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118th out of 156 books
—
22 voters
The Conscious Bride: Women Unveil Their True Feelings about Getting Hitched
While family and future in-laws squabble over the menu and the table decorations, brides are supposed to sit, smile, and bask in the prospect of their happiness, even though that prospect is guaranteed to include the post-wedding depression that hits some 90 percent of women during their first year of marriage. This is a must-have book for any woman who has found the partn...more
Paperback, 232 pages
Published
December 7th 2000
by New Harbinger Publications
(first published December 5th 2000)
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Wow, I thought this book was fantastic and I'd recommend it to everybody. Basically it presents the perspective that engagement and marriage/commitment is a transitional life experience, and it makes sense that it would bring up feelings of grief and loss as we move from one life phase to the next. She suggests that the more open and honest we are to ourselves about what we're feeling, the smoother we'll negotiate the transition. And it's so normalizing to hear that other women were experiencing...more
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If you're a new bride (or groom) this is a must read. Ditch those lists from TheKnot.com, the planning guides and etiquette guides from the bookstore, and before you do on ounce of wedding planning, read this book.
Sheryl Paul, using her own experience and the voices of many other brides, takes the engagement, the wedding day, and the first year of marriage and gives it all a good hard look. She carefully and thoroughly examines the psychological, emotional and spiritual transformations that take...more
Sheryl Paul, using her own experience and the voices of many other brides, takes the engagement, the wedding day, and the first year of marriage and gives it all a good hard look. She carefully and thoroughly examines the psychological, emotional and spiritual transformations that take...more
4 likes · like · see review
Dec 16, 2011
Jennifer Kronk
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone planning a wedding.
Shelves:
wedding-madness,
non-fiction
Sometimes you find exactly the book you need at exactly the time you need it. This is a great example of that. I found this at a thrift store and bought it on a whim. I have a lot of wedding books after all, what could one more do for me? Well this book answered many questions for me and, overall, made me feel better about the whole wedding process. I really needed that! I needed to know that I wasn't the only bride to feel ambivalence to my wedding dress (a dress I loved when I bought it) and t...more
Sheryl Paul discusses rites of passage, the wedding as a rite of passage, life transitions, and what it means to be engaged, to be a bride, and finally to be a wife. She also includes many anecdotes by women relating their personal experiences of these three phases. What these anecdotes effectively do is to normalize many of the emotions that women may feel from the time of saying yes to the proposal, to the first year of marriage. I think this is brilliant and very, very helpful. She also demon...more
I got about halfway through this book and got bored. There are no jokes in it. I mean NONE! How can you write something that has no sense of humor in it at all? (Can you tell I'm unaccustomed to reading non-fiction?)
I read this book because: well, because before I do something, I like to read a lot of books about it. So I got this book about getting married (specifically, about women getting married.)
The premise seems to be this: getting married is an important and significant transition in a wo...more
I read this book because: well, because before I do something, I like to read a lot of books about it. So I got this book about getting married (specifically, about women getting married.)
The premise seems to be this: getting married is an important and significant transition in a wo...more
Designed to help future wives (or husbands more in touch with their feminine sides, queer couples not excluded) transform from singletons into marrieds, Paul uses Jungian archetypes to explain the bridal (or groomal) rite of passage and the periods of liminality brides (or grooms) can expect to encounter. In addition to including quotes from various brides who went through the experience themselves, she also adds helpful questions for you to ask yourself at the end of each chapter and some usefu...more
I really enjoyed this book. It was a refreshingly honest look at being engaged, getting married, and staying married. The book addresses the idea that not every single moment from engagement throughout marriage is blissfully happy. There are struggles along the way and it's very natural to feel stressed or confused at times. The comments from other women and the realistic tone of the book was very thought-provoking and insightful. At times, the style of the writing would get on my nerves, as wou...more
Even though it's from 2000, so not THAT old, it felt unbelievably dated. Plus I cannot roll my eyes hard enough at the woo-woo sisterhood/archetypes/understand your life from the perspective of Psyche and Eros stuff.
