Wedding Books

Surprisingly few commentaries have been written about the Aurora Consurgens, a thirteenth-century manuscript attributed to Thomas Aquinas, since the original von Franz interpretations that accompanied the 1966 translation. Raff's important book goes a long way toward filling this depth-psychological gap by applying what he calls psychoidal alchemy, a perspective that moves our understanding of figures like Sophia beyond the realm of the exclusively psychic.

By doing this the author shifts the emphasis from the purely human to the transhuman. Describing the understanding of personality in terms of an earlier stage of the alchemical opus, he explains that "Sophia is not asking you to understand her in terms of your life, but to understand her in terms of hers"--a point that nudges the imagination out of egocentricity into something more like an ecology.

As clear as I found this informative book, in places it carried what felt like a missionary undertone, a sort of "if everyone could do this, we would change the world." Gentle (as in this case) or overt, such prescriptions go on and on while life on Earth gets worse, prompting irritable readers like me to want less advice and more show and tell. Happily, the author does a fine job overall of sticking close to his own experiences and to the images made available through his scholarship. This is clearly a book written by someone who cares very deeply about the subject.

Hymns and Wedding Music for All Harps by Sylvia Woods.

Are you thinking about playing your harp for others to enjoy? If so then the pieces in this book will be just perfect for many of those special occasions. I have used the arrangements included in the book as processional and recessional pieces for every wedding ceremony where I have played. The hymns are perfect for church services and I have played the traditional Israeli pieces at Chanukah parties. Hymns and Wedding Music is a must in your harp book collection.

I think this book is most useful for it's explanation of how the envelopes for wedding invitations are addressed (i.e. who's name goes first, what do you write on the inner envelope, etc.) I even found out how to address one to an Archdeacon! It also has helpful Q & A sections.

Pravina Shukla's The Grace of Four Moons: Dress, Adornment and the Art of the Body in Modern India is an elegantly written, yet accessible text that documents everyday art of and on the body of her collaborators in Banaras, India. This book not only documents and elaborates about individual case studies, but envelopes them all together in a larger meta-study of the way in which scholars have (and have not) approached the study of body art as a simultaneous reflection of self and community.

This ethnographic text rooted in Folkloristics, illuminates how choices of individual "adornment" in Banaras become integrated into the different layers of individual life processes and culturally rooted aesthetic-frames from which generalizable principles for the study of body art across disciplines and the globe become abundantly clear. Readers will see that the individuals involved are not those who choose to adorn themselves. The research frames comes to include, the families of the women being featured, the makers of jewelry, the salesmen, as well other social and consumer networks that all relate back to the object and radiate outward to include national and global markets, which implicitly integrate notions of the interconnected "local and global" into the study of individual creativity. The integrated focus of this book brings together the dynamics of individuals-as-artists (of varying sorts whether physical craftsmanship or the art of assemblage) with the objects that they "speak" through, as well as the lenses through which beholders "see" through and read out culturally, regionally, gendered, aged, and class based messages.

This text highlights the hallmarks of folkloristic scholarship that is the focus on individuals as artists, and ability to document tradition and variations within parallel systems of production. This study does not focus on a single women, but multiple women, enacting their realities through material culture in different creative ways--India is by no means demographically homogenous, and we can implicitly read this discourse of regional and cultural diversity out of this text. One of the key elements in this text is the notion of choice. While privilege and caste might bring certain option to the table, the participants here shape their lives of their own volition, choosing each day how to represent themselves, on their own terms to the worlds in which they live. However, choice is also modified by implications of the larger social and cultural systems in which these women live, such as the influence of Hindu religious beliefs and the popularity of contemporary Bollywood films. Reader are able to see the ways in which these larger social phenomena become part of the discourses of the self in India, as they would in any modern, media saturated society.


