Emily's Post

I found this book at a book sale a few years ago. John said I could buy it as long as I never made him read it and promised not to quote it to him. I couldn’t promise on the latter one, but he still let me purchase it.

Some people may find it weird I would be interested in buying this book, but I like to be well educated on all things party/wedding. If I enter a bookstore, go to a book sale, or the library, you can find me in one of three places - next to the cookbooks, next to the party planning/wedding planning books (conveniently, those are usually next to each other), or next to the children’s books.

I am a certified wedding planner. That’s right, cer-ti-fied. Which means I basically paid a lot of money to read a lot about weddings, and take tests just to say that I am a certified Bridal Consultant. Too many people have said, “My friend’s friends friend is a wedding planner and she didn’t have to get certified.” To them I say, “Do you think they can tell you how to plan a Jewish wedding? (Which they could if they were Jewish, I guess.) Granted, anyone can look it up in a book or online and figure it out, but I can say I actually studied it and had to take a test on it. That gives me the upper hand, right? (Unless, the competition has been doing it for a bazillion years, I guess. Then, my party planning process would have to give me the upper hand. Too prideful?)

Yes, I understand I don’t need to be certified, but that is just the kind of person I am, I like to have credentials. (I also graduated from college with my degree in Recreation Management with a double emphasis in Community and Commercial Recreation with an emphasis in Leisure Services Management, and I took all the event-planning classes they had. You know, to add to my credentials.) Once, my brother and I got into a discussion about some aspect of etiquette for a wedding, and I told him what the correct procedure was, and skeptically he said, “Why do you think you know?” I said, “I read a lot.” He said, “Where do you read about that?” “Ummmm… in all the books in my book shelf.” I better know, and if I don’t, I can look it up in one of my many books about weddings and parties. If you would like to know how to plan an interfaith/intercultural wedding celebration or you need a toast written for you, I can hook you up.

This book is basically a Bible of sorts. It is huge, and has tabs and everything! It tells you everything from proper sunbathing and surfing etiquette to telephone etiquette, which my mother was very serious about. I really bought it for the wedding section, but want to read it cover to cover. (I started but got distracted and have only skipped around.)

I definitely don’t have perfect etiquette, believe you me. Recently, I have been reading more of this book and discovered I have definitely been breaking some rules. John really breaks a lot of rules. Lucky for him, he has Emily Post and I to help him out.

If you have any questions feel free to ask and I will look them up for you. It will be like Dear Abby, but etiquette-ier. If you ask a question however, you must sign off with lines such as these; Frazzled in Florida, Which fork in Wichita, Mad in Manhattan, Dessert dilemma in Delaware, etc.

I am excited to bring you my little etiquette snippets, Emily’s Post, because learning about etiquette is fun!! You’ll see!!