Rating: 
Summary: Very helpful and oddly compelling
Review: First, this is a guide (and a good one), but not a normal guide. Jim Cutter kept a journal of his last month leading up to his wedding to track his thoughts and reactions to all the stuff that went on. He's not a wedding professional or anything, he's just a regular guy, which is what makes this book so good. The reader gets very helpful guidance from a groom who's going through the process just like the reader is, but the book isn't broken into chapters based upon advice type like most other guides.The good news is that this abnormal guide style is ok because grooms-to-be (and even brides-to-be) of 20-something first-time brides will thoroughly enjoy reading the entire book and will extract the good advice contained therein almost by accident. The writing style is very conversational, and this guy has an amusing way of putting things and a very insightful way of looking at everything that happened. Also, his frustration with everything going on lead to some great ideas that brides would never let us get away with (I, myself, would have loved to have been fishing while a groom-stand-in went through the motions for the crowd). Of course, some of the tips he comes up with are also quite helpful, such as planning out the groom's wedding day - no one else is going to do it for you, veto-authority registering strategies, wedding gift observations, and a many others. I also must confess that I found the story of his wedding by itself very interesting, and I kept turning the pages to find out what would happen next. Since the book is dedicated to his wife, I don't think I'm spoiling anything by writing that things work themselves out, but it was frequently amazing to read what was going on in that month. Of course, what can you expect when you have friends in the entertainment industry? For grooms and recently married husbands, this book is both excellent advice and amusing commiseration. Brides and recently married wives will also enjoy the book, both for humor value and for the wedding-horror-story aspects. Plus, brides-to-be will also like the fact that the author suggests that the groom do whatever he can to give the bride the day she wants. She might not like the reasoning, but she'll like the end result. Also, someone in the wedding industry or anyone who finds themselves attending several weddings of relatives and friends each year will also enjoy this book for its humor and for the fact that it rings so true.
Rating: 
Summary: It's just a Wedding
Review: I bought this book for my fiance and actually read it myself first. It was a great laugh, and a good reminder not to take the whole planning of the wedding SO seriously. A fun read for the bride and groom!
Rating: 
Summary: Not fit for print
Review: I bought this book for my fiance as a Christmas present based upon the previously positive reviews. I was thoroughly embarassed by its blatantly sexist content and just plain lack of helpful information.
According to the author, all women lose their minds when they become brides and grooms are expected to respond by tolerating it. That's the entire scope of the book. Don't bother reading it if you're expecting something more helpful or enlightening.
For God's sake, don't spend money on this book. You can find a *FREE* gently-used copy of it in my trash.
Rating:
Summary: A shockingly, unbelievably, bad wedding guide...
Review: I'm sure the author of this work is a nice guy who wrote this guide with the best of intentions, but let's be honest: The format, content, and helpfulness of this book are shockingly weak.
The format--seemingly stream of thought journal entries--provides no structure or organization for the wedding story, and the entries are filled with numbing details that make reading tedious. For example, (p.5) "Well I'm on the plane and on my way to LA on Midwest Express. If they go where you do, I suggest you take them. The seats are two across instead of three, they give you free wine, and the food's not only edible, it's good. They're generally on time and. . .")
The content itself is almost impossible to relate to. His bride is on the verge of tears every other page, they're fighting some enormous inheritance battle, everyone is constantly drunk, and the bride manages to have a total falling out with her lifelong best friend at the wedding shower. It's more like a soap opera than a wedding story. Finally, there really aren't any "suggestions," aside from that airline reference. It's just the story of what happened with little reflection on possible or promising alternatives. Altogether, it's such an underwhelming effort and some of the other "groom guides" were better by leaps & bounds.
As for the positive reviews here, I have substantial doubts about their authenticity and veracity!