More explicitly, Dr. Shukla creates explicit dialectics between contexts of production and display through use, which are brought together in a unique social and cultural contexts. Readers can see the way in which personal aesthetics are both individual and cultural, as part of intertwined discourses of the self as produced by a series of participants--jewelry and sari makers, knowledgeable vendors, experienced customers as well as the ultimate factor, personal preference. Where women appear to be the focus, we see the interchange between men who make saris, jewelry and assemble bangle sets, and women who create personal assemblages to adorn their bodies are active, mutually constitutive participants in this larger process of self-adornment in India. This perspective is clearly articulated by the way in which the chapters flow, as displaying and wearing body art in this context is prefaced first by the processes of making and buying it.

This is the perspective that has ultimately been missing from previous studies of dress and adornment. It is at the intersection between contexts where function and meaning gain powered as they are obscured, contested, and ultimately realized. It is the art-object's movement through these places and spaces that facilitates its meaning, which culminates on the wearers body in an intimate microanalysis arising from the interactions that negotiate social and personal aesthetics and expectations--display is however, but one stage in the life of these objects. Through the explication of similar objects in multiple contexts ranging from stages of production, consumption, and display, one sees the convergence of forms in the special context of the wedding. Readers get the range of everyday choices, and the specialized context of wedding attire, which includes the rearticulating of everyday types of art-objects (saris, bangles, and other jewelry) in a ritual context, heightening their relative meanings.

In these spaces between contexts, which are linked through art-objects, interactions between the images of real people become qualified by a person's interactions with the ideal images of gods that pervade Hindu culture, adding yet another qualifying layer from which to modify the meanings of what outsiders might consider simple artifacts.

The author makes nuanced distinctions between what people bring to and take away from their "home" locations, who they are, and what sorts of resources (for instance, financial and cultural capital) they have at their disposal to adorn their bodies to illustrate the utter complexity of often disregarded everyday adornment. She chooses to focus on individual case studies of women in Banaras with comparable resources in order to highlight diversity among rather than between social groups. A focus across between casts would only reaffirm social disunity without illuminating the nuances of personal expression, which allow the reader to experiences these women as agents of their own identity making, rather than solely products of their castes. This is not a study of India, this is the story of multiple Indian women as individual artists living within differentially connected or disconnected social networks that in-turn influence their personal aesthetic choices.

Implicitly readers are able to understand, that while adornment is part of the creative repertory of each of the women that are part of this larger story, it is not their only or preferred creative outlet. The text by no means claims that these women's worlds area defined by dress or confined by their bodies, rather Dr. Shukla points to accompanying examples such as outside professions and domestic food preparation as parts of a larger body of creative opportunities in which these women assert their own tastes and make beautiful things in their own lives.


Within this text readers begin to experience a vocabulary-of-dress as part of a communicative system, that much like verbal communication, both gives and receives messages, and in each interaction modifying the subsequent exchange. This discourse of body art is therefore active rather than stagnant, constantly being rethought and reevaluated through agents. This is not a book about how all Indian women dress and have always dressed (as essentializing discourse of static adherence to "traditional norms") but it is about current, living women expressing themselves through their body art now.


The author complicated the notions of display by highlighting culturally defined norm of both seeing and being seen in this area in India. Being seen and seeing become complimentary, reciprocal activities. The role of beholder is a culturally embedded phenomenon as well as an experience between individuals who share a sign system. Readers are also allowed to enter that relationship, although mediated by time and space, through beautiful photography we are allowed to make out own assessments--to create our own discourse about the art under discussion.

Throughout the text there is a wonderful sense of empowerment, where women are controlling their personal aesthetics and in essence expressing to the participants in their world. "This is how you may view me today." This implied through references the way in which gaze may be turned inward, as women's choices affect how they want to be seen and how they see themselves. At the same time, the reader may understand that not all choices are made to attract gaze, a women may want to distance herself from her husband or family and this chooses an aesthetic to detract gaze from her body (337).

Here we are looking at dress and the body as composite parts of a culturally and socially embedded semiotic system of understanding mobilized through tangible realities of color, texture, length, fabric, and pattern etc. We are shown the relationship of the individual simultaneously engaging with their own trade, aesthetics, and social role, with other individuals in roles of, producer, seller, and audience as a series of cultural mediators.

