“Just a quick note to say THANK YOU for writing The Conscious Bride. I have only been engaged a few months but was feeling the fear and tension almost from the second my fiance asked me to marry him. One night, in a fit of panic and frustration, I headed to Barnes and Noble and, buried amongst the “How to wrap the perfect Jordan Almond Vol. II” (who needs this crap, I ask you?) … I found The Conscious Bride. After reading it my feelings instantly went from misplaced fear about the marriage to understandable fear about this process I’m being thrust into. It has lifted an enormous burden. I can’t thank you enough. I am really looking forward to my wedding and, more importantly, my marriage. I am eternally grateful! Thank you.
– Jessica Moore, Seattle, WA
“As a practicing therapist, I really valued your book from both a clinical perspective and personal perspective. I just got married May 14 and your book was vital to my transition. I truly believe I was able to experience that day in such a spiritual, conscious way because of what I read during our engagement in the pages of The Conscious Bride. I was able to understand the variety of responses of others to me, my responses to others, and allow myself to experience the emotions of that day, rather than run from them. At our rehearsal dinner for example, I wept while speaking which I believed allowed me to be present and stable for the wedding! I have never felt as present and alive as I did that day, and I honestly believe it was because, thanks to you, I was a conscious bride. So I just wanted to thank you for your book. It is invaluable to me and I give it to all my friends who become engaged. I also use much of what I learned in my own profession when working with the occasional bride-to-be.
– Heather H. Lynch, Princeton, NJ
“I am writing to thank you so much for your book. I read The Conscious Bride during my first year of marriage, and it helped me deal with a lot of the anxieties I was facing as a new bride. I wished I had read it before the wedding! I was never one of the women who dream of getting married, and most marriages I had witnessed seemed unhappy (I’m Indian, with the tradition of arranged marriages. Most of our parents have remained together but are unhappy). I had always concentrated on my career, and was happily single before I met Nick. He was the opposite, having grown up with examples of loving marriages. So it was difficult for him, and my female friends, to understand why I wasn’t always overjoyed about getting married. I didn’t want a wedding shower, because like you I felt that they were really lacking in meaning. So I didn’t have any real rituals to help me through the transition. The first six months after the wedding were particularly hard, and this is when I happened upon your book. It helped me realize that I didn’t have to give up my hopes and dreams when I got married, and that I could be a non-traditional wife! I thought back on the events before the wedding and could make sense of everything, the tensions with my parents and the disbelief of friends who learned I had doubts about getting married. I met, through your book, women who felt the same as I did about marriage and had similar anxieties.
Shortly after reading your book, I opened up to my husband about a lot of my anxieties about marriage. My career was still important to me, and I had always wanted to go back to school. Realizing that it was something important to me, my husband willingly relocated when I was accepted into a Masters program. Five years after the wedding, we’re still happily together and I’m starting the second year of my PhD!
I have given your book to several friends after they announced their engagements, particularly to those friends who are career-motivated and married later in life as I did. It can be a really difficult transition to married life it you’re really used to being so independent. In fact, I was prompted to write you because, after having recommended your book to a close friend, she admitted that even a week into her engagement she wasn’t feeling as euphoric as everyone felt she should. She thanked me for recommending the book and ordered it online today!
You have provided a great service with your book and website. Thanks again!”
– Reena, Vancouver, BC, Canada
“The Conscious Bride offers engaged women the information they need to approach their wedding day with serenity and begin their marriage on a healthy foundation. If there is one book that will help women with a smooth wedding transition, this is it.”
– John Gray, Ph.D., author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
“The Conscious Bride is an important guide through one of life’s most vulnerable and exciting times. Sheryl casts new light on an old subject, making clear that the natural wisdom in a woman’s own heart is the best bridal consultant she could possibly have.”
– Marianne Williamson, best-selling author of A Woman’s Worth and A Return to Love
“The Conscious Bride captures the true meaning of marriage as initiation. It deals with every detail of the rite of passage of the wedding, honoring the holding of the tension between conflicting emotions. Splendid!”
