Wedding Books

At one point in Ulysses, Stephen thinks--or says something to somebody about how you can always tell Synge because he sounds like Shakespeare. That's a jab, but a friendly one. I don't think it's intended to be far off from the truth either.

I agree that reading these plays aloud is wonderful.

In a class I took, we read extended portions of "Playboy of the Western World". The class was busting, tearing up with laughter. The play is fall-over funny even if you're reading to yourself.

I just have to say though, that the plays are for performing.

A friend of mine and I did a scene as an acting exercise for a class she was taking--it was one of the scenes in which Christy courts Pegeen Mike--from "Playboy of the Western World". The audience--about 15 people--were spellbound. We looked out at dropped jaws.
This friend of mine and I did a competent job of acting. What blew the class away, really, was the ecstatic language and the infatuation one feels for the characters, their solidity, and the dramatic electricity between them... Lines from this bit come back to me, what? 20 years later? It's like music! The action goes from high tragedy to knockabout.
Well, it's what makes the Irish the Irish.
And the play's been just as good when others did it.

"Riders to the Sea" is like a religious ceremony, similar to the way that the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles are. They use choruses to much the same effect. The action is ritualized and repetitive. Idealized characters utter formula phrases. "Riders" sounds out some elemental terrain: it packs a deep sort of wallop. I'd love to see this performed.

These are classic plays by Irish playwrite and poet John Millilngton Synge, with the attention to language and folklore that is typical of Synge. Best enjoyed by reading the plays aloud.

An essential text. Godwin is the premier scholar in America in this area. This text, along with two manifestoes (the Fama and Confessio) made a major cultural and political impact in 17th century Europe and up through the 18th century in Germany. The Chemical Wedding is an allegorical tale of the processes of "alchemy." Written in coded and highly symbolic language, the book is historically important, but also important for the practicioner of spiritual alchemy or ritual magic in the Golden Dawn or Rosicrucian traditions. For the other two manifestoes purchase Frances Yates "The Rosicrucian Enlightenment," a controversial but excellent scholary text on 17th century Europe and the influence of Esoteric Christianity.

This is the first modern and accurate English translation of this work, attributed to a renegade esoteric Lutheran minister.

Surfacing in 1616, the Chemical Wedding was the third and last commentary released by the Rosicrucians. Whereas the first two manifestos-the Fama and Confessio-were seditious declarations which seem to possess more of a fairy-tale quality than anything else, the Wedding stands on its own merit as one of the most profound and impenetrable hermetic allegories ever written. The story centers on a man who is summoned by an Angel to witness and take part in a mysterious process that bears very little resemblance to an actual wedding. Despite the success of he and his compeers (qualified by a selection where the other candidates who are not worthy to participate are killed) the story ends in sagacious irony, leaving the protagonist to stand guard over his reward, forbidding him to ever glimpse it.

Joscelyn Godwin provides the translation, and though my knowledge of medieval Latin is not complete enough to grade her work, her reputation is impeccable and warrants little scrutiny. Adam McLean provides introduction and commentary, and it is for his efforts that this volume is most valuable. He abandons the arrogance shown by J. W. Montgomery who quantified the story as an expression of Orthodox Lutheranism, and doesn't attempt a literal translation of the book's intricate symbolism as any specialized religious banter. Instead, he lists the literary symbols (actual and metaphoric) one by one and shows how they link to key Rosicrucian and Hermetic ideologies, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions, never attempting to force feed any specific brand of Gospel. Indeed, despite the fact that the commentary's length rivals that of the text itself, my only complaint is that it is not longer, much longer, as I'm sure his valuable insight could literally fill hundreds of pages: it leaves the readers curiosity piqued more than sated.

