Hana Schank's story of "How I Survived the Happiest Day of My Life" is essential reading for any bride, groom, family member, wedding party member, newlywed, wedding guest, literature fan or memoir fan. I read this book just a year after planning my own wedding, and I had repeated moments of identification with Schank's experience. I would have loved to have this book as a bride-to-be.

Schank was a highly successful 30-year-old New York woman when she got engaged. She experienced a year of the tug of Bridezillaness despite her best efforts to keep her wedding plans in check. She became obsessed with her wedding colors despite her original plans to allow everyone to dress as they wished. She initially spurned registries and then became irritated with people who didn't believe in them. After laughing at the notion of Save the Date cards, Schank painstakingly hand-tied bows on hundreds of them, and then was crushed when they didn't garner effusive praise from the recipients. At some point, Schank succumbed to the belief in "My Day" and flew off the handle at vendors who refused to alter their standard packages to meet her unique needs.

In addition to her first-hand bride experience, Schank possesses research skills and an MFA in nonfiction writing, so she is supremely qualified to reflect on her experience with the modern bridal industry. She muses about the invention of the registry, about the social networking of wedding site The Knot, about the "once in a lifetime" mantra of the wedding industrial machine (spend the money, this is once in a lifetime) and about traditional Victorian etiquette versus the realities of modern life.

Grammy serves as the perfect foil to all of Schank's wedding planning. Over the telephone, Schank has to repeatedly explain to her aged grandmother the wedding plans, the reasons behind traditions and what she needs from her relatives.

Schank's witty prose ties the story together well. One of my favorite passages is about the trickle of wedding gifts that start arriving after the invitations are mailed: "Other people called our parents and informed them that they didn't see anything on the registry they liked, and therefore wanted to know what else we might want. This was particularly confusing because the whole point of having a registry in the first place was so that people won't have to call you up and ask you what you want. In theory, everything you want is on the registry. And really, who cared if the gift-giver didn't like anything on the registry? It wasn't going to them. ... People want to send you something that they see as representative of their personality, even if their personality representation isn't necessarily something you want hanging around your house. You therefore must live with a butt-ugly set of ceramic dessert plates or a set of Judaic art depicting a Jewish bride and groom in renaissance costume, as opposed to the really nice set of crystal highball glasses you spent several weeks hunting for."

The combination of personal experience, terrific research, historical perspective and witty narration makes this memoir a surefire winner.

by Jessica Lux-Baumann
Rambles.NET
2 September 2006