– Marion Woodman, leading Jungian analyst and best-selling author of Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride
“The Conscious Bride is a wonderful book to help women prepare themselves for their wedding, not just on the outside, but on the inside! The stories are inspiring, comforting, and beautifully presented. Every bride should read this book.”
– Barbara De Angelis, author of Secrets About Life Every Woman Should Know
“The Conscious Bride is a groundbreaking and much needed book.”
– Christiane Northrup, M.D., best-selling author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom
“Groundbreaking! The Conscious Bride is one of those rare books that can change the way we view a common event like the wedding. It is an invaluable resource, not only for brides, but for anyone seeking to understand the wedding journey.
– Robert Johnson, leading Jungian analyst and best-selling author of She: Understanding Feminine Psychology
“Brides in need of a reality check will find The Conscious Bride: Women Unveil Their True Feelings about Getting Hitched a comforting companion.”
– Bride’s Magazine, required reading in April/May 2001 issue
“Amid the many books on how to plan my wedding day, The Conscious Bride, by Sheryl Nissinen, has become my engagement companion.”
– Lindsay A. Reed, The Washington Post, January 30, 2001
“I just wanted to take the time, to thank you for providing this book to the general public. I just finished it, and despite the fact that I am a Masters level Psychotherapist, counsel couples (pre-marital and marital), consider myself a feminist, and am also choosing an untraditional route (we are eloping to Jamaica), this book still had a profound impact on me, and is really allowing me some time to appropriately grieve my loss of my singlehood. I will be 31 when we marry in September.
I highly recommend this book to anyone getting married. As I am always telling my clients, “We spend too much time focusing in on the wedding, and not the marriage”. This is why Don and I choose to elope – we want a marriage, not a wedding. Your book however, made me realize that even despite this mature decision, I still need to grieve losses, and honor this rite of passage.”
– Tricia Stehle-Whiting, Utica, Michigan
“What I truly took home from the book was the idea that a wedding is a right of passage and therefore a process, rather than one isolated event that stands alone in time and emotions. This outlook was helpful in taking the pressure off the importance of the actual wedding day and allowing me to savor the transition, as well as the special moments related to the wedding which took place before and after the actual event. It was also a relief for me to have the myth of the perfect engagement and wedding day broken down and exposed. This allowed me in turn to break down my own expectations and open my mind to the variety and limitlessness of one’s own experience.”
– A. K., Geneva, Switzerland
“I would like to commend you for your brilliant work in the wedding industry. I am an event planner based in Santa Barbara; formerly with Bacara Resort & Spa and currently launching my own event planning company. My sister in San Francisco recently received your book as an engagement gift and she forwarded it on to me. I was very impressed with your approach to planning a wedding and found your concepts to be very valuable. I have found myself continuously referring my clients to your book and website. Thank you for your invaluable contribution to the wedding industry!
– Jackie Blackwell, Santa Barbara, CA
“I want to thank you for your book! It has provided me with the comfort and validation of my feelings that I needed in the coming weeks before my wedding. As I was reading the pages, I broke down into tears at the realization that what I was going through was NORMAL, and even healthy! I love my fiancé more than anything, and look forward to a long life together, and I now feel like I’ll be ready to really savor every moment of my wedding day instead of having an emotional breakdown. Reading your book has allowed me to really grieve for the loss a bride-to-be experiences, and welcome my new life and role as wife. I am so shocked that this is such a ‘hush-hush’ subject….nobody ever mentioned these feelings to me, and I’ve never read about them in all of the wedding planning publications that are out there. So THANK YOU!!!!! I will recommend this book to every bride I know!”
– Bride, Charlotte, North Carolina
“I live in India. The culture here is that you have elaborate ceremonies before your wedding and after your wedding which are beautiful and exciting and help you in your transition from your “maiden self” to a “married self”. However, I needed to know that the anger I felt at times for the man I loved the most was normal. I didn’t know why I was hurting and confused, and when I tried to talk to elders they would ask me if I was having doubts, which I wasn’t. I was just scared and needed someone to tell me that it’s going to be well. I’ve cried for months without knowing why until I read this book. Now when I cry I know why. Thanks for writing it. If I ever give a gift to a girl of marriagable age or who is engaged this is going to be it.”
