Wedding Bells and Chimney Sweeps is a wide-ranging, highly readable collection of information about marriage, a miscellany of facts, lore, old wives' tales, anecdotes, myths and superstitions. From the origins of the reading of banns to marriages conducted by ships' captains and the significance to a bride of the wooden spoon to the tradition of tossing her garter, and little-known facts on Amish weddings, here is a book in which readers married, soon-to-be-married, or determinedly single, are bound to find something to interest, amuse, astonish or even appal them. Whether dipped into by anxious groom, nervous bride, doubtful father-in-law, doting aunt, beaming bridesmaid - or simply anyone with a passing interest in some of our oldest traditions - this is a book to delight even the least romantically minded reader.