Friday, September 19, 2008

The Bridal Wave: A survival guide to the Everyone-I-Know-Is-Getting-Married years by Erin Torneo and Valerie Cabrera Krause

You have a lot of friends, male and female, and you stick together through thick and thin for years. You're happy being single, happy being with friends, but one day, you look up and it seems all your friends are married, or coupling or happily with someone else in their lives, and they just don't have as much time for you any more. And you look around, confused and dumbfounded, wondering how this all happened.

Worse, as one of the unattatched amongst your friends, everyone decides you aren't happy *not* being married and decides to spend their time fixing you up so you can join them among the ranks of the married. And if you turn down their efforts, you find yourself somehow excluded from the ranks of the people you were once friends with. Or perhaps you aren't so happy being single, and every time you recieve the "I've got a big Announcement!" call, you feel so jealous you could just die, and you wonder if this makes you a bad person.

If everyone around you is getting married, and you're still single, you are trapped in the middle of a bridal wave. And whether you want to be married or not, you wouldn't be human if you didn't feel a twinge of jealousy at how deliriously happy all your married or soon-to-be-married friends sound. "They found someone," you tell yourself. "How horrible a person must I be to be still alone amidst all these other people finding their soul mates and getting married all around me?"

Don't despair! Though it's hard to remember *why* you are happy being single when everyone around you seems to be joining the "Old Married's Club", you can get through this. Even if your friend wants you as part of the wedding party. Even if the other guests at her bridal shower talk about how wonderful and fun it is to be married.

This book gives you hints and tips for staying yourself and staying sane during the bridal wave, including tips on how to deal with a LoBrideomized friend, and your choices of how to deal, including the pros and cons of each choice. It shows you how to keep your sanity and sense of self-worth, and how to avoid settling for "Mr. Right Now" just to fit the timeline in your head.

This was a cute book, and is definitely worth the read. Even though, because I have few friends, I never was subjected to "the Bridal Wave", even my few but close friends are going to get married eventually, and then I will be glad for having read this book, especially the parts about how not to feel upset and worthless because your friends are getting married and you are not.

In addition to the good advice contained within, the book has the advantage of being funny as well. Even if its advice doesn't help you as much as you hope it will, you will still get a good laugh over the terms "Bridal Wave" and "Lobridemized", not to mention some of the situations presented in the book.

This book is the perfect antidote for the "Everyone is getting married but me" blues. With humor, plenty of advice and its small size, you'll want to keep it close and read it over and over and over again.

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