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New York Times (Sept. 21, 2003) - 9/21/03

September 21, 2003
FIELD NOTES
How to Say I'm Backing Out
By SHANNON DONNELLY

What does one do when "I do" becomes "Um, maybe not?"

If you are Jennifer Lopez, who was to wed Ben Affleck last Sunday, you make lachrymose phone calls to family members, informing them of the change in plans, then leave it to your assistants to notify the rest of the guests. (If you were one of those guests, you congratulated yourself on saving the receipt for that $400 martini pitcher and wondered whether you could still make it to Las Vegas in time for the Sugar Shane Mosley-Oscar De La Hoya fight.)

The experts say that when time is short, the telephone is the method of choice.

Letitia Baldrige, the author of books on etiquette and protocol, was the White House social secretary for Jacqueline Kennedy. "Hire a couple of widows who need money and have attractive educated voices," Ms. Baldrige advised, while not specifying why the callers have to have dead husbands.

<>"Give them the entire wedding list and have them call everybody and talk to them personally or leave a message," she said. "You should give a reason if possible — for instance, if the bride's father has suddenly taken ill. But if it's simply that one person jilted the other, the reason should be that it was by mutual consent."

Rachel Safier of Washington had a little more time than Ms. Lopez when her fiancé told her two weeks before their wedding in June 2001 that he was heading south.

"Miss Manners says to send printed announcements, so we did that," Ms. Safier said. "But because it was so close to the date we also did a mass e-mailing to everybody. It wasn't very Miss Mannersish, but it was fast."

Ms. Safier did not spend much time crying into her Champagne. She founded a Web site called Theregoesthebride.com and went on to write, with Wendy Roberts, a guide for brides whose toes are starting to feel a bit chilled, "There Goes the Bride: Making Up Your Mind, Calling It Off and Moving On" (Jossey-Bass, 2003).

The book is dedicated to her almost husband.

"I considered it the ultimate `making lemonade out of lemons,' " she said. "It was the right decision not to get married. I've gone on with my life. He has, too. He's married to somebody else now."

Sometimes the cancellation comes as a surprise even to the party that decides not to love, honor and obey. Bruce Sutka is a wedding planner based in Palm Beach, Fla., who has organized weddings for New Yorkers who include James Dolan, the cable television executive, and Jayne Chorney, a niece of Marvin Davis, the oil tycoon. He recalled one wedding in Chicago where "the bride was on her father's arm, with 500 people in the church, and he asks, `Are you doing O.K.?' "

"And she said," Mr. Sutka continued, " `Dad, I think I'm making a big mistake.' Dad said, `No problem, honey,' turned her around and walked her out of the church into the limo, then sent all the guests to the reception."

Mr. Sutka said, "Now that's a good dad."

Past press on 'There Goes the Bride' below.

Find it on Amazon.com



There Goes
The Bride

by Rachel Safier
with Wendy
Roberts, LCSW
(Jossey-Bass,
2003).
In bookstores
this April.

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