Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest

by Jen Doll

Weddings. They’re fun, festive, and joyful, and at a time when people marry later in life—and sometimes not at all—they offer endless opportunities to reexamine love and what we want for ourselves, regardless of whether or not our aim is a walk down the aisle. In Save the Date, Jen Doll charts the course of her own perennial wedding guesthood, from the ceremony of distant family members when she was eight to the recent nuptials of a new boyfriend’s friends.

There’s the first trip home for a childhood pal’s big day, in which she learns that her first love has eloped to Hawaii. There’s the destination wedding attended with little baggage beyond a suitcase of strappy sandals and summery party dresses. Regrettably, there is a series of celebrations that mean the end to a valued friendship. There’s also the wedding that offers all the promise of new love.

Wedding experiences come in as varied an assortment as the gowns at any bridal shop, and Doll turns a keen eye to each, delivering a heartfelt exploration of contemporary relationships. Funny, honest, and affecting, Save the Date is a fresh and spirited look at the many ways in which we connect to one another.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Humor, Chick Lit, Biography, Adult, Biography Memoir

336 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2014

About the author

Jen Doll has written for The Atlantic, The Atlantic Wire, Cosmopolitan, The Hairpin, New York magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Toast, Topic, Vice, The Village Voice, and The Week, among others. She grew up in Alabama and lives in Brooklyn and upstate New York.

Reviews

[Jessica J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This might sound way bitchier that I intend it to, but I want to ask the developmental editors who worked on this book why he or she thought this was ready to be presented as a final product that could be marketed as humorous.

In many cases, I would easily chalk this up to not my not being the right audience -- that happens a lot -- but, the thing is, I'm pretty sure I am the right audience. I'm a lady in my late twenties who isn't hitched yet but has attended many a nuptial and likes to read other ladies' memoirs. Who should love a book full of supposedly funny wedding stories more than me?

With the exception of the curious folks who've been with their significant other since their school days, most ladies I know have at least one really bad wedding-attending experience to share with their friends. The girl who went to a wedding three weeks after a really nasty break-up, got drunk, and took home a groomsman whose name she never knew. Girls who have licked mascara off their crying friend's face so that she may continue dancing without the entire reception knowing just how sad she is about a boy that's treated her like dirt. The girl who punched a guy in the face because his dancing wasn't entirely up to her standards.

I'll let you guess which of those ladies is yours truly.

My point is that most everyone finds themselves attending approximately seven quadrillion weddings on the weekends between their 24th and 32nd birthdays. And at every one of those weddings, there's going to be someone who is depressed about singlehood and can't contain it, or someone who is cynical and bitter about the entire concept of marriage and can't contain it, or maybe someone who is naturally prone to drunkenly whipping out his cash and prizes and can't contain it. And these stories may be funny or mortifying or significant to you and the people who love you, but they generally don't mean much to anyone else. They're not really the kind of stories that you construct and entire memoir around.

So my problem here is that I didn't really find Jen Doll's stories particularly interesting or unique or insightful or funny. These were just very typical stories of one night stands and relief over not being the one to be excited that she caught the bouquet. And while she and her friends might find these stories emotionally significant, she just doesn't have the comedic chops nor the reflective insight necessary to keep me interested.

[Obsidian · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a nope for me. I needed something to read to break up my Halloween reads and I was promised a hilarious send up of being a single girl/woman serial wedding guest. As someone who is that single friend at weddings I was ready for it. Weddings have been on my mind lately (you guys hear about that plantation wedding thing? Sigh) so I thought this would be a nice read in between horror. Too bad this book was not good.

Jen Doll's book bounces all over the place, but I can honestly say she sounds like a pain in the ass as a wedding guest, girlfriend, and friend. You don't need enemies with her around. I have unfortunately met this type of girl at weddings before. It's like a bat signal goes up. You can always tell the one that is going to drink too much, get nasty, and or mad if people are not paying her any attention. I hard cringed reading this book.

