The relationship between a mother and daughter is often fraught-but never so much as during the preparations for a daughter's wedding. Who better to offer a fresh perspective on weddings than the mother of the bride? And who better to describe it -- the agony and the ecstasy -- than Ilene "Gingy" Beckerman, who's married off three daughters and remembers it all very clearly.<P> --The high cost of wedding cakes: "I could have had a lifetime supply of Entenmann's chocolate doughnuts!"<P> --Bridesmaid dresses: "What do five girls-one short, one tall, one buxom, one flat, one who gave birth a month ago-have in common? A bridesmaid's dress they hate."<P> --Mother-of-the-bride dresses: "I tried on green velvet. A Rodney Dangerfield line came to me: 'If that dress had pockets, you'd look like a pool table.' The dress had pockets."<P> --And, finally, the sight of her daughter walking down the aisle: "My daughter was Cinderella, Snow White, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, and Jacqueline Kennedy. But better."<P> Gingy looks at the bride-to-be and sees the teenager who wanted Bo Derek braids, the little girl she taught to dance to the tune of "Me and My Shadow," the beautiful baby, the miracle she gave birth to decades earlier. And now, en route to the aisle, their relationship is tested in ways Gingy never imagined.<P> Beckerman simply and brilliantly describes the highs and lows of life with an adult daughter. What emerges is a poignant and telling story.<P>