– Anubhuti Rattan, New Delhi, India
“I so appreciate your work in your book. Thank you for what you have shared with us. It is immeasurably supportive and … blessed information. WOW! What an undertaking! I am buying several more — the first was for my son and future daughter in-law. I hope that you are richly blessed through your efforts!
– Diane Landowski, Germantown, Wisconsin
“I wonder how many emails you get with the subject line “thank you”. I want to share with you a short story…about 2 weeks ago, my fiancé and I went to pick up our wedding bands. Since then, (well, actually since the invitations arrived by UPS, but at that point, I was still in denial of my feelings), I have been feeling grief and guilt about getting married, especially since I don’t live near my “family of origin”. What does this all mean…will my family of origin forget about me? will they see me as irresponsible? will they still love me if I stay in this distant city? do they resent me?
I have been reading your books over the last couple of days and it is giving me a sense of relief. I am not alone. I am not crazy. It’s okay to feel this way, it’s perfectly normal. Your books are helping me look forward to our wedding, CONFIDENTLY! Thank you, thank you, thank you. For once, the importance has been put on the marriage and not on the wedding”
– Sarah Karlavage, Providence, RI
“I just got married last weekend, and wanted to thank you for your book, The Conscious Bride. I read it FOUR times during my year-long engagement! I saw you on the show Starting Over about a year ago, and I actually bought your book before we got engaged. I knew that I had some fears about marriage that I wanted to deal with. Reading your book helped me to sort out some of these fears and difficult feelings I was having, and I was able to do this well before the wedding day. As a result, I had a great time at our wedding and on our honeymoon! I didn’t think I would enjoy the wedding day at all, but I ended up having a great time. And so far, being married is just great!
– Rachel, Irvine, CA
“My name is Kate and I recently got married and just wanted to say thank-you for your book, The Conscious Bride. I have to say that even though I love my husband, when we got engaged, I had all the feelings of fear, loss and sadness that you described in your book. My father, being an excellent observer, could sense my feelings and bought your book for me. It really helped guide me through all of the phases a girl goes through when planning a wedding and I found myself going to it for guidance throughout the wedding planning and now that we are entering our first year. It helps me feel very relieved to know that my feelings are normal and it gives me more understanding of marriage and what it entails.”
– Kate Galli, Royal Oak, MI
“I just wanted to tell you how much your book has meant to me. My mother, also a therapist, gave it to me this summer, when I was preparing for my own wedding and had hit a particular low. I married just under two weeks ago now. While there were plenty of advice books out there telling me how to order flowers and choose a photographer, none equipped me for the emotional rigors–all the sadness, anger, anxiety, and even grief–that would accompany the logistical demands. Your book did. I’m currently reading the chapter on the first year of marriage, and am finding it, like the rest of the book, smart, wise, and compassionate. Thank you for writing The Conscious Bride. I will recommend it to anyone and everyone I can.”
– Melissa Elise, Madison, Wisconsin
“I thought there was something really wrong with me because I love the man I am with but when he proposed in December I felt isolated and miserable. I thought I must not be the ‘marrying type.’ Then I came across your book at Borders and all of the sudden I felt normal! Thank you for helping me to understand my feelings. I am grateful to be stepping into my marriage consciously!”
– Judy Currie
“Thank you for writing The Conscious Bride! I went to bookstore yesterday looking for relief in a book about my post-wedding angst. Upon rapidly purchasing your book and reading as much as I could squeeze in last night, I’m at least feeling more assured that these feelings are quite normal. Your book is just the affirmation I needed that I’m on the right track in realizing this is quite an adjustment both my husband and myself have taken on. So again, thank you for filling this cavernous niche.
– Sharon Sancer, Los Angeles, CA
“I just wanted to write to tell you that I am getting married and just bought your wonderful book last night. It is so helpful and is really going to be a great resource for me during this emotional transition. I am so glad that such a book exists. Thank you so much!”
– Ali James, Los Angeles, CA