Jen provides readers with details/memories of significant weddings in her life. She even goes into her parents (she wasn't present) and while providing details on the wedding, will intersperse that with details about the bride, groom, and wedding guests. I pretty much only liked hearing about her parents and was curious about her childhood since she mentions her family moving around a lot. I was also doubly curious about her growing up in the south.

She wrote for a lot of well known magazines like The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, The Village Voice, and others. So she can definitely write. That's not the problem.

I think the problem is that she made herself the anti-hero in her own story. You will probably come away with not liking her very much and or thinking she may have a problem with alcohol. She even gets into a fight with an ex-friend's husband at a wedding and he goes of course Jen is drinking again which to me shows that a lot of people think she drinks a lot.

I think most of these stories center around Jen and how the weddings and people made her feel. I just don't know if she got or understood that unless you are the bride, you don't make a wedding about you. She revisits one awful wedding where she got drunk and hit friends of hers that were trying to take her back to her hotel room. I just cringed inside while reading. She claims to have blocked things out because she doesn't want to remember, but yeah I bet she does. God knows I remember every dumb ass thing I have done too. When you think she has finally learned her lesson, she goes to a wedding with a guy who sounds interesting/shows promise, and then flips out because he's not paying enough attention to her. I would have cursed her out and went about my day.

My rules for attending weddings:
1. Are you the bride? No. Then shut up and be helpful and make sure you don't cause drama.

As someone who has been a maid of honor at a destination wedding (what a pain the ass that was) and was also in my brother's wedding, I can say that I was thrilled when my last two friends who got married did not ask me to be a bridesmaid. I don't get hurt by it, and don't give two craps. That means I can chill all day til the ceremony, then make sure I bring something to snack on in the car on the way to the reception. And then I will smile, toast, take pictures, be helpful (once was in the bathroom for an hour untangling a friend's long ass train) and go back to my room and sleep away til the next day.

I think without realizing it, that Jen's inability to put her friend's first caused some of them to not turn away from her, but towards the end of the book, she was just a guest and not in the wedding parties for some of the girls who were in wedding parties with her before. Frankly, I don't blame the brides, who wants that headache?

The sections that made me die the most inside though was Jen going into her friend's Ginny's marriage and being mad that Ginny wouldn't leave her husband cause Jen didn't like him. It didn't sound abusive, it just sounded like the guy was kind of a dick. I just don't know why she was so overly involved in it. It just sounded like drama and she was feeding on it. Ginny gets brought up throughout this book, so you don't know what happened at first, but we eventually get there. And even after the friendship is broken, Jen can't help poking at it like a scab. I can see why the mutual friends were tired of it.

I was hoping for more of a girl power book (being happy being single and attending weddings solo) and having some funny remembrances that occurred at weddings. This book was totally not what I though it was going to be.

[Nicholas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't want to go so far as to say that the book was downright bad, but it definitely wasn't good. Ostensibly the tale of all the weddings Jen Doll has attended, with each chapter nominally organized around one of them, it's really just a memoir about Jen Doll's life. If there is a "point" to the book, it's sort of a rumination on what it means to be a single gal about town who hasn't married by her later thirties and may not do so. And all of that is just fine for what it's worth. I didn't have a problem with the organization of the memoir or what she was trying to do.

But, like other reviewers here, I didn't find the book particularly funny, and it bills itself this way (I may have laughed out loud twice) and I don't think Doll is any more insightful about what marriage means in contemporary society (answer: a whole lot, and simultaneously very little) than anyone else I've read on the subject. Both of these things, combined with the fact that Doll doesn't actually seem to have been to any more weddings than any of the rest of us in our late thirties, made me wonder how an agent and an editor thought that this was such a good idea.