All of the drawings and diagrams from the original are faithfully reproduced, and summarily analyzed for their symbolic content as well. As a bonus McLean shows links between the Chemical Wedding and other allegories afterwards, paying close attention to Goethe's `Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily', and includes the Parabola of Hinricus Madathanus Theosophus (an anonymous translation from `The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians') as an appendix. If you are looking for further readings on this subject, my best suggestion is `Foucault's Pendulum' by Umberto Eco. Despite being a work of fiction, it describes a very thorough picture of the Rosicrucian's world, and other medieval secret societies too. Showing them as wildly diabolical, it stills bears the immutable signature of a dedicated and terrifyingly intelligent scholar.

This planner is wonderful! Anything I needed to know was in here. I was surprised that it was so much cheaper than all of the others. Completely worth the money. I would recommend this to any bride.

I looked through all the books on the shelves at Barnes and Nobles and other bookstores before using this planner for my May 2007 wedding. I read this planner from cover to cover, and found it had the most useful information I needed, and because it was in a binder I could easily add pages of information I had printed off the internet. The binder also makes it easy to remove pages that as an individual you may not need.

I found my wedding planning to be really easy with all the timetable and guidlines this planner had to offer, and my guests and vendors were all impressed with how on top of things I was.

I would HIGHLY recommend this planner to any bride planning her wedding on her own, or with the help of a wedding planner. I had a $20,000 wedding with 200 guests, worked full time until two weeks before the big day, had no wedding planner, my bridal party and family lived 1,000 miles aways and could not help me, I lived 100 miles from my wedding location, and I had eight months to pull it off. Yet I pulled off a great wedding using this planner and have had people recommend a new career.

This is the best planner I have seen out there. It's the perfect size so you can tear out pages and insert them into the book without having to fold everything up.

I purchased mine brand new (they have them in stock) from Barnes and Noble for $14.95.

I am very skeptical about buying a planner online. I want to actually be able to thumb through the pages, and see what each has to offer. I didn't see this on here before I bought it in a bookstore, and I'm really suprised that there is only one review on it!

This planner has A LOT of helpful information, tips, and ettiquite for thos of us who don't really know what we are doing! It isn't over-kill, which is really nice, because I can't really see myself spending hours reading about EVERY detail. There is also no cheesy pictures of "ideas", most of which, are out dated, or not my taste. It was only $20 in the store, and totally worth it. There are lots of places to put your own notes, and add brochures.

I also love the fact that this is a hard cover binder. There is a version that is a soft cover binder too, but I prefer this, since it will be able to keep everything nice, and I can write on it if I need to also. This is really something that I will recomend to any bride!

I'm surprised to see that nobody else has recommended this planner yet! Before selecting this one I looked at the various other planners on Amazon and read their reviews. Since this one didn't even rank because nobody had reviewed it yet, I didn't even consider it until I ran across it at the bookstore.

The first reason I picked it up was because it is ring-bound and full letter size, meaning I could add pages for notes and contracts easily (otherwise I might have picked the Simple Stunning planner due its high review average). The binder isn't the highest quality (kind of like an economy hardback book), but at least it isn't bubble gum pink or plastered with cheesy pictures. I'm thinking I will eventually transfer the contents to a regular binder. To me, this isn't a big deal.

This planner is published by the same people as The Bride's Book of Lists, which also has a high review average. In fact, it looks like the lists and tables from that book just migrated to the new binder format. The tables are really helpful because they are a list of interview questions for the various kinds of vendors. Several columns to the right of the questions let you do a side-by-side comparison of all the responses. This is a feature that I didn't see in any of the planners that I looked through. Other planners only had space for the final selections and didn't act as a workbook to help me figure out which vendor to pick.

There are no photographs and relatively few illustrations. I like this because I plan to buy other books and materials for ideas and don't need my planner for that purpose. Really, I love it that this one cut out all the frou-frou stuff and gets right down to the nuts and bolts of planning. It does have a few examples, suggestions and tips, but overall it's primarily a workbook.

Other planners have plastic pockets/sleaves for keeping clippings, samples and contracts, which is great. This one does have pockets in the dividers, but they are cardstock weight paper. Again, I'll probably just add my own plastic sleaves as needed.

