Legendary Brides [Hardcover]

Other reviewers have said that this book has serious problems given that some of the weddings featured ended in divorce or other tragedy. While it's true that one can't help but to think about those things while reading this book, the book is about WEDDINGS, not marriages, and as such, I found it to be beautiful. The book features brides throughout the ages, starting with Queen Victoria and moving on to Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. The author describes the overwhelming love felt by each of these brides at the time of their marriages and highlights the most romantic details of their weddings. In addition, she offers suggestions (under the heading "Something Borrowed") on how to adapt some of the wedding traditions used by these brides in order to incorporate them into a modern wedding. Overall, this book is gorgeous to look at, and while some of the stories had sad endings, the book itself is joyous.

Most wedding authors,especially those who are "in the know" such as Miss Baldrige, would have you believe that capturing a Prince Charming is the most important feat in having a romantic wedding. Were only that the case, as she so aptly illustrates with her fatalistic choices of weddings profiled in her latest book, "Legendary Brides: From the Most Romantic Weddings Ever".
While each of the brides profiled did indeed marry a wonderful, famous man, the marriages and divorces resulting from these unions produce better fodder for reading than the photos in the book, many reproduced in countless other publications. Looking at the fabulous Grace Kelly as a young bride, one feels for the family not only for enduring her tragic death of a car accident in Monaco that claimed her life and injured daughter Stephanie, but also for her estrangement from Caroline at the time of her death. Jackie Kennedy's wedding day smile masks her shame of her father lying in a drunken stupor while an uncle walks her down the aisle. Who knew she would marry a man quite like Black Jack Bouvier, with an eye for the women? And Princess Diana, did she know that Prince Charles spent the night before their wedding with Camilla? How he tortured her by ignoring and mocking her naivete only makes our hearts ache for her boys left behind? Now the boys are to be molded into employees of "the firm", Queen Elizabeth's tongue in cheek reference to the monarchy.
Carolyn Bessette looked angelic on her wedding day. One doesn't sense from the photos that John would risk their lives to fly to a relative's wedding rehearsal dinner they would miss anyway. John dismissed the flying instructor at the airport, even though weather reports predicted low ceilings and marginal weather. An inexperienced pilot in a relatively new airplane (he had purchased the plane only 1 month prior to the fatal flight)John had under 100 actual flying time as pilot in command. Coupled with his lack of knowledge and experience in flying his new plane, inclement weather and spatial disorientation, the flight was doomed before takeoff.
Had Ms. Baldrige done her homework, some inspirational close ups of the couples not widely published would have been better than table shots and mundane overviews best left to where she obtained them -- People Magazine and the like.

Others have sniped that Letitia Baldrige has focused on an odd assortment of brides, including both Diana, Princess of Wales, and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy--both of whom had famous weddings, but both of whom died tragically young. The key word here, my dears, is "bride" in the book's title. Baldrige's work doesn't purport to say anything about the marriages that followed these weddings--only that the brides themselves were gorgeous, amazing, almost fantastical creatures who caught the imagination of nearly everyone when they appeared on the world stage.

That said, there are great things about this book and not-so-great things. It's fun to see so many photos of these lovely brides--among them, the two named above and Jacqueline Kennedy, Princess Grace, Wallis Warfield Simpson, and Consuelo Vanderbilt. Many of the photos were either previously unpublished or not well-known by the general public, so they appear here in fresh light. The photos and the handsome graphic design are among the excellent things about the book, as are the little anecdotes (such as what each famous bridal couple gave each other and the members of their wedding parties as gifts).

The down side is that Baldrige tries to meld a wedding etiquette book with a coffee table overview of, well, legendary brides. I'm not sure it works all that well. While she undoubtedly has excellent advice to offer all of us on the planning and execution of a memorable wedding, I for one would have preferred that these pages had been devoted to a broader group of other legendary brides. What, for instance, of the English Queen Mother and King George? What about the current Japanese crown prince and princess? What about other well-known society or Hollywood brides? Others are touched on lightly here, but Baldrige doesn't devote the space to them that her title promises.