And then there's the matter of Jen Doll and booze. I think the one thing that shocked me about this book was both that she was willing to tell us so much about her friends and their weddings and her exes (all of whom will surely recognize themselves in these pages despite the pseudonyms), but that she also was so forthcoming about her own drunken mishaps. And I do mean drunken. Doll seems to be one of those drunks who crosses an invisible, yet significant, line when she drinks and everything after that crossing is angry and sad and nightmarish for everyone around her. I suspect that most of her friends have had conversations about her drinking when she is not present. And she only kind of gets that. In that respect the use of the word "mortifications" in the subtitle is entirely accurate. But I just couldn't believe a person could simultaneously recognize how problematic this drinking behavior was and then also want to relive it all with other people. Through the printed word, always and forever. It made me suspect that she really didn't get that she might have an actual problem. Because even after the one truly most awful drunken wedding incident (and who knows how many happen NOT at weddings?), she still has others, albeit more minor ones.

All that said, I downloaded the thing to my iPad at about 4 pm and finished it by 11, with a healthy-sized dinner break. It was entirely readable, sometimes even engrossing (there were no moments when I felt the prose was actually bad), I just don't think it was particularly successful at what it set out to do.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do you remember that episode of Seinfeld where J Peterman is supposed to be writing a book about his life, and for all the privilege and opportunities he has had in life, he just doesn't have any interesting stories or anecdotes? Now imagine he wrote a book about the weddings to which he has gone.
I sort of still can't believe that this got published. One can surmise based on various things within the content of this book that this author has led a somewhat charmed life, and I think that scoring this book deal speaks to that.
First of all, I think that the subtitle should have been flip-flopped to say, "the serial mortifications of an occasional wedding guest." She honestly doesn't seem to have been to that many weddings, and she does seem to have made a fool of herself at all of them.
Secondly, the book jacket describes this book as hilarious. I honestly have no idea to what that is in reference. I have been known many a time to laugh out loud at a book, yet I only remember even smiling once while reading this one. And that was at this realization: at one point in the book, the author says that when she was a child and someone would ask her for a kiss, she would run from them and passionately kiss herself in a mirror. I smiled to myself, thinking how ironic it was that only two pages earlier, referring to something completely unrelated, the author had said, "a metaphor if ever there was one."
Indeed, the author does seem rather smitten with herself. Even when she is revealing some rather unpleasant truths about herself, she doesn't seem to really grasp how ugly they are. For example, her drinking seems truly problematic, and she references other people saying so, and she even makes a joke about how she may have had a drinking problem for a while. She also seems to sort of get, but not REALLY get what a double standard this is: that she has dragged dates to several weddings and then had a fit because they were not making a good enough attempt to have fun with a bunch of strangers, and then when she attends a wedding with a new boyfriend and he is paying attention to his friends more so than to her, she has what even she calls "a tantrum" about it. There are numerous references made to the weddings she attends in her late 20s and into her 30s where she gets drunk to the point of vomiting, or does things such as making out with strangers, throwing her shoes when she's mad, and other behavior that could be described as rather pathetic. Maybe these stories are intended to be funny, but they come across as just sad. On a number of occasions throughout the book, the author's friends are gravely counseling her as to who she owes apologies to, and things like that. They don't sound any more amused by her antics than I was. And there are a number of points throughout the book where it seems apparent to me as a reader, though not to her as the author, that men are eager to cut ties with her, whether they just met her and she is drunkenly sobbing to them, or whether they are trying to extricate themselves from an actual relationship with her.
The allegedly hilarious circumstances that she seems to find so unique to her are things such as the following: she's going to a wedding, and she finds out that some guy who years earlier beat her in a high school debate – unfairly, of course – will also be in attendance. BFD, right? To what I can only assume would be the exasperation of the bride, she obsesses over this and of course can't steer clear of him at the wedding, and they end up making out. This seems like barely an anecdote to relate to friends, much less an actual book chapter.
To fill the book out a little bit more, and give it a lighter tone, there are lots of unnecessary details about the great outfits and shoes is the author wore to each of these weddings. She also interjects as a cutesy detail what she calls "Wedding tips." Like, "Wedding tip: eat the whatever", or "Wedding tip: don't puke". Not those exactly, but equally stupid, and often not even written in the form of a tip.
And then, for gravitas, the author muses about the nature of marriage itself (at length, and without breaking any new ground), and its meaning to society and to her. It seems like she is really grappling with her own single status, though all the while pointing out that it is better than "settling" for someone. Of course this is true, and of course there is nothing wrong with being single. However, it seems like she is to some extent trying to convince herself of that, and like she could give a little more thought to how she could herself be a better partner for someone, rather than just all the ways that someone might disappoint her as a partner.
For all of the navelgazing she does and all of the thinking about herself that she seems to do, she just doesn't seem to have arrived at some critical realizations. And there's nothing funny about that.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is going to be a tricky one to write. So, let's put it off for a minute, shall we? This is where I'll tell you that I'm obligated to disclose the fact that I didn't purchase this book. Instead, I won it through a Goodreads giveaway.