In The Grace of Four Moons, the author allows us to see that in terms of notions of beauty and art, objects are not where notions of aesthetics begin, but rather where they end. They reflect deeply held personal and cultural beliefs of life, beauty and the production of identity. Terms like "vanity" "modesty" "hygiene" "style" "creativity" "public" and "private" merge onto a continuum of the relative values of personal aesthetics. These elements, positioned relative to the body, then move with the body through geographic contexts, and in their movement, we may see how art becomes laminated on the body to express how an individual becomes situated in and between spaces potentially indicating both physical and social transitions. This perspective illuminates how one may study clothing and body art in diasporic contexts where concepts of home become by force or choice, relocated.

What is most important about this book is the way any reader or researcher working on body art can seamlessly integrate their work in the this multi-part model synthesized here. This is not a work about India, or how Indian women adorn their body, it is a comprehensive model for the study of body art across the world that emphasizes the complexity of self-adornments and how in temporary, transitory and permanent ways becomes simultaneously intertwined in multiple social, personal and economic contexts. By connecting discussions of micro contexts on the body and in the closet, and macro contexts of regional and national trade and commerce, this text shows readers how body art not only allows individuals to enact identities based on social expectations, but to simultaneously recalibrate those enactments in the face of personal desires and social change.
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Rachel Gonzalez
Doctoral Student
Department of Folklore & Ethnomusicology
Department of Anthropology
Indiana University-Bloomington

The Grace of Four Moons' subtitle promises (and delivers!) an exploration of dress and adornment in modern India. The author's discussion is engaging and well-written putting her into dialogue with dress scholars such as Valerie Steele and Joanne Eicher. The book is beautifully illustrated, scholarly, and written in accessible language making it a `must read' for anyone interested in how people everywhere communicate through their appearance. In writing this ethnography of dress, Shukla provides a model for those concerned with material culture in general and dress in particular. Designers, curators, folklorists, and anyone who enjoys learning about the rich possibilities of dress and adornment will find this book a fascinating read.

Good relatable characters and an okay story made this a good book. Beneath the surface, I think the author did an exceptional job of showing the changing role of men in society and the insecurities that go along with it, as well as the challenges of watching our parents grow old and coming to grips with the realities of their lives from an adult perspective (rather than that of the seeming them through the eyes of the children we were).

I too was confused about them sticking the swords up each others' butts. I actually went back and reread it. Did he mean it in a playful manner? Nothing else pointed to sexual abuse. Too weird! Besides that I really enjoyed this story.

I think that CJ has updated very accuratly Millers Death of a Salesman. The only thing that I question is this: are people going to relate to Wally Czebek? I sure did to the point that I quite frankly wanted to quite the book but couldn"t. I think that ever sales person should be required to read this book. I had my company cars and my dreams of success. CJ has given us a historical look at life in the 60's and 70's of the company man who was thrown out to pasture to live his dreams or die with his dreams. The wake that is left is the legacy of his children and how Wally's life effected them. You owe it to yourself to read this book.

I merely liked it. (The cover helped seduce me into buying it!) I found it difficult to keep up with which generation's "Mother" was being referred to and which generation's "kids" were acting up. Just too many people for my feeble brain to keep straight. And I would like to say that I did not appreciate the review where the plastic sword thing was mentioned. When I actually came to that in the book, it didn't phase me--I took it as good-natured hyperbole. I was furious with the reviewer for spoiling the natural flow of the story for me. There are good, good things in this book--I would recommend it. But I can't give it four stars, sorry.

I am from WI and boy this author knows the people. It should be a movie - no, a mini series. They have them about Chicago, New York, Texas, California. This is the great Midwest, the farm country. The real stuff is in this book. A bit wordy for me at times and from a man's point of view but I surely enjoyed it. I found the very same reasons to laugh and to cry as I do with my neighbors, family, and friends.

