conception and contraception calendar

(480 pages)

Bridal Bargains, 8th Edition: Secrets to throwing a fantastic wedding on a realistic budget (Bridal Bargains) by: Denise Fields publisher: Windsor Peak Press released: 2006-10-25 ISBN: 1889392227 $10.17

The national best-seller the wedding industry does NOT want you to read! Bridal Bargains teaches couples all the tricks to saving money on a wedding--and how to avoid pitfalls and scams. With the average wedding costing $20,000, Bridal Bargains is the solution to tying the knot without breaking the bank.

My fiance and I received this book as a gift from family among a number of other wedding planning publications. This book was by far the most helpful providing honest, straightforward tips for planning a great wedding and saving a lot of money while doing it. We still have about 8 months until we get married, but we estimate that we've already saved hundreds of dollars by following the tips in this book!

This book is by far the best resource I found while planning my wedding. It is so awesome I have recommended it to countless people and bought it for 3 friends who are planning weddings. This isn't a cheesey book that wants you to make everything yourself. It gives you insight on the best places to invest your money and where you can skimp a little and where to find the best deals. Basically this book is like having an older sister who just planned her own wedding. Tons of great advice, I can't recommend it enough!

This book has so many great ideas to save money on your wedding. I HIGHLY recommend any new bride to read this book!!!!!!

I got this book from the local library once I got engaged. It's full of great information--not only how to plan a wedding on a particular budget, but also how to avoid some of the scams and pitfalls that riddle the wedding industry. I read it all at once before I actually started planning and wished I had bought it so I could refer to it throughout our 18-month engagement. A good friend recently got engaged, and her birthday was just about 2 months later, and I knew exactly what to get her: this book! If you don't have the first clue about planning a wedding (or even if you do), this book tells you everything you need to know and helps you get organized, too. Highly recommended.

this book was not at all helpful for planning a wedding in southern california, UNLESS i wanted a super CHEAP looking wedding.

don't read this book if you want a NICE wedding at a bargain (such as a high-end designer gown at a huge discount, NOT pay full price for low-end designer gown).

months after going through the nightmare of trying on 100+ dresses and finally finding one, i read the gown section last night for "fun." i realized then that the reason why i felt so lost in my initial gown search was because i was holding on to this book like a Bible and the information (such as designer's styles, price range, etc) it provided was misleading and outdated.

the authors hate david's bridal (i don't blame them) and vera wang and are more forgiving of other designers such as monique lhuillier, reem acra, priscilla of boston (in which case, they don't even review melissa sweet, vineyard, and plantinum line), etc.

i can go on and on about why i don't think this book was good, but i'll save my time and return the book since we did not even save $50 after reading this book.

(200 pages)

The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner: Worksheets, Checklists, Etiquette, Calendars, and Answers to Frequently Asked Questions by: Carley Roney publisher: Broadway released: 1999-12-28 ISBN: 0767902475 $11.53

Good product. I thought it was going to be a spiral bound binder though. Good Tips!

This is a very well organized book with beautiful illustrations. As a wedding director for my church, I would definitely recommend this book to brides and their mothers.

I returned it as it was more confusing than helpful. I got it for my soon to be daughter in law. It was supposed to answer all the questions and did not even answer the basic ones, such as who is supposed to normally pay for what!

I am still waiting for my credit.

For free you can go to theknot.com and get all the same information and much, much more!

I thought this book was very good. It has a list of things that I never thought of and the worksheets are great. The only thing that would have been an added bonus was a place to keep documents within the book. However, for first time brides as myself this book was much needed.

(272 pages)

Somebody is Going to Die if Lilly Beth Doesn't Catch That Bouquet: The Official Southern Ladies' Guide to Hosting the Perfect Wedding by: Gayden Metcalfe, Charlotte Hays publisher: Hyperion released: 2007-03-28 ISBN: 1401302955 $13.57

Even if you've never attended a wedding in the South, you'll find laughter in the pages of this deliciously entertaining slice of Southern life and love, complete with recipes, advice, and a huge dose of that famous charm"In the Mississippi Delta, funerals bring out the best in people, while weddings, which are supposed to be happy occasions, bring out the worst." So say Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays, authors of the bestseller Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies' Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral, who turn their keen eyes and sharp wit from the end of the life cycle to the all-important midpoint. For anyone planning, participating in, or attending a wedding (Southern or not), this book will amuse, entertain, and provide advice for marital bliss, including:--It's OK to peek at an etiquette book, but if you rely too heavily on it, people will think that you are not fully acquainted with what is right and wrong. --Anything that was not done in the past doesn't need to be done now -- consider this before ordering a groom's cake, especially one featuring a fishing-tackle or golfing theme.