Well, crap, that didn't last long, did it?

When I read the little blurb describing the contents of this book, I was under the false impression that what I would be getting was various wedding stories from hell, similar to what Concierge Confidential is to hotels, and Retail Hell is to, well, retail. That's not exactly the story here, though admittedly that was my own fault. I should have paid closer attention, and read the synopsis all the way through. While there were a few chapters about different destination weddings, drunk bridal parties, etc., for the most part, this read like a Jen Doll autobiography. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it was somewhat disappointing, when I was anticipating getting a few cheap laughs. But, again, I'll take most of the blame for that. In my own defense, however, the title is somewhat misleading, don't ya think?

I mean no personal offense to Ms. Doll, but there's really nothing extraordinary about the experiences she writes of. Add to that the fact that her delivery lacks a certain spark. The book read more like a research paper, and less like an amusing memoir. In fact, as I was nearing its midpoint, I was downright bored, and eagerly anticipated the buzz of my clothes dryer so I could escape to folding clothes. (There's something wrong with that, I think.)

A more apt description of Save the Date would describe it as Ms. Doll's journey toward relationship contentment, interspersed throughout with various nuptials all over the world. Seriously - nice and dry, just like that. Instead, the word 'hilarious' is tossed around in the description, and I'm still looking for that particular passage. While I may have smiled occasionally, there was certainly no hilarity involved. Also, one of my major problems with the book is that every time I found myself rooting for a coupling to be successful, I would read on to the next chapter, only to discover that she had moved on to the next guy.

My overall impression is that she was aiming to cover this autobiographical nuptial ground in an amusing way, a la Jen Lancaster, but it just falls flat. While the girl can certainly write, she lacks that snarkiness that Ms. Lancaster wears so well. I don't think you can fake that - you either have it, or you don't. And, I'm sure you can guess which category I'm filing Ms. Doll in.

I'm still going to rate this 3 stars. As I stated previously, my disappointment probably stems more from my misplaced expectations than with any fault in the book. Although, I still think the word 'hilarious' should be stricken from the record. Just sayin'...

[Kelly Tumbleson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I admire Jen Doll's self-confidence in retelling incidents perhaps best left locked in the past, and I feel something like horrified pity for her friends.

Allow me to summarize over 300 pages:

"I wore a purple dress and high heels.
I didn't have a date and I hated it/I had a date and I hated him.
I didn't NEED a date/I didn't WANT to need a date/I didn't want the date I had.
I got really stupid drunk (againnnn) and acted like a small, undisciplined, selfish child, and while I may feel a twinge of regret, it's really okay because those were my true feelings at the time and I'm really not sorry.
That guy I was dating? He gone.
I'm happy being single. No one can make me get married.
Wine is the BEST!"

[Joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I was already in something of the wedding spirit when I picked it up, having just attended a string of happy spring nuptials. So I was primed and ready for a few laughs and some deep reflection on weddings and love and friendship.