Nearly 70 and from WI

I spent a very pleasant Sunday afternoon reading this glamorous book. It is a good first step in deciding how you want to be married and how you are going to spend your wedding budget. While there are plenty of visually extravagant suggestions, readers are continuously reminded to tone these down to realistic size without spreading too many ideas out too thinly. I could hardly agree more.
Alas, I could not prevent myself from imagining numerous future brides becoming completely carried away after having seen so many photos of luxurious, ornately-clad tents and page after page of hugely expensive and rather risque flower arrangements. Preferred the book for Cowie's advice rather than the very lavishly staged photos.

I bought this book so I can find ideas for my wedding flower decoration,
I thought I would find lots of pictures and get a lot of ideas. It didn't help me much. But still, is a good book for other information like planning, etiquette, etc.

Was a bit disappointed that it was just a collection of various weddings and their stories. Was looking for more practical hints.

While this book is a FANTASTIC book for those who want inspiration for those starting a wedding... I bought this book for an entirely different reason. I am an artist and I am always looking for books with fantastic photography to help inspire my drawings and paintings. This book has some AMAZING photography and has some absolutely sensual moments. The mood is set throughout the book, very full of life and sensuality and unbelievably fresh. The array of flowers, the silkiness of the dresses, the ambience of the swagging fabrics, the smoothness of the linen tablecloths, it is all eye candy.

Even if you aren't planning a wedding (like me), this is a fine book for your collection and a must have for photography enthusiasts who like wedding photos.

I highly recommend it!

Thank goodness I checked this book out from the library before buying it! I flipped through the whole 250-page book in literally 15 minutes. There is a ton of print in teeny tiny font. Personally, I don't care that much for what Colin Cowie has to say, I am more interested in the pictures that he gathers to give a visual image of a wedding. I didn't read any of it because it was so small and there seemed to be so much that I can only imagine how much useless filler was in there.

The pictures, what I actually care about, were of poor quality. The book was published in 1998 but many of the weddings screamed 1980s. The pictures were small, with poor lighting and lacked a glossy, professional finish.

I don't know if the point of the book was to show a ton of different wedding styles and to give everyone ideas no matter what your wedding will be - but that's not the point I got. The headings of the weddings were things like "Formal garden party", "Informal party under a tent", but they all looked exactly the same. The decorations, dresses and menus all seemd very old-fashioned with gilded angles, poofy sleeves and roses galore. There were more roses in this book than I think I have seen in my entire life. And for a girl whose wedding will have hydrangeas (which were shown once or twice as a filler with roses), it wasn't particularly helpful.

In a nutshell, I thought this was an uninspired book with poor quality pictures and too much verbiage. I didn't see a single thing that I even stopped to think, "Hm, would I want that in my wedding?", I just blew past everything because nothing was appealing.

Annie Malloy considers herself a new and modern woman, however the times haven't caught up to her way of thinking, and when she finds herself pregnant she has to bend to society's standards to make things right for her family. She marries Jess Harden, the town sheriff, (who, by the way, has had a thing for her for awhile) and what starts as a marriage of convenience, soon becomes...
Well, let's not spoil the ending.
A sweet romance set in the old west that will tug at your heart strings.
And hopefully make you a Maggie Osborne fan. I am!

I agree it isn't Maggie Osborne's best. I wanted more building of the relationship between Jess & Annie, less "New Modern Woman" references over and over again.
And I hated that Jess flipped on her when he found out about Bodie, that kind of ruined SHOTGUN WEDDING for me. The same as I felt with PRAIRIE MOON when Cameron told his secret. That, plus the storyline here wrapped up too easily, too quickly, with not enough action, and tied up in a bow too simplistically. I disliked that Annie went to him at the boarding house. But it kept me reading page after page, burning the midnight oil during the middle parts.
Ione was likable, but seemed a walking cliche somehow. And they hit it off a bit too easily.
I loved the way Annie & Ellen connected in the last half, that was very nicely done. And Jess, our hero, was a husband to die for. I wish we'd had more of the two of them without Bodie.

This lacked luster!

From the back cover:

Annie Malloy is in a fix. She's gotten herself into the worst kind of trouble, and there's really only one way out. It seems the town's handsome new sheriff, Jesse Harden, has taken a shine to her--and has offered her a way to end the scandal once and for all. Marriage, she hopes, even a hasty one to a virtual stranger, will put an end to the gossip and return her life to something like it was before. But Annie soon finds that the quiet life she once lived has been exchanged for one full of chance, desire, and the breathtaking possibility of true love.

