If the only thing you and your beloved know for sure about your wedding is you want to get married, Helen Latner’s “The Everything Jewish Wedding Book” may help get you started.
This easy-to-read guide covers it all, from introducing a couple’s parents to one another to booking a reception site, incorporating Jewish traditions into an interfaith ceremony and dealing with damaged gifts.
The book even provides guidelines for unexpected circumstances, such as telling invited guests a wedding has been called off and proceeding with the ceremony if a relative has died.
The book is organized into 17 chapters. Shaded columns in the book’s margins include snippets of information on everything from why the groom breaks the glass at the end of the ceremony to where to find Jewish musicians.
Also provided are a glossary of Jewish wedding terms, a calendar and to-do list and forms for submitting engagement announcements to newspapers. To simplify planning the various aspects of a Jewish wedding, couples will also find checklists for the kiddush, the prewedding rehearsal dinner and the aufruf, when grooms and sometimes couples are called to the Torah on the Shabbat preceding the wedding.
If the book has one failing, it is that the guidelines are too exhaustive. Couples who weren’t sure where to begin planning their wedding may find their heads spinning after considering 288 pages of suggestions and instructions.
Smart couples will not take the guidelines too seriously. They’ll follow a piece of advice here and there, then trust their own instincts.