I really wanted to love it, and while I did find it at times mildly entertaining (I may have chuckled in a couple places), I didn’t find it funny so much as cringe-inducing. I just couldn’t find any humor in the author's immature, self-involved, dramatic antics. If anything, reading these stories just made me sad. Sad to see the exploits of a grown woman cycling through the same old behavioral patterns: excessive drinking, pulling focus away from the bride and groom on their special day, creating unnecessary drama, naively misreading social cues that were beyond obvious to the reader (as in, this guy clearly wants nothing to do with you….put the drink down and walk away NOW). There didn’t seem to be an end in sight to her indulgent, reckless behavior. Did she learn from her mistakes? I didn’t get the sense that she learned anything, but who knows?

If the author’s Twitter stream is any indication, she seems like a bright, funny, interesting person. I certainly admire her candor in revealing her past foibles and missteps, and I'm sure she has every intention of moving past them. I just wish it made for a funnier, more light-hearted story instead of the cry for help I suspect this book really is.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just because someone says "Wow, you should write a book!" doesn't mean you should. That is all.

[Rob Slaven · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual I received this book for free in exchange for a review. This time it was from LibraryThing. Despite that kindness I give my candid opinions below.

The nutshell view of this one is easy. This woman goes to a LOT of weddings, as I'm told women tend to do. While there she's made some insightful observations about the human condition. It should be noted this isn't a book full of witty wedding mishaps. This is no America's Funniest Weddings. It's a pointed and thoughtful look at how humans match up with each other.

To the positive side, the author is obviously a wonderfully bright and introspective soul. I started this book expecting something rather vapid but instead got a very thoughtful view of weddings. These are the sorts of observations that I would quietly make to myself during such a ceremony and never tell anyone about. Jen Doll has chosen to tell the world.

To the negative, as much as I appreciate the author's viewpoint, I just couldn't care enough about the her detailed observations of the human psyche to slog through the sometimes minute details of the her own personal experiences. By all means yes, let us converse about the factors that make people find each other in this mad and mixed up world but let's not talk in detail about what you had to drink last night, what you were wearing or how hungover you feel tonight.

In summary, there's a bright light in this book but it is buried under a bushel of randomness. Lots of potential for a more focused treatise but it's not there yet.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dear Author,
I greatly enjoyed your book, but as I started to get to the end, it began to make me feel a bit exhausted. Why is that? Because as self-aware as you seem to be and through all lessons you so eloquently talk about, and the emotional ups and downs of relationships seen through the veil of the wedding attendee, one thing stands out. YOU DRINK TOO DAMN MUCH. The "occasional mortification" mentioned in the subtitle is because you always allowed alcohol to be the way you found to fit in and feel part of the event.

By the end of the book, the last two weddings, I kept hoping against hope that you would have finally realized that you don't need to be blotto to have fun, that an open bar or an after party isn't always your friend. I gave up in disgust when you talked about your childish outburst at Will for playing beer pong.

If I had been your friend at any point during these years you talked about, I probably would have staged an intervention. Seriously, girl, get into AA or something.

The common denominator in all your wedding disasters isn't being young and foolish, or not understanding something, or whatever. It's because you drank too damn much.

Your book would carry way more weight if you had been introspective enough to recognize that you have control issues when it comes to drinking.

I really hope you and Ginny somehow can patch things up in the future, but her husband's comment in New Orleans should have been your books subtitle: "Here comes Jen, drunk off her ass again."