Rating:
Summary: Very helpful and oddly compelling
Review: My bride-to-be bought this book for me, and I highly recommend it. I do have one beef: it's a very odd "guide." There is advice throughout, and it does highlight a lot of the issues that can pop up, but it isn't laid out like a normal guide. The guy kept a diary of his last month before his wedding. Leave it to a lawyer to write a guide in case-study form. Aside from the irregular presentation of this guide, it was still very helpful. I especially liked his veto-authority-only idea on registering. That has prevented a lot of frustration for me and my fiancée. I'm also going to make sure my schedule is thought out for the wedding day. Also, seeing the various problems that popped up, some big, some small, and seeing them all get handled helped to keep things in perspective for me. He's also right about letting your fiancée get a little crazy on the wedding stuff - it's really not worth fighting over and I don't want to be hearing about her "not getting the wedding I've dreamed of" for the rest of our marriage. My fiancée also seems to enjoy the book. Frequently, when we're making plans for the wedding, she'll bring up one of the problems they had in the book in an "if so-and-so ever did that to me, I'd kill them" or "I can't believe such-and-such happened" sort of way. I don't want to spoil any of the book's surprises so I can't get more specific about the problems - sorry. She also speculates a bunch about who the unnamed celebrity in the book is. I couldn't care less, but at least we both enjoyed the book, even if for different reasons.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: My bride-to-be bought this book for me, and I highly recommend it. I do have one beef: it's a very odd "guide." There is advice throughout, and it does highlight a lot of the issues that can pop up, but it isn't laid out like a normal guide. The guy kept a diary of his last month before his wedding. Leave it to a lawyer to write a guide in case-study form. Aside from the irregular presentation of this guide, it was still very helpful. I especially liked his veto-authority-only idea on registering. That has prevented a lot of frustration for me and my fiancée. I'm also going to make sure my schedule is thought out for the wedding day. Also, seeing the various problems that popped up, some big, some small, and seeing them all get handled helped to keep things in perspective for me. He's also right about letting your fiancée get a little crazy on the wedding stuff - it's really not worth fighting over and I don't want to be hearing about her "not getting the wedding I've dreamed of" for the rest of our marriage. My fiancée also seems to enjoy the book. Frequently, when we're making plans for the wedding, she'll bring up one of the problems they had in the book in an "if so-and-so ever did that to me, I'd kill them" or "I can't believe such-and-such happened" sort of way. I don't want to spoil any of the book's surprises so I can't get more specific about the problems - sorry. She also speculates a bunch about who the unnamed celebrity in the book is. I couldn't care less, but at least we both enjoyed the book, even if for different reasons.
Rating:
Summary: Boring, trite, humor from a conservative moron.
Review: My fiance bought me this book, based on the good reviews it has received thus far. Both of us read it, and both of us hated it. The book is basically the standard, stereotypical, gender-spivy story of how the calm, rational man deals with his completely irrational, emotionally-immature wife-to-be. The book is poorly written and not particularlly funny, because you've heard the basic story a million times before.
The author is a gun-toting member of the NRA who drinks to excess most evenings and asserts with an arrogance boardering on stupidity that second-hand smoke is harmless. Though obviously somewhat educated (he's a lawyer), the author seems to have the maturity of a High School student, and about the same command of the english language...
Frankly, it depresses me that in this supposedly enlightened age, no reviewer has seen fit to comment on the fact that the author is completely condescending towards women. The age-old refrain that a weding is "for the woman", and the man will just have to endure the pain of it is ridiculous. Rational human beings of the world - please - understand that a wedding can be a fun event for both the man and the woman. Both can play some part in planning it. Both can (& should) enjoy the day! If you can't figure out a better way to deal with the wedding than this guy does, then you ought not to be getting married in the first place. Do not buy this book. It's terrible.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, a REAL groom's guide
Review: OK folks, this is what ACTUALLY happens in the final days before a wedding. Mr. Cutter does a great job walking you through the utter insanity of preparing for a wedding. Future grroms: This will help you more than any other book out there. If your future wife does not buy this for you, buy it for yourself. It is a quick read, and one you will appreciate more and more in the days before THE day.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, a REAL groom's guide
Review: OK folks, this is what ACTUALLY happens in the final days before a wedding. Mr. Cutter does a great job walking you through the utter insanity of preparing for a wedding. Future grroms: This will help you more than any other book out there. If your future wife does not buy this for you, buy it for yourself. It is a quick read, and one you will appreciate more and more in the days before THE day.
Rating:
Summary: Puts him in the right state of mind
Review: This book helped me soooo much with my fiance and it's sooo funny! It doesn't have a lot of the typical tips and checklists that most guides have, but after my fiance read it, he didn't keep complaining about price everytime I tried to plan the details of our wedding with him. It's like a guide to putting your man in the right state of mind on your wedding. After the book, mine actually enjoys helping plan the wedding. Of course, he does still pick the most annoying moments to quote the book, but I just quote back to him, "suck it up and be a man." And wow, after reading what went wrong with this guy's wedding... Let's just say that I would FREAK! I just had to keep reading to find out how it all turned out, so as far as groom's books go, this one is awesome!!!
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