all our hero/heroines had some of the mix. But it was never clear if indeed anyone was related to the young lovers.

The first story is the best. Barbara Metzger's A Perfect Fit comes close to being a perfect story. It is fun, light, believable and enjoyable. Katie Cole, a highborn Lady, lives in a cottage with her daughter, Susannah, preparing for Susannah's wedding to Gerald. Katie lives falsely as a widow; Susannah is a bastard and Katie's family disowned her as she anticipated her wedding vows 18 years earlier. Viscount Forde comes to see if Katie and Susannah are using his nephew, Gerald, for his money and to see if the wedding should happen at all. They are a sexy couple and the dialogue is smart and funny. Of course love blooms, and there is that mysterious wedding dress that just won't get dirty, even when falling in mud. The only flaw with this story is Kate's father. It was unbelievable how he turned up in the end.

Connie Brockway's Glad Rags follows. Alexander, Viscount Thorpe, was sort of engaged to Lucy St. James two years before our story opens. It was never public, just sort of assumed. Lucy, in a fit of pique as she wanted him to actually ask her before he went to war, tries to make him jealous and all that happens is he leaves and they are finished. Now, two year later after his dash off to war, it seems that Alexander's former good friend and Lucy's brother, Hugh, carries a grudge. With a ridiculous bet when Thorpe returns to the Ton party world, he tries to make a fool of Thorpe. The bet was silly and uninteresting. The level of pride between Thorpe and Lucy was over done. The story fails, and badly, as there is no sense of real love or devotion between them. A rather boring story.

Casey Claybourne's Something Special, features a mail order governess to a young girl outside of Seattle. Penny, who comes to teach Eliza without Eliza's Dad knowing as he is away months at a time logging, is a nice heroine. Nice twist about the reading. Eliza and her manservant are engaging as well as Eliza's Dad. It is a nice story and enjoyable. The couple blends well.

Catherine Anderson's Beautiful Gifts is I did not enjoy. Between Faith, a rich NY runaway mom with a little girl, who hails from the East, and our pokey cowboy, Paddy, the story does not work. Faith's father, a rich, vindictive mean man tracks Faith and her daughter to Oregon, where they are staying with Paddy. The father wanted to yet arrange antoher marriage for Faith that she did not want. The way Paddy gets rid of her Dad is unbelievable. A man as devious as Faith's Dad would not leave with his tail between his legs.

And Anderson's epilogue is too short and uncertain. Is Charlotte a descendant of Aileanna and Halford? The book is not clear and I find that I rather know what is going on rather than read between the lines.

I bought this book hoping for some new and fresh ideas on wedding ceremonies. What I got was a copy of various denominations' minister handbooks. I was really surprised that a reputable publisher like Baker would compile several other books and market it as something new. If you already have a ministers handbook or two, don't waste your money on this book. There's nothing new here.

Words alone can't describe it... but I'll try. At first glance it appears to be a very small & petite book. It's a little less than 200 pages. I kind of thumbed through and thought, "yeah... whatever!" After having the time to sit down and actually go through it thoroughly... WOW! This manual is simply amazing. With this manual you can virtually marry any denominational or non-denominational, or revise a ceremony to fit just about any type of marriage. There's a chapter on pre-marriage counseling for the couple to be, music suggestions, prayer suggestion... you name... even a check list and so on... it's "ALL" there. This is definitely a must have for the new or seasoned minister. Forget the rest... or not... this is absolutely the best!

THE BEST BOOK OF ALL WEDDING BOOKS. I AM A NEW MINISTER AND THIS BOOK MADE IT EASY THE BEST BOOK BY FAR THAT I BOUGHT AND I GOT 15 OF THEM IF THAT TELLS YOU ANYTHING. I AM NO LONGER WORRIED AND HAVE DONE 4 WEDDINGS WITH THIS BOOK.

I found this book to be good for Christian denomination weddings. It covers a wide range of these. However, it excludes a non-denominational or non-religious wedding. Nonetheless, for someone conducting a wedding, it will provide you with some great ideas about different facets of the ceremony.

This book contains a variety of services for different Christian denominations: Baptist, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Episcopalian, Evangelical, Lutheran, Methodist (including The Free Methodist Church of North America and The Wesleyan Church), Presbyterian, and Reformed (Christian Reformed Church and Reformed Church in America). There are a few alterate wedding ceremonies, including two versions of a "contemporary" service and a service in recognition of a Civil Marriage. All are Christian.

One of the useful features of the ceremonies is that they are broken down into sections. Here is one example: Prelude, Music, Lighting of Candles, Processional, Welcome, Invocation, Readings, Parting from Parents, Declaration of Intent, Exchange of Vows, Exchange of Rings, Lighting of Unity Candle, Pronouncement of Marriage, Benediction, Introduction of Newlyweds. This makes it easier to create customized ceremonies by adding, skipping, or changing the order of certain sections.