This book was just OK. I was really looking forward to reading it so maybe I expected too much. It was really slow in the middle - almost like the author was trying to stretch the material. On the other hand, some parts were really entertaining and all too true.

I thought I liked her book about funerals and I did, but this is even better. I would recommend it especially to southern girls and women who no longer live in the south. I look forward to sharing it with my daughter who is in Denver.

Insightful, devilishly funny. Anyone who has any contact with the Mississippi Delta will see long lost friends on every page.

The authors of Being Dead Is No Excuse are back for another rollicking good time recounting the foibles and frustration of the Delta. Like Being Dead, this friendly tome wields its wit like a Union saber, slicing through the niceties of southern living and getting to the heart of the matter. "A Southern mother might be tempted to marry off her daughter to Jack the Ripper (who reportedly was a member of the royal family--so there) if it meant she could get out all her tea napkins." As the last vestige of decorum, pageantry, beauty, gallantry and, yes, good taste, the perfect wedding can be a backyard event or a multi-tent pageant, but it should never be tacky.

The South has more aphorisms than mosquitoes, and they are peppered throughout the book like crawdads in a burgoo:

* "By the time a Delta girl is eight years old, she knows more about wedding etiquette than a Yankee bridal consultant."
* "A Southern bride will write a gushing thank-you note almost before you get home from mailing the gift."
* "Southern mothers have a dictum: Even if it kills you, be nice."
* "You will smell (a genuine Delta bride) before you actually see her--we are a people of the perfume bottle, and other bottles, too."
* "A wedding announcement that begins, `Mr. Billy Wayne Garrett, 5, is pleased to announce the impending nuptials of his parents, Nelda Jean Akers and Billy Wayne, Senior,' has already said too much."

From the rehearsal to the reception to the wedding, authors Metcalfe and Hays lay out a beautiful buffet of tales involving funny and dysfunctional people you probably already know. One snobbish mother describes her daughter's disappointing fiancé--an elevator operator--as a "vertical engineer." Another plants trees and shrubbery when her daughter is born in anticipation of her daughter's nuptials and, twenty years later, has the magnolia flowers clipped on the wedding day when they are the exact shade of the gowns. The explanation of the term "shotgun wedding" includes one tale that involves an actual shotgun.

Each chapter is followed by several pages of recipes, and they all sound scrumptious (And, as with all really good things, they'll likely turn your blood into syrup). Somebody is Going to Die is warm and welcome like a fresh pecan pie. There is nothing to offend. Remember it when you are shopping for a nice remembrance or birthday gift; it will be enjoyed and shared for years to come.

You can count the days until the thank-you note arrives.

This book is hilarious, and yet, so true. Reading the tales of women who are truely southern, and will remind you of it every day of their lives, is hilarious. The wedding stories are great, and filled with practical advice to pull of the perfect southern wedding. I absolutely loved this book.

(576 pages)

How to Organize (Just About) Everything: More Than 500 Step-by-Step Instructions for Everything from Organizing Your Closets to Planning a Wedding to Creating a Flawless Filing System by: Peter Walsh publisher: Free Press released: 2004-12-28 ISBN: 0743254945 $16.50

Professional organizer Peter Walsh presents this witty and enormously practical guide to getting it -- and keeping it -- all together. With more than 500 easy-to-follow how-to instructions, How to Organize (Just About) Everything is packed with shrewd advice and insider tips to make your home, your workplace -- indeed, every imaginable aspect of your life -- run more smoothly. Step-by-step solutions help even the most organizationally challenged take on:

Kids

Schedules

Storage

Photos

Lists

Politics

Education

Remodels

Meals

Weddings

Finances

Holidays

Parties

Vacations

Emergencies

Logical sequence of events given to plan everything from organizing your home to organizing a trip to organizing a run for the White House! As entertaining as Mr. Walsh's TV program. A good reference manual to keep - you never know when you'll need to plan a safari or a trip to Europe (or a baby nursery!)

My goal was to get organized and this book helped!

It has over 500 suggestions on how to organize everything, from the pile of papers in the office to the laundry room to the family schedule.

It's full of little organizing tips that I would have never thought of.
This book is great for the person who wants to be organized but just doesn't know where to start!

This book has its good points and bad points.

THE GOOD: The 500+ lists cover a number of organizational topics including organizing your spaces at home, organizing your finances, preparing for life events (sending kids to college, wills, etc) and just miscellaneous tasks (organizing a block party, preparing for house guests. The sections on organizing spaces and paperwork/finances contain quick lists on how-to organize your life, which I will probably use. These contain some good information since I would assume this is the area of the author's expertise. Other lists have fun and inspirational ideas, like "Decorating for the Seasons", which provides some suggestions of how to freshen up your home's look as the seasons change.