[Emily Hoornstra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being her debut novel, I guess we're supposed to extend some extra grace towards Ms. Doll. I made myself finish the book but it wasn't because I was so intrigued nor amused. Although I had hoped to be! Her self-deprecating humor through the course of all these wedding recollections falls flat and you can't help but feel sorry for her. She reveals some lengthy inner monologues about marriage but it isn't clear, even by the end, that she has drawn any conclusions nor figured anything out. And if she goes to one more wedding, dresses up pretty, gets herself roaring drunk and says something(s) stupid, don't we all just want to reach through the pages and give her a good shake? What was forgivable behavior at 23 is going to look increasingly ugly at 40 and beyond. One thing I did appreciate at the end of the book was that she talked about not settling for just anyone because you have a strong desire to be married and/or have children. I agree wholeheartedly with that idea but would caution that some individuals today can have unrealistically high standards for a significant other. They can demand more of the other than they do of themselves and, in that, consider all other humans as "settling" material. All in all, I had hoped the book would be much more humorous and that I would be eager to pass it along. That didn't happen this time.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having only been to three weddings in fifty-four years, I was a bit intrigued by the premise of this book, which looked well-written and interesting when I looked through it in the library. However, I was unable to relate to the author, or her lifestyle; in many of the cases, the scene revolves around her being drunk, and ... pairing off with another guest. Ho Hum. Moreover, the couples are all friends of hers from the same demographic, no real variation on age and race; she attends one same-sex wedding, as a part of the press, from a distance. There is a chapter where she talks about her parents' wedding/marriage. I guess my biggest issue, after reading the entire thing, was that Ms. Doll didn't seem to have changed (or learned) much from the times things didn't go as well as she might've hoped. To be honest, I wouldn't much want to have attended to a lot of these affairs, but then again, I'm a nerdy old goat.
Not particularly recommended, although if she wrote essays on another subject I'd consider giving her a second chance.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me sum up for you:
-The author gets very drunk at just about every wedding she attends and chalks it up to 'well it's a wedding,' this would be only mildly concerning if she were a pleasant drunk, but the author shares that she is often beligerent, emotional, etc when she is heavily intoxicated. Bascially most of her 'mortifications' could have been avoided with responsible alcohol consumption.
-The author continually longs for companionship in the form of a husband, but then makes sure to go on and on about how woman don't need to get married etc etc. I agree that being single is just fine if that is one's choice and there should be no shame in it, but the author seems to impart this in a way that feels like she has to rather than that is her sincere belief.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really ready to like this, but I ultimately just was not that interested in the author's stories or writing. They all started to feel the same, and I didn't end up getting much out of them in terms of humor, entertainment, or life lessons.

[Alice]

DNF at 16%

[Jenn Meadows · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a serial wedding guest. Last year I was in three weddings and I attended four more as a guest. This year, I bragged about how I was already done with wedding season with four weddings (one where I was a bridesmaid another where I was the guestbook attendant) to only receive another wedding invitation in the mail for a celebration in September. I spoke too soon. And in 2017, I already have three weddings lined up, including the one that I am one of the two major guests of honor.

I have a love-hate (mostly love) relationship with weddings. Friends of mine always point out how I am involved in so many friends weddings which I point out is due to my extreme extrorevtism...all a curse, honor, blessing and opportunity when wedding season comes around. Picking up "Save the Date" I was hoping to read stories similar to what I have experienced at weddings due to interesting guests, disastrous dates or because of a bridezilla's demands. I really REALLY wanted to love Jen Doll's debut novel. However, I'm confused to the point of the book.

"Save the Date" is a quick easy read which was beneficial since I took this book traveling for a work trip. I always try to have what I dub a fluff book that is easy to get through if I have a mentally taxing week. While this was a perfect easy read, I was expecting more. The author is ten years older than me and I feel I have already attended more weddings than the 20 she claims makes her a serial wedding guest. But almost each chapter that Doll reflects on a wedding experience is a disaster because of something she did. While I give Doll props for being honest in how her behavior was unacceptable, but it was very concerning to read chapter over chapter over issues stemming from what seems to be a drinking problem. While I agree with Doll that the wedding business is messed up, I found these situations to be similar and concerning verses the promised humor the book jacket boasted. I feel bad because I really did want to love this book!