AND all the nonsense about indigenous cultures being better than Western culture at transitions and rituals. Which cultures? Indigenous to where? Of course I'm not saying Western culture is the best at everything, but just declaring that "tribal cultures" are better at, you know, stu...more
AND all the nonsense about indigenous cultures being better than Western culture at transitions and rituals. Which cultures? Indigenous to where? Of course I'm not saying Western culture is the best at everything, but just declaring that "tribal cultures" are better at, you know, stu...more
This short little book took me MONTHS to finish because I refused to allow myself to read the next chapter before I'd fully answered every question at the end of the previous one. I'm glad I went through that process, even if it did feel a little bit like homework, and even if it did take forever -- because really, I should be doing my homework about a decision this big.
Although this book covers a lot of the same ground as "Emotionally Engaged" (it seems worth mentioning, though, that "The Consc...more
Although this book covers a lot of the same ground as "Emotionally Engaged" (it seems worth mentioning, though, that "The Consc...more
Getting married is a complicated thing. Especially if you're a modern woman, raised with notions of how you should be able to support yourself but still want your dad to walk you down the aisle.
I read this book twice, about six years apart. The first reading I was not impressed - my mother had given it to my cousin, and I somehow came to pick it up during the days just before the wedding. It made a bad impression on me - I felt as if my mother were hinting to my cousin that she should be having...more
I read this book twice, about six years apart. The first reading I was not impressed - my mother had given it to my cousin, and I somehow came to pick it up during the days just before the wedding. It made a bad impression on me - I felt as if my mother were hinting to my cousin that she should be having...more
This is basically an anecdotal compendium of confusing feelings other women have felt about the process of getting married. The author compares the engagement process to a rite of passage for women, wherein the old self (the single woman, the daughter/child) sort of dies to make room for the new identity of "wife". Since modern society doesn't allow for a safe place for the bride to mourn the loss of her old identity, some women react to the disconnect by obsessing over having the perfect weddin...more
When I was planning my commitment ceremony, there weren't a lot of books out there for me and my partner. Sure, there are books about gay and lesbian love and books about gays and lesbians who live in long term committed relationships, but nothing quite like The Conscious Bride. What impressed me about this book was the fact that Sheryl Nissinen, though clearly having heterosexuals in mind for her target audience, acknowledged the existence of same sex love and marriage and invited readers to in...more
This was an awesomely thought-provoking book, examining the transformation that women go through as brides and entering into marriage, as well as looking at the ritual of marriage and what it means for brides, grooms, family, friends, and the community. It helped me normalize a lot of the emotional ups and downs during the engagement, as well as start conversations with my fiancé and my family.
I'm a big believer in healthy grieving for times and opportunities that are past, not because I long t...more
I'm a big believer in healthy grieving for times and opportunities that are past, not because I long t...more
Ugh. This book read like it was written in the 1960's rather than 2000. The brides that were interviewed for the book seemed incredibly unhappy to be getting married... someone should have advised them that, if they are balling their eyes out and freaking out over bridesmaid dresses, maybe they weren't ready to get married. There were so many lines that made me cringe within the first 10 pages-I just don't have the patience to finish it. Gag me with a spoon.
I think any woman who is planning on getting married, just wed, or has been married for 10 years should read this book. It puts so many fears and questions at ease! There are so many myths about how a wedding "should" be, but no one talks about how it actually is. Many brides are set up for disappointment before they even meet their husband. I found this book to be very informative, and I am so glad I found it.
I checked this book out from the library after starting to read The Conscious Bride Wedding Planner.
The Planner is MUCH better.
My biggest issue with the book is that it's written like a research paper. I wouldn't be surprised if the author had taken her thesis from school, tweaked it a little, and got it published.
She just rehashes the same idea over and over and...you get the point.