Since I've only just begun to plan, I don't know how comprehensive the lists or questions will be, but they look good so far.

Ann Monteith clearly sets out the various issues related to establishing a wedding photography business, whether it be a fully equiped full-time studio business or a weekend, on-location service. She explains the types of business structures (sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, etc.) and their advantages and disadvantages for the wedding photographer. She also devotes whole chapters to the following subjects: -Marketing objectives -Business Location -Product (album) design and presentation -Pricing services and products, and more!

The second half of this book contains profiles of currently established wedding photographers who explain their business strategies and photographic styles. These profiles include examples of the photographers' works - collections of wedding photographs which are a joy to browse through and which lend ideas to the aspiring wedding photographer or established professional.

At first I thought this book would be another "this is how I did it, just copy me" publication that is so common in the photography industry. In contrast, though, Monteith has taken a fresh approach by describing the various options available for all your business decisions. It covers all the major ideas used by photographers today (both full-time and part-time), and lets you decide how you want to run your business. Great for new photographers and veterans. I wish this book was available when I started my photography business--it would have saved me a lot of headaches and research.

In the first section of the book Ann Monteith gives the nuts and bolts for putting together a wedding photography buisness. The second section features 30 Top International Wedding Photographers. I was honored to be included by Ann. Photographs and inner thoughts are shared from the chosen photographers.

The book is well outlined and hits on every detail necessary to operate a successfull wedding photography business. Monteith also adds profiles of some of the world's best wedding photographers who give their take on the world of wedding photography. Great book!

I was excited about the topic of this book, because I am a graphic designer and I am called upon to design invitations from time to time. However, I was a little disappointed with the content of this book. It did give a thorough background of the printed wedding invitation, written information about each possible invitation component, and some helpful pointers for a bride. However, there were very few photos and the images provided were fairly basic invitations - not very imaginative. If I had flipped through this book in the bookstore, I doubt I would have spent the money.

The book is pretty and has a bit of useful information, but definitely not what I was looking for. You can get most of the information on the internet anyway. Save your money.

It looks cute (like Martha Stewart's magazines) but did not contain one usefull piece of advice. Since most of us only do this once, there is not too much personal experience to draw from. Therefore we look to the professionals for ideas, sample wording and help.

This was total waste of time unless I was going to have each invitation hand written or tied with a rhinestone buckle.

I'm not sure what the reviewer below was reading because this book contains everything you could ever hope to know about wedding invitations. It's definitely visually attractive, but it's the useful information (even gives you a timeline for you invites to make sure you're on track which I am often not!) that make this a must-have item for anyone about to get married.

I have to admit, while planning my wedding I was hesitant at first to purchase a book that seemed to be on only one wedding topic. But being into stationery and typography, I'm glad I took a chance on this one. I wanted our wedding invitation to be really special (we have been together a long time and already have a child), and this book helped us achieve that goal. All the bases are covered, so you really understand what all your options are in a simple, non-overload way. This book is like a "master class", and is great for anybody who is interested in printing, stationery or invitations in general.

Just got this book yesterday to help me with a couple of weddings I have coming up.

I have read it already (it is a quick read) but will be going back through now and taking notes while I go through it again.

I like the way the author writes, he presents the entire book to you in easy-to-digest sections that map directly to what wedding clients or planners are expecting from you.

The first section deals with equipment and preparation. There is a great example of a checklist to use for the wedding day 'did I get all the shots' list and a list of the lenses and other equipment that Morag carries with him.

Next, he talks about a pre-wedding interview to get to know your clients and a pre-wedding shoot, and then about knowing the area you are going to shoot... and goes on from there to walk you through the entire wedding day, bringing up many great ideas for spicing up a shoot or getting the most out of difficult venues.

This book is packed full of good advice about shooting weddings and has many large, full color examples from Morag and other photographers.