THE BAD: With so many topics covered, I just can't imagine that the author is an expert on them all. If I am looking to prepare for childbirth, I would be more comfortable reading an entire book on the topic written by someone who is an expert in the area, rather than reading a one-page summary. I had similar thoughts about the list for Feng Shu. Many topics are really too complex to be adequately covered in a short list, but the lists could serve as a quick refresher for someone who already knows something about the topics. As other readers have mentioned, some lists I'd never use and seem almost silly like "Become a Movie Director" (not one of my goals in life) or "Win the Tour de France" (not likely for me).

Overall, it's an okay book that I'll probably refer to as a starting point for some of my organizational projects. But, I'm not looking to it as "expert advice" in all areas since some topics just can't be covered in a short list. Certainly there are a number of sections that I will never use or read at all because they're just not relevant to my life.

I was so disappointed in this book!! I read almost every chapter unless it was something that would obviously be a waste of time like "How to Become a Model or Movie Director", what does that have to do with getting organized? 98% of this book is just plain stupid. The only good tip I got was to use a cross stitch fabric to hold earrings, ha! This book is huge, but has very little real advice on getting your home organized. I'm glad I borrowed it from my library before purchasing it!

My every-day life seemed chaotic after the birth of my second child in August. Being a mother of another 2year-old girl and with my husband working for many hours, I needed a really working-out day-to-day program,not to mention some absolutely necessery tips to run my home smoothly.
The book gave me excactly what I was looking for:step-by-step solutions and not only theories about how to manage with clutter,kids' all around the house mess, and every day's meal planning.I have already created my own Household Organizer and I've stocked my diaper bag according the very practical steps suggested in the book.And it worked out!
My life as a working mother won't be the same again:it will be more organized and eventually more happy,because I will always have this book as a referance.

(192 pages)

Simple Stunning Weddings: Designing and Creating Your Perfect Celebration by: Karen Bussen publisher: Stewart, Tabori and Chang released: 2004-11-16 ISBN: 1584793651 $21.45

The three biggest trends in weddings today are simplicity, personalization, and color. Wedding design expert Karen Bussen highlights these elements as she shows couples how to design their own weddings without going crazy or broke.

Simple Stunning Weddings is the first wedding design book to focus on the where of the wedding. Location is the first and most important decision brides and grooms must make: everything else flows from that. Bussen showcases 12 popular wedding settings, including the city loft, country inn, art gallery, botanic garden, and private club, and demonstrates how to make them extraordinary. With the site as the starting point, she creates unifying themes with color, flowers, and personal touches. She explains how to deal with vendors, how to spend the wedding budget, and when it makes sense to hire a specialist.

Sharing all her trade secrets, Bussen teaches the power of simplicity and the impact of color, which can be tailored to any budget, always to stunning effect: substituting cotton tablecloths for silk in the same eye-dazzling color combinations, for example, or creating striking flower arrangements using only one or two types of blooms. Whether for a barefoot union on a beach or a formal affair in a hotel ballroom, this fully illustrated, information-filled book is like having Bussen on hand as your personal wedding designer. AUTHOR BIO: KAREN BUSSEN is one of Manhattan's most exciting wedding designers. Her work has been featured in such magazines as Modern Bride, Martha Stewart Weddings, Home, Food & Wine, and Interior Design. In the past six years, she has designed more than 100 weddings.

ELLEN SILVERMAN's photographs have appeared in Charmed Bracelets and New Soul Cooking (both STC).

This book is good for the gorgeous photos. It tells you how to make your wedding look great in different kinds of venues (ie. hotel, tent, barn, etc.). This book should not be used as a wedding planning tool--it's not that.

In all seriousness this book isn't really that ingenious. Everything that's in this book revolves around the advantages and disadvantages of your "reception location". Although it does provide some good advice, it's quite lackluster. I went off the reviews of this book and I'm not impressed.

I must mention that I'm an artistic & strong minded person who knows what she likes. For those of us who have a clear idea of their reception, skip the book, it's not worth the money.

If you have no idea how or what you want your reception to be like, this book will most likely come in helpful. It has the run down on the "typical" types of wedding reception locations. I stress the word typical. It does not include reception/banquet halls whatsoever.

Even if you fall into the catagory above, I strongly recommend you save your hard earned cash for something actually useful.

I get the most inspiration from visuals and this book is chock full of em. The tips and ideas she gives are relevant for any size wedding. Let's hope some of those tacky brides pick this one up!