Jesse John Harden has always followed his instincts and has no doubt that he can turn this marriage of convenience into a true marriage of the heart. With each day that passes the bond between him and his pretty new wife grows stronger and the spark between them gets hotter. But Annie is hiding a secret that could destroy their delicate happiness. Now Jesse must convince Annie to let him stand beside her to face the past so they can have a chance at a happy future.

And my review:

Ever since I read the fabulous The Wives of Bowie Stone (which made me cry), I eagerly searched out everything written by Maggie Osborne (who also writes as Margaret St. George). SHOTGUN WEDDING uses one of my favorite plot devices: the marriage of convenience. I figured that Maggie Osborne was an author who could do this often used plot in a fresh and new way.

But I was disappointed. As other reviewers have said, this historical novel never gives the year, leaving the reader to guess. This is a pet peeve of mine. With all the research that goes into a historical novel, how hard would it be to give a year? Things like gas lights and box socials spanned many decades, so narrowing down the timeline was not really possible, and that was a little annoying, since I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what year it was.

I also felt that the "setting the stage" part of the novel took far too long. The reader knows that Jesse and Annie are going to end up married, but has to wait for half of the novel to go by before that happens. I also felt that the interactions between the hero and heroine were few and far between for the first half of the book. Romance novels are all about "spark" between the hero and heroine. That's hard to accomplish when they are almost never in the same room!

I never really felt like the character of Jesse was fully developed. The author spent more time focusing on Bodie, the father of the child and incidentally the villian. That all well and good, but I wanted to know the hero on more than just a surface level.

Also, the hero would say things that just rubbed me the wrong way. For instance, before the weddding, he tells the heroine that he will make her love him. Uhhh...that's kinda creepy if you ask me, not romantic. You can't force something to love you. (That's what stalkers think, and no one considers them romantic). Every day when he comes home he asks, "Do you love me yet?" Again, creepy, and a little needy and desperate. And once, when Annie is miffed at him, he brushes her off and asks, "Do we have any beer?" How many of us would stand for that from our husbands? What next? Would the hero stop shaving and bathing and start belching and farting and walking around in his underwear? Sorry to be so negative, but I just couldn't see him as a desireable man after that.

I was unable to finish this book. I think that perhaps the author was on a time restriction, because she is capable of so much better. As another reviewer has said, this was a good story about what happened to women who got pregnant out of wedlock, but not a particularily good romance. Try The Wives of Bowie Stone or Silver Lining to see what this author is really capable of. I would recommend you only read this if you can borrow it from the library. Otherwise, I'd recommed skipping it altogether.

I had read other books by Maggie Osborne and was looking forward to another good read. Unfortunately, this novel falls short. Annie Malloy comes across as a spineless twit who makes one wrong choice after another. What does Jake see in her anyway? He is a strong character, but aside from his infatuation with her red hair and the way she acts "different" from other women, Osborne does not really develop a good romance between the two characters. Annie does nothing to build a relationship with the husband who saved her reputation from ruin. She basically put everyone's lives in danger and they all forgive her for it. I was actually hoping that Jake would come to his senses and leave her!

I was very disappointed in this book. I saw the great reviews and thought it would provide insights for a first time mother of the bride. It is, sadly, a fluffy little "personal memories of my daughter's life." I did not learn anything about being the mother of the bride. I was hoping that it would help me help with planning a wedding!

I got this book for my mom. The title caught my eye because she had a horrible time finding a dress for my brother's wedding and now she has to look once again for my wedding! She loved it and found it very humorous, basically read it in one night. The only thing I wished is that it would have had a checklist or something like that for the mother of the bride. Overall, great book!

What a great book to give the 1st time mother of the bride at the bridal shower. It puts things in perspective! I recommend they read it a couple of days before the wedding.