Some alternative vows and wedding prayers are offered, in the event that the bride and groom want to make these sections more personal by choosing their favorite. Suggestions for wedding music are given. A sample checklist is included, to be used by the pastor or minister when working with the bride and groom to plan the wedding. And, an example is given for the proper ettiquette for the positioning of the bride, groom, and attendants during the processional.

I agree that this book is getting long in the tooth. Its completely film based and frankly its not that informative. You've got a lot of nice, if dated, pictures and a few cute comments next to each picture. Comments such as, "Don't worry about how much film you're using. You're goal is to capture the excitement, sensitivity, and passion of the ceremony"(p56). That's about as good as it gets unless your looking for some info on the film types that she likes; or you want to hear for the twentieth time how much she likes her Hasselblad fisheye. I also own wedding books by Bell and Johnson which I feel are much better whether you're a novice or have some experience.

I was disappointed with the book because it was first published in the year 2000 and apparently it hasn't been updated ever since. The book talks a lot about how to abtain your best results using films! It stresses the importance of not worrying about saving films, it advises the photographer to shoot as much as possible - I doubt that is ever a worry for todays's digital shooters. Wanna have an idea about how out-dated that is? Page 116 :" ...In the mid 1990's Bambi made the decision to go proofless(...)To use Montage, send your film to the lab and ask them to put the images on a CD, or scan the negatives into electronic form yourself" - That was one of the "hottest" pieces of advice on the book! The pictures are ok, nothing really impressive - It might work well for a beginner, though!

if your looking for a book to help you on your way ,forget this one ! if you dont have hassleblad or other high end equipment' forget this book, if your not already a professional forget this book ,if your using digital media , forget this book, the book however does have some good pointers and suggestions, but if avant garde photography isnt your bag,,, forget this book. i was extremely disappointed in the way it seemed to just address the already established proffessional, and last if your not interested in black white and infrared film usage forget this book!
maybe if this book was updated it would be better but that is a big maybe

You must have this book and read it... you will learn something and giving ideas... I do not mind what camera they used but the measurement of lenses is very important... I searched throught out the web site... my conclusion are most of wedding photographer I counted used 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm and 300mm. My attention is to shot portrait and wedding therefore I bought 50mm and my 85mm is on the way but I could not afford to buy the rest might be the wide lens and zooms
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The imagery in this book is of a fairly high quality. The locations and scenes look believeable; nothing over-the-top and extravagent like some books show (by that I mean, obviously created by wedding photographers who shoot only for the wealthy in the best locales). The complete lack of digital is a real weak point to this book. As of the time of this review, I'm told that nearly 95% of wedding photographers shoot digital, especially starting out. Therefore the equipment suggestions, while still somewhat informative, are heavily dated (the primary emphasis on medium format, while compelling, is no longer the most efficient way to get going in the business). The images are all high quality and quite inspiring. It's a decent work, but I'll probably buy a few more wedding photography books before finding the one that does me the most good.

We have a few of these singing books my son loves them but with everyone we have gotten they seem to be getting louder. You can't even read the book until the music stops forget it as a nap time book. I am disapointed as it is far to loud.

My sister in law purchased this book for our babies first birthdays (my daughter is 4 weeks older than her son). The book was an istant hit with both of them and still is 6 months later. I cannot think of many books that are big hits with both of them. My nephew has played with his so much the battery has been replaced. In a tub of books, this is one my daughter will still seek out to look at. I even bought this book as a gag gift for my friend who loves tacky wacky adult birthday gifts such as these.

Bought this for my grandson who loved it. The frame around his picture lights up and musical happy birthday melody.

I loved the book and it did arrive very quickly and was in new condition but the battery is in the process of being replaced BEFORE I even give it to my grandson for his birthday. The battery is either defective or else has been played continuously as it is weak and barely audible. Too bad as the vendor's service was excellent.

I love to give this book for a wedding present. I seem to reread it each time I purchase it and enjoy being reminded of the true gifts in life.

Reading the Twelve Gifts of Marriage is a wonderful way to take a step back and thoughtfully consider how much your partner means to you. So often we get caught up in the day-to-day and forget those wonderful characteristics that attracted us in the first place. This book helps you remember and appreciate the strength of each other and your coupleship.

I gave this as a gift ot my husband and he was really touched. This would be a great gift to every married couple or a couple that will be getting married. Lots of great advice and messages to all that read it.

The story and messages in The Twelve Gifts of Marriage are so important that I give this book, along with a crystal to hang in the window, (as suggested in the story) to all my wedding couples. (I am an ordained minister.)

In my opinion, not quite the caliber of Charlene's "Twelve Gifts of Birth" and "Twelve Gifts for Healing". The message(s) for a happy marriage are great, but found photos uninspiring. Just OK.