Engaged? Overwhelmed? Have you lost control? Planning a wedding is stressful, and you need all the professional help you can get.

“When we’re open to learning from others, we avoid costly mistakes, benefit from their experiences and inherit their wisdom and knowledge.” (Pem Pfisterer Clark)

As a professional wedding planner, Pem can spend weeks, months, even years consulting, coordinating, and directing a wedding. As a wedding officiant of well over 1,000 ceremonies, she’s often called upon at the last minute, under emergency circumstances, to step in and officiate. For Better or for Worse: Just Shoot Me Now is a collection of observations from a few of these weddings.

Laugh and learn from 10 true stories of unique and heartfelt wedding ceremonies and receptions that, in some cases, went hilariously wrong. With Pem’s "Words of Wedding Wisdom" and "Love Notes" that appear at the end of each chapter, you’ll say “No!” to the drama, gain confidence, and learn how to avoid some of the more serious wedding-day pitfalls.

Here’s and excerpt from chapter five:

At around two o’clock someone whistled with his fingers and yelled it was time to start. Most of the 40 or so guests gathered around me in a big circle. The only chairs were three rockers on the front porch that were quickly taken. The whistler started humming “da dum de dum” to the tune of "Here Comes the Bride", and as everyone joined in, the bride and groom entered the circle. There was something comforting about hearing the rockers in the background as the couple repeated their vows after me. Just as I said the words, “Elmer, you may kiss your bride”, a woman screamed, “Oh, God! No!”

In a frenzy, everyone ran around the house to the back. It was a horrible scene.

About the author: Radio-show host Pem Pfisterer Clark is all about weddings all of the time. Pem writes and hosts her daily, nationally syndicated radio show Wedding Planning with Pem and her long-running television show of the same name. Media personality, American entrepreneur, ordained minister, wedding-planner extraordinaire, motivational speaker, and author, Pem has been giving her audiences and marrying couples wedding-planning advice and money-saving tips for more than 20 years.