This book was great. It is written with humor and insight, and I probably would not have appreciated it before this adventure we call "being the M.O.B". It is definately worth every penny.

This is basically an autobiographical comic short story, with wacky illustrations to add to the fun. I bought it as a Mother's Day present for my mom right after I got engaged, and we read it aloud together in our favorite spot on the front porch, passing the book when one of us was overcome with laughter -- or tears. Ilene Beckerman can really write, and she does it with devastating humor and tear-jerking poignancy as she explores -- from the front row view of the mother of the bride -- the fun, the fights, the work, the tears, the trials, and often the complete insanity that all contribute to the creation of a beautiful wedding. At the same time, she critically (and beautifully) examines the complex relationship between a mother and her daughter. This short little gem will help you remember the things you appreciate most about your mother, your daughter...or both.

The tragedy of cancer has a tendency to have no upsides - why it's usually referred to as a tragedy. But there was a huge upside to author Laura Fitzpatrick-Nager and her husband Paul - they found each other and found a huge thing to bind them - they are both survivors of cancer. "Swimming on my Wedding Day: My Cancer Journey Through the Seasons" is their story of fighting their cancers and their new marriage being their bastion of support through it all as they celebrate the life that was almost taken from them all too early. "Swimming on My Wedding Day: My Cancer Journey Through the Seasons" is a highly recommended piece of writing for anyone looking for strength in their reading to fight what may be a cancer of their own and for community library memoir collections.

This book is a beautifully written account of surviving cancer with heart and hope. A must read for anyone who has someone in their life who is facing cancer or has it themselves.

I found that it gave me a window into what it is like for someone to fight a life threatening disease and, most importantly, how to be of help to them. Laura's account is full of courage, emotion, and insight.

In the end, you will believe in miracles!

Laura's book is a work of art, a message of courage and a triumph of will in the face of all that life can throw at us, and an inspiration to all of us (not only cancer survivors). It is a reminder to cherish the moment we're in and to be optimistic about the future, no matter what life brings to us.

I loved reading this book. It is beautifully written and uncovers personal secrets of what she and her husband Paul experienced. It must have been a difficult decision to make to write this book and to unmask for the world what such a personal journey is like.

More importantly, I learned so much about the life she and Paul have built together, their optimism in the face of uncertainty and their indomitable strength not only of body but also of character. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Ed Goldman

Last night at 10:00pm, I picked up Laura's book to read "a few pages" before I retired for the night.

I couldn't put it down! I read the whole thing in one sitting and I yearned for more. I cried. I smiled. I felt uplifted. I do not have cancer, but my life has been touched by those who do, and my younger brother died of it when he was only 39.

I loved this book.

Laura's writing style is so vivid and loaded with imagery without being flowery. It is so readable that you find yourself "in her moment". If I were a writer instead of a "techie" I'd find more eloquent words to describe it, but, alas, those words do not come so easily to me.

Laura says that this book project was all about hope. Her book definitely offers hope. And inspiration. But more than that, it's a love story.

Read this book!

I was the bridesmaid in my friends wedding and this book provided me with the know how on delivering an exceptional toast worthy of my best friend's wedding.I would highly recommend this book to anyone.A must own

I bought this book based upon some of the other reviews that said it was great and they couldn't have been more wrong. I needed the book on short notice so it cost me $25 and it was absolutely useless. There is nothing useful in this book at all. I ended up just winging the toast because I didn't have time to look for another book.

This book really allowed me to enjoy my daughter's wedding. Not only was it a great help to the wedding party it was also a great help to me and my husband. We were able to give loving, appropriate toasts with a minimum of nervousness. I highly recommend it.

This is a very cool book! I was recently in my cousin's wedding and had to give a couple of speeches about the bride and groom and it really gave me a lot of good ideas. There was lots to choose from so that I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. Even my mother liked it. Well worth it.

My brother got married recently and I was the best man. The thought of getting up and giving the toast at the reception was really scary to me so he got me this book to help. When I read through the book I found several that made a lot of sense so I combined a couple together and added a few things of my own. It turned out great and I know I couldn't have done it without this book.