Such a great book for any feminist that is trying to navigate the waters of wedding planning or reconciliate their values with the patriarchal traditions of weddings and marriage. Majkut delves into where the traditions come from and how they have evolved, and how to make them more inclusive and less sexist. It's great to make you think and to plan an event that respects your values more.

This book was definitely interesting. For someone who has little prior knowledge about wedding traditions, I expect that this title while shed valuable insight in a constructive and empowering (not condescending) way. However, as someone with post-secondary education surrounding gender studies, and as someone who is familiar with where many wedding traditions come from, I found the book less engaging than I had hoped it would be. Moreover, it would have been nice to read more about non-heterosexual marriages. While same-sex marriages are not completely absent in the text, there could have been a lot more discussion than what was given.

Overall, this is an interesting book that explains the history of some of the outdated and unfair traditions in the standard heterosexual engagement & marriage process. It will be up to each woman to decide what to keep & what to throw out regarding all of these traditions, but I found it interesting that the author adhered to almost all of the traditions and then wrote a book for others explaining how they should skip all these patriarchal traditions. It would've been more reliable if she had bucked the system herself and then told us how well that went for her. Calling your "husband" your spouse isn't a big knock to convention.

The reason I only gave this book 3 stars is because of its insistence of trying to relate her topic, specifically the reason behind the traditions in today's heterosexual marriage and why they should be ignored, to broadly sweep across feminists AND the LGBT et al community. They are NOT the same, the issues a heterosexual woman faces as a feminist is NOT the same as the issues of that community and by trying to say they are, you water down the point you are making as a heterosexual feminist. It's infuriating when women try to be so all-inclusive when covering the topic of feminism. The issues that heterosexual women face and have faced for centuries and NOT the same as that community. Let's keep these two topics separate and let the experts (i.e. those who actually fit into that grouping) cover the issues they face and understand rather trying to say "WE" all face these issues. WE don't.

I was disappointed in this book so unfortunately I didn’t finish it. I read about 2/3 of it but found it quite off-putting. From the synopsis I was expecting a humourous take on the subject but instead found it quite dry, academic in tone and lacking in the humour department. Although I am a feminist this book struck the wrong tone with me. If a reader goes into it knowing they’re going to get this kind of polemical , fairly heavy-handed approach (and wanting same) then it is well-written.

My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for providing my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed this book, and the author's humour. It explains feminism well, and refutes the temptations of choice feminism in our modern era. Too many people consider feminism to be an awful word today, and it needs to be reintroduced as something approachable and applicable to modern life. It was interesting reading about the origins of bridal traditions. I knew some, like how Queen Victoria started the white dress obsession, but others were new to me. This book is easy to read in parts, skipping ahead to certain chapters, or all at once. It does get a bit repetitive in some sections where ideas or terms are constantly re-introduced, but I suspect this was done to keep those who skip to certain chapters informed of a term that they may have missed. In the ARC I received, Queen Victoria is listed as married to Queen Elizabeth II's husband, and a paragraph is repeated twice, but I suspect that these mistakes will be corrected at publishing.
The one thing I didn't like was that the author always seems to promote one idea and then does the opposite. She follows a lot of traditions that in hindsight, she wishes she had done differently, but to me, it got frustrating when so much of the time she was essentially saying, "do as I say and not as I do". Bridal registries for cohabiting couples are stupid, and a cash grab, but then the author admits to using her own price gun to get free stuff because it's fun. I wanted to pull out my hair at that, considering I got into a fight with my sister over the same behaviour! It's not very inspiring, and I kept mentally adding all the times an idea for equality would be mentioned and then the author would regretfully wish she could take back her own choice.
Hypocrisy aside, this is a very enjoyable book to read whether you are planning a wedding or not. It's a good intro to feminist thought, and a good backstory to a lot of traditions we don't think about today and just follow along with. I don't ever plan on marrying but found it to be a fun discussion on modern feminism.

REVIEW
Occasionally I like to read something a bit different, some humour, non-fiction or memoir type book so when I saw this book I fancied giving this one a go.

The cover depicts a rather fed up looking bride. Why is she fed up? Maybe it because its usually the bride that has to plan everything!?

The genres listed for this book are humour and science, I agree with the humour although there is a lot of serious points made in the book too. I'm not sure about the genre label of "science" unless its behavioural science as peoples' behaviour in regard to weddings is included within the book. I guess you could also add memoir/diary as we are going along on the pre-wedding build up to the big day and what it all entails for Katrina.

The book begins with the engagement ring, which is usually a diamond and every little girl has dreamt about for years. There's a part in the book where Katrina compares her desire for the perfect engagement compares to Gollum in Lord Of The Rings! She puts it all so much funnier than I would so I'll leave the exact statement for you to read in the book, but if you're anything like me I was giggling and picturing Gollum as I read it. Katrina also goes into why the wedding ring is a simple band with no beginning and no end to hopefully represent the marriage too.

Katrina goes on to give us, the reader the different traditions and rituals of a wedding and her sometimes amusing thoughts on them.

I have to say I totally agree with the whole "why should the woman change her name to that of her husband/partner". Personally I was self employed when I got married so for my business I still used my maiden name. Though I did bow to convention and take my husbands surname for everything else.

Katrina also suggests alternatives to the brides' parents paying for the whole wedding. In this day and age couples have either lived on their own or perhaps lived with their partner prior to the marriage, so why does the financial burden fall on the brides parents? Why can the financial burden be shared between both sets of parents and the couple themselves too?

I enjoyed reading the book and varied between laughing along, tutting, shaking my head and dare I say feeling I wanted to wave the feminist banner along with Katrina. There are even more areas within the wedding she could have covered, like families interfering with choices for bridesmaid, maid of honour, best man, ushers and little flower girl/page boys too. There's the "where to get married" arguments as well as the hymns (if marrying in church) or music. . .which guests sit where at the reception, then "sit down meal" vs "buffet" there always seems to be something for family and friends to complain or sulk about.

My immediate thoughts when I finished the book were that the book began really interesting, and I definitely learnt where some wedding traditions came from, and I found the book thought provoking as to why women seem to meekly give in to so called tradition by taking or rather conforming to taking their husbands surname when they marry.

My final thoughts are that the book was a good read. I enjoyed the lighter hearted sections of the book. I have to say the book pace felt like it was slower and dragging a bit in the latter part of the book. I stuck with the book and read it too the end. I just wish the pace and laugh out loud moments had been the whole way through to the end rather than just the first half /two thirds of the book.

I thought given the synopsis, that this book would be a more lighthearted approach to some of the marriage traditions that now seem almost standard but I found the book very dry and boring - if anything I would almost class this as an academic research book rather than a book members of the public would want to read.

This book is a fun read. An exploration of the (outdated) traditions around marriage, Majkut’s sense of humour oozes through the pages and this writers uses it to make some excellent points when it comes to the inequality with marriage from start to finish of this process - who knew even the cake was part of the inequality of married life, this book is a learning curve!

Putting each part of the wedding into historical perspective and then showing how awkward it looks in modern culture, for example bridesmaids or veils, this book really highlights the inequalities in a fun and lighthearted way that makes it such an easy book to read. I also think the advice at the end of each chapter about what you could do instead, eye-opening and far more interesting than what is traditional.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it’s contemporary, informative and such an easy read that if you’re soon to be married or thinking about it, but want to do in a way that makes you feel a bit more equal, this is the book for you. I really want more books that go in the same vein like this as I think there’s so much to explore as life goes on.