[Sandie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this book a 3.5 -- 4 for the writing, 3 for the content. Disclosure: I know Jen via Twitter and have been a source in a few of her stories about Young Adult books. Generally, I find Jen a witty and thoughtful writer and have read/enjoyed all of her articles. When she told me about this book, I was expecting something different -- a hilarious and poignant wedding-by-wedding breakdown of what she's learned about relationships and marriage from being such a frequent wedding guest. And while she does go into details about various weddings she attended, the content tends to be much more about her drunken behavior (and killer outfits) at said weddings than specifics about intimacy, friendship, or marriage (although there are some musings about being happy in singlehood and not settling just to say you're married).

I'm the same age as Jen Doll, and although I've been a bridesmaid 10 times and have attended dozens of weddings, I met my husband my freshman year in college and got married at 24... I can't really relate to Jen's wedding antics or hookups, and had I been the bride at some of these weddings, I would've been pretty judgy about her behavior. BUT, I think Jen is a gifted writer and a compelling storyteller, so even though I'm not the right audience for this book, I will definitely continue to read her work and hope she decides to dabble in fiction.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am attending five weddings this year. Five. My interest in this book is based solely on that: a curiosity as to whether this would be full of funny wedding stories, or offer some great insight into the wedding industry.

Nope.

I waited. I tried. The book is fairly readable, so it wasn't DIFFICULT. Indeed, Jen Doll is a good writer, mechanically, so it wasn't torture to get to page 318; however, when I got there I wasn't sure what had been accomplished. It is full of stories of her life (not laugh-out-loud, or incredibly poignant ones) told through the lens of a dozen or so weddings. Here's what I now know about Jen-she is not someone I want to hang out with at weddings, because she always drinks too much, and instead of getting more fun, she is likely to throw a tantrum at some point because she is completely sloshed and weddings make her tantrum-y.

Then at the end she throws in a chapter about how it's ok to not get married, as long as you don't settle (be it by marrying the wrong person, or ceasing your search for him/her). Done.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wait, I wanted this to be a super funny compilation of wedding stories from hell, but it really wasn't funny. Oh well. In honor of a wedding I'm attending this weekend, I took special note of this chapter: "When you're someone's date to a wedding, to the wedding of his friends, surrounded by others of his friends you're meeting for the first time - and when this person is someone who it seems may be important to you for a long time - you are a good sport. I wanted to be a good sport, and I could be, I would be, but I was getting crankier. And crankier. One more crank... Everything was fine and dandy, until it wasn't. Suddenly I was drunk, tired, and most of all, tired of being a good sport." Eeeeek, note to self - be a good sport!

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on the book jacket, I expected a bright and breezy behind-the-scenes look at the bridal industrial complex and fancy "Sex in the city" type weddings (lavish country club or beach ceremonies, exotic destination weddings, cool/hip wedding guests, etc.) Instead, I was disappointed by the author's excessive navel-gazing. Pretty much every story revolved around her- her moods, her needs, her excessive drinking (which usually leads to her either having a melt down or passing out), her "justifying" that it's OK to be single at age 36, she's not jealous that all her friends are getting married and she's still single, etc.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping this would be a fun, lighthearted read to entertain me during a destination wedding weekend. Instead it was dull, dull, dull. I finished it out of a sense of duty, but there was no real merit in doing so.
Imagine a stranger talking to you, in endless detail, about the weddings of people she knows from high school and college. Nothing particularly interesting or unusual happens in these stories-maybe if you knew the people she was talking about, you'd find it more interesting, but since you don't, you don't really care. That's essentially this book in a nutshell.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Jen Doll and I would be awesome friends. I expected this to be a bunch of funny stories about random things that happen at weddings. And it is. But the author also muses about marriage in general, what it means to be married, what it means to be unmarried. It really resonated with me, as someone who thinks about these things. And as someone who has been to A LOT of weddings!

[Meghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly I am pretty disappointed. I expected this book to be a lot more fun. Doll's weddings were honestly not all that interesting, and while I agreed with almost all of her statements regarding modern marriage, I think that all of her arguments could have fit into a solid 50 pages. It wasn't boring, but I would not read it again either.

[Bean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, touching, and insightful look at the world of weddings from a frequent attendee. I loved the perfect combination of sharp wit and compassion that Doll uses to tell this story. Highly recommended.

[Booktart · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did keep my attention and I liked some of Jen Doll's musings on single life but I got tired of the author's tales of excessive drinking at every wedding she went to, most to the point of calling negative attention to herself and detracting attention from the bride and groom.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

So terrible I couldn't even get halfway through this. It's supposed to be "funny" and "smart" but really it's just a tale of her hooking up and talking bad about other people's weddings. I feel bad for her friends that read this book and whose weddings are included.

[Sue Pretty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dullsville! The author is neurotic and boring. Extra star for being a wino.

[kylajaclyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

She’s an alcoholic and wants every wedding to be about her. That’s all you really need to know about this book.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do not know whether or not Jalal has gotten married or not but during the middle of the book I said to myself, I don’t think she’s ever gonna get married and not too kindly did I say to myself when is somebody gonna tell her that she sounds like an alcoholic. There are many alcoholics walking around who can’t hold jobs and do a good job of them, but they’re still alcoholics and I would suggest that if Jen Dahl married or not is drinking as much as she talks about drinking during her book that she get herself to a facility and become a non-drinker. By the way, I did drink in my youth and at my age I don’t drink anymore, although I did have a drink my birthday come to think of it, but I do not invite alcohol on a regular basis at all so she can call me a prick or whatever but I strongly recommend Rehab for her. I got this book because it just showed up and I was looking for something to read and not having anybody who could read for me and help me find a better book. I said all right you showed up. I’ll read it. I’ll try it as you can tell by the star I didn’t care for it. I don’t know why if I didn’t care for it because I thought it was being written by an alcoholic I didn’t care for it because I thought it was a bite written by a person who drank too much and constantly had troubles because and didn’t realize it and made some kind of a scene or something at almost every wedding she participate she went to and why the hell she didn’t tell about any of the other people that she saw having scenes and making fools of themselves and she didn’t and I’m sure she didn’t Have gone to my sheriff weddings not as many as Jen Dahl but I have gone to maybe 1012 weddings and not at any one of them that I ever see anyone get drunk or create a problem so I don’t know where the problem is my poor perception or that Jen doll’s got a problem that’s her that’s her problem and you can make your own decisions but for me that was this is not a marvelous book it. I didn’t learn anything newand I didn’t really enjoy it. It upset me that’s so much shrinking is going on and people think that this is a good thing to do stay well see your eye doctor regular lake wear a hat wear sunglasses.

[Millicent · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is NOT a fun, humorous take on weddings. Although the cover makes it seem like chick lit, it's really a memoir that uses weddings as a lens to reflect on friendships and romantic relationships. I think so many reviewers found the book and/or the author off-putting because it's a bit of an odd hybrid: there is too much of the author's personal story for the book to be *about* weddings, but the narrative skips through so many weddings that there's not much depth in the personal reflection.

The book would have been more successful if the author had committed to writing either a light series of relatable anecdotes about weddings, or gone deeper. I wouldn't have read the cute-anecdotes book, but a lot of people like that kind of thing.

Unfortunately, the depth isn't there either. She describes herself at the weddings mostly in terms of dress/shoes/drank too much, and her bad behavior is acknowledged and apologized for without any real reckoning. Why does she act out over and over? It's ok not to tell a recovery and redemption story, but at least situate the behavior for us: is this how her New York demographic socializes? Are we supposed to see this as normal, even though alcohol causes a lot of trouble for her?

Without addressing her own actions, her thoughts about friendship and love don't hold much meaning.