Miss Manners on Painfully Proper Weddings

With her trademark comedic inflection, Martin, the syndicated columnist whose bestselling etiquette manuals (Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior; Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children) provide entertainment as well as guidance, turns her attention here to weddings. Indirectly addressing the bride but including the entire cast of trouble-causers--relatives, in-laws, attendants, divorced parents--Miss Manners supports reasonable standards, exuding acerbically genteel regret at some contemporary nuptial excesses while accepting some stark realities. For example, in reply to a puzzled ``gentle reader'' who is a pregnant bride-to-be, Miss Manners believes the only thing that should be altered is the wedding dress: ``Let it out in the tummy.'' With gentle firmness, Miss Manners upholds the perennial etiquette that contributes to our general civility and accepts changes that are for the good--black dresses for bridesmaids are not among them. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Jan.)