Weddings are celebrations of love and relationships, often marking pivotal moments in the lives of brides, grooms, and their families. But do they always feel that way for the guests?
In her new book, Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest, writer Jen Doll shares her varied experiences as a wedding guest.
“We’ve had these stories, millions of them probably, that we haven’t really talked about, in the kind of overlay of thinking that weddings are all about the bride and groom. (But) the guests all have their stories, too, and I wanted to explore those angles,” Doll told CTV News Channel on Wednesday.
“The point of the book was not to write an expose about my friends’ bad weddings.”
Doll in particular might have more stories than most: she’s attended a multitude of “big days,” 17 of which are recounted in the book.
Save the Date explores contemporary relationships, and how they are affected by weddings for better or for worse. She says weddings sometimes strengthen friendships, and other times they can break them apart.
Although the book is filled with some cringe-worthy tales, Doll said she was careful not to offend any of her friends whose weddings she wrote about.
“Most of them were really happy about it,” she said. “It so far doesn’t seem like I’m being disinvited for life.”
Doll wasn’t out to get anyone with reconstructions of terrible weddings.
“My book is more about love than it is about snarkiness or meanness or exposing bad weddings,” she said.
However, Doll advises would-be wedding guests to “talk about any repressed feelings,” before heading to someone else’s all-important event.
She hinted at one particularly embarrassing personal anecdote included in Save the Date, where shoes were apparently thrown down the road “in a drunken rage.”
“That is one memory I can’t really escape,” she says, calling it “regretful.”
But Doll thinks most readers will be able to relate, saying that most of us have probably been in a similar situation at some point.