If you need to get up to speed quickly on how to shoot a wedding this is your book.

I loved all the books in this series. It really shows how even though you think everything is all messed up, God sure does know what He's doing. :o)

I regret that I bought this whole series all together with high hopes and I was severely disappointed. By this last book, I ended up just scanning through it to get the basic (lame)story line. I mean, I had already bought it so I might as well just see what happened in the end. Terrible, boring, shallow series!!!

i really loved the book, i didn't want it to end. It's funny and realistic. It's the perfect end for Ashley Stockingdale. Makes you dream and be positive about life. And if you didn't read the other 2 books, you won't have much trouble to understand this one.
It really worth the price and the time i'd wait for to read it.

I have read all 3 of the Ashley books now and am quite disappointed in the whole series. I finished the series, hoping it would improve and I would likes the books, but that didn't happen. I was expecting a good read that would entertain me and make me laugh. There were times I was entertained and times I laughed, but overall, this book left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt bad for Ashley when Emily took over her wedding, but Ashley could have tried better to take back control. The Bible doesn't say "thou shall be a doormat". Kay's crisis about the man from her past was really unbelievable. That she held onto that for 20+ years made me sick. I would have expected something much better or at least something I could believe. I know that Ashley is a California girl, but being a girl from Philadelphia myself, I was a little upset with how Ashley criticized it and saw moving to Philadelphia as almost being exiled to Siberia. Really, we still have malls here and even some upscale ones. And food other than cheesesteaks.

Ms. Billerbeck is a good author. Her books read well. I just don't like them. I don't enjoy how the characters are all overblown and rather unbelievable. I don't feel that they even stayed in character for this book. The harping on Mensa really bothered me as I am someone who in incredibly intelligent. Being smart does not mean a person cannot be a Christian or a good human being. Also, the Christian part of this book sometimes seemed just thrown in because it hadn't been mentioned in few pages or chapters. I did appreciate that the author had characters that were flawed Christians. I just wish the book hadn't left me feeling as though Ms. Billerbeck feels all Christian women need to be married and need to do it before they run out of time or options. That being said, I'm glad Ashley did marry Kevin, as this let her accomplish her major goal in life.

If you're looking for other Christian chick-lit or fiction books to read, I'd recommend books by Trish Perry, Erynn Mangum, Denise Hildreth, Judy Baer, and Dee Henderson.

As someone who is planning a wedding. I got a huge kick out of this book. It made me laugh out loud and is very discriptive i could just imagine the characters. In some aspects i could see myself in this character. I give this book two thumbs up for anyone who is looking for a good book to entertain themselves with.

This is one of the better Love Stories books. The characters are well-developed, including the minor characters. There is a wonderful little subplot going on with Grizzly and Stacy. The first time I read this, I thought the characters were in college, not in high school. So if you're a little older and want something that isn't quite so corny, this is a good pick.

When I received this book in the mail, I was so excited to read it because of all the reviews and all, but when I started to read the book, I was kind bored in the beginning until I got to almost the middle..I Do wasn't exactly what I expected..It wasn't really about their love or relationship, but more of her being a journalist and reporting about the guy's lacrosse team which of course Adam is on..I expected more from Jane and Adam, but there weren't really anything between them..I mean there was a bond, but it wasn't something I thought was romantic..not until the end at least..So I give this book 3 stars..it's not GREAT, but it's a good read=]

This is a wonderful book from beginning to end. The dialogue and humor was great as well as the romantic situations. Don't miss this book!

i love this book so much. i like the friction between adam and jane.man i wish guys were more like him. i strongly urge you to read it!

This book is one of my favourites too... I bought it in 2000 and I still pick it up every now and again, it makes me laugh, smile and dream every time. It's so good even after all these years the story between Jane and Adam still captivates me. Elizabeth Chandler created two characters that make you wanna feel that click beteen hate and love that just makes your toes curl. :)