In short: getting married is a rite of passage, and you have to grieve your former life before you move on to the...more
The Planner is MUCH better.
My biggest issue with the book is that it's written like a research paper. I wouldn't be surprised if the author had taken her thesis from school, tweaked it a little, and got it published.
She just rehashes the same idea over and over and...you get the point.
In short: getting married is a rite of passage, and you have to grieve your former life before you move on to the...more
I found this book very helpful when planning my wedding. It was an interesting perspective on the psychological changes a woman goes through when making the move from single gal to wife. True, I didn't struggle with my decision as much as some of the book suggested, but it was still (obviously) a life changing time for me, and I enjoyed processing it thoroughly.
This was a great read for me - a little out there - but helped me a lot. I can't just read the wedding mags and wedding planners, I like to know how this huge event/transition may affect me emotionally. Initially I thought I needed to read something to help prevent overwhelm, but now I know that overwhelm is healthy and part of the process. Definitely worth the read for anyone getting married who likes to understand themselves better.
for anyone getting married any time soon i highly recommend this book! very helpful in understanding the archetypal process of preparing for marriage. even if you are already married and are reflecting back on your wedding it could be helpful!
Generally I would recommend this book, it gives an insightful perspective of women's feelings before and in the first year of marriage. The viewpoint, however, it not quite modern enough, I would say.
A good book for panicking brides (I was one not so long ago).
This helps to make sense of the challenges, fears, relationships and all these struggles that seem to surface as soon as you get engaged.
This helps to make sense of the challenges, fears, relationships and all these struggles that seem to surface as soon as you get engaged.
Jul 07, 2008
Amanda Lueck
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
brides who need to chill
Recommended to Amanda Lueck by:
Nancy & Katie
Erg. Getting married means reading non-fiction. I had this book checked out for two months from the library. Two friends who had already trekked to the altar recommended it, and I found it a little reassuring but not life-changing. It basically allows women to think more clearly about the many life changes and psychological processes that occur during the process of getting hitched. I've been thinking about these so much that I was not particularly enlightened by the book -- but was reassured, I...more
It's telling the type of books I was reading in the weeks and months leading up to my marriage.
Many thanks to my dearest Kitri-lein for passing this book along to me. It's almost as if the author knew exactly what some of my thoughts have been in recent months as I've prepared for my wedding. No matter what anyone says, planning for the actual "big day" is not as important as planning for the future and all the changes, particularly emotional, women experience as they marry. This book brings those ideas to the forefront and shares excerpts from how many brides have dealt with the new expe...more
Interesting and relevant issues are tackled in this book. Unfortunately the delivery of them is way cheesy and hard to get through. Ugh. The mythology references were painful to wade through as well. The last chapter was inspirational and the book ended on a great note.
I read this 2 months before my wedding. It helped.
Really did not identify with this book at all. Didn't actually read the whole thing, but skimmed enough of it.
Apr 09, 2009
Mariah
marked it as to-read
Acquired 2008 from Midway Goodwill
Aug 13, 2008
Ashley (cnthrdlywt2bwz)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Any engaged woman
Recommended to Ashley (cnthrdlywt2bwz) by:
saw it on amazon
Although I wasn't experiencing a lot of the things that the author described about about-to-be-brides, it did give an insightful look at what I could experience leading up to the wedding and afterwards. Just being aware of the fact that I may feel upset, nervous, confused, etc. before and after the actual marriage ceremony helped me attack those feelings and emotions prior and it felt really good to do that. This is not a self-help book or anything, just a narrative of lots of engaged and marrie...more
Getting married isn't only a time to celebrate, but sometimes a time to grieve as well: loss of singlehood and changes in relationships with family and friends. Can be helpful to take time during the engagement and wedding planning to check-in with yourself and others. Not doing this could be a reason some brides become bridezillas, only focusing on details of a wedding and not all the emotion and changes involved in such a rite of passage.
http://www.consciousweddings.com/
http://www.consciousweddings.com/
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