20 Poems About Love + Marriage Inappropriate 4 Weddings
The top 100 things you worry about as a bride – or the person invested in planning the wedding – is basically everything. For many years I have held the hand of the bride and/or groom as a tizzy was created over something: the color of the napkins – never right; the band – not one’s first choice; seeing the other partner before the wedding – very bad luck unless you’re Jewish: don’t ask. I’m a rabbi. In the very distant past, when I was in seminary, I thought it would be marvelous, romantic, inspiring to assist in the weddings of loving partners. Ha! I say. Ha!
My dear friend Jim’s book of poems inappropriate for weddings – which you have the good taste to be reading – is spot on. Marriage is not for the faint of heart. Attending a wedding is only a tiny bit less so. Being in charge of the debacle is a nightmare that doesn’t end until you have one or three quick drinks at the reception after the ceremony and then hightail it to your car. NEVER stay for the dinner! Everyone will have a favorite poem – or many – in this charming collection of poetry. “The Museum of Hideous Bridesmaid Dresses” is mine. I was lucky. I married very young – the first time – and somehow dodged the curse of being a bridesmaid and having to wear the hideous dress that marks one as a loser (not married.) The dresses my bridesmaids wore at my second wedding (marriage has miraculously endured) were simple, lovely and pale pink. The ushers, however, wore dove grey morning suits. (I was a radical feminist by then.) I relented on the top hats although I argued that my grandfather wore a top hat at my mother’s wedding. I believe in the traditions of weddings. “This collection proves in sickness and health no one ever looked good wearing orange.” (“The Museum of Hideous Bridesmaid Dresses.”) This collection of poems will make you laugh, cry, sigh and maybe get a drink. All things that happen at a wedding. It may also prompt you to discover if somewhere, somehow, there is a shade of orange that is flattering.
Rabbi Dr. Jo David
New York City. June 2020
My dear friend Jim’s book of poems inappropriate for weddings – which you have the good taste to be reading – is spot on. Marriage is not for the faint of heart. Attending a wedding is only a tiny bit less so. Being in charge of the debacle is a nightmare that doesn’t end until you have one or three quick drinks at the reception after the ceremony and then hightail it to your car. NEVER stay for the dinner! Everyone will have a favorite poem – or many – in this charming collection of poetry. “The Museum of Hideous Bridesmaid Dresses” is mine. I was lucky. I married very young – the first time – and somehow dodged the curse of being a bridesmaid and having to wear the hideous dress that marks one as a loser (not married.) The dresses my bridesmaids wore at my second wedding (marriage has miraculously endured) were simple, lovely and pale pink. The ushers, however, wore dove grey morning suits. (I was a radical feminist by then.) I relented on the top hats although I argued that my grandfather wore a top hat at my mother’s wedding. I believe in the traditions of weddings. “This collection proves in sickness and health no one ever looked good wearing orange.” (“The Museum of Hideous Bridesmaid Dresses.”) This collection of poems will make you laugh, cry, sigh and maybe get a drink. All things that happen at a wedding. It may also prompt you to discover if somewhere, somehow, there is a shade of orange that is flattering.
Rabbi Dr. Jo David
New York City. June 2020