I used this book to plan my wedding that happened in May '07, which was done without a wedding planner. My wedding was held in a historic, beautiful synagogue and historic beautiful hotel (similar to the country club chapter). So many of our guests have commented directly to us or my parents about how beautiful our wedding was -- and I have to say this book helped me more than any other. Simple Stunning Weddings guided most of my decor decisions over the 9 months that I spent planning our wedding.

For starters, I used this book to communicate with my florist -- it was extremely helpful for that. So many of my friends and family have commented on how stunning our flowers were -- we used fresh seasonal flowers in colors that suited our venue but they were of a style and in containers similar to the ones presented here.

In addition, her ideas about where to splurge and where to save for a given venue were invaluable. Not only did they save money, but they also saved time and stress.

Her suggestion of bringing old family photos into a reception site was one of the biggest hits of my wedding -- both my husband and I found old photographs of our family going back to the early 20th century and had them displayed on a large table. People couldn't stop talking about them -- not just our relatives, but friends too. That suggestion cost us about $50 -- how great is that? Her idea to hire a swing band to harmonize with the classic space was another giant hit -- the dance floor was full until the band stopped at midnight.

I didn't copy her ideas, rather I adapted them for the synagogue and ballrooms that we used -- and I found it quite easy to do so. It is so easy to be overwhelmed by all the choices around planning a wedding -- everything from table linens to wineglasses to lighting to picking a band -- it was wonderful to have her photos and text to guide and influence our decisions.

I spent nine months being fairly wedding obsessed while planning our wedding -- I purchased many books and magazines, spent lots of time figuring out our options and looking around for ideas, and I have to say that the ideas presented here were the best resource I found. My other favorite book (in a very different vein) was Bridal Bargains -- it's discussions on how to hire vendors from photographers to caterers to dress shops informed and influenced all of our vendor selections. By doing so I hired great vendors right away and avoided many of the hassles that my friends went through while planning their weddings. I'm not sure how much money I saved through their suggestions, but they really do understand what good vendors look like -- which was tremendously helpful.

This book is excellent for both engaged couples planning their weddings, and those who want to plan weddings as a career. The colors and shapes of each spread give them a strong impact without becoming tacky and flamboyant. I highly recommend it!

(112 pages)

Martha Stewart's Keepsake Wedding Planner by: Martha Stewart Living Magazine publisher: Clarkson Potter released: 2003-08-26 ISBN: 1400048001 $19.77

This planner is overflowing with useful features to help you plan and organize the perfect wedding—in addition, you can preserve those memories for a lifetime. The three-ring binder makes it easy to customize it for your needs. Inside you'll find:

• Ten in-depth chapters with planning information, inspirational color photographs, timelines, checklists, and diagrams
• Sturdy pocket folders to hold contracts, menus, and notes
• A clear plastic business-card holder and resealable plastic pouches for fabric swatches, paper samples, and ribbons
• A full-color glossary with photographs of hundreds of flowers

A very good wedding planner, the 3-hole puch style is very practical and comfortable to use. It is a very well organized book with a lot of useful tips, timelines, checklists, etc.

It covers every aspect in the long way to these remarkable days. The different chapters include: Getting Started, Guests and invitations, Stationery, Fashion & Beauty, Ceremony, Reception, Flowers, Music, Photography and up to the Honeymoon.

In all fairness, few sections needed a little more attention like the reception.
The flower section is by far the best and the most detailed section, with a lot of color photos of flowers.

I ordered this planner as a gift for my best girlfriend who recently got engaged. A few reviews mentioned that the materials are excellent, but the binder arrived broken. I thought, hey that would never happen to me, those people are crazy. Um, it arrived broken. I would recommend purchasing this planner as the materials are great, but be prepared to purchase a new binder and transfew the materials. This binder is very un-Martha-like.

Mine arrived broken already. The 3 ring binder part had completely separated from the top so the binding could just swing right out. My fiance did some surgery and fixed it using a brad and it's been fine (and hardly noticeablely different) since. But for $20+ it'd be nice if it didn't arrive needing surgery.

I liked this book because it didn't have too much "filler" - folders are nice. I'm not the type of bride who needs a book to tell me what to do - so the pages are nice suggestions, but I was more looking for a place to keep all of my ideas.

The binder did break about 2 weeks after I bought it - basically the top piece came detatched but my fiance sort of monkey wrenched it together and it's held since.

I read the reviews before I purchased this product, so I really wasn't expecting to be blown away by this product. BUT...it is Martha Stewert and the wedding magazine I had purchased prior to this gave a few examples of what this product would include, so i bought it anyways. It is a nice size to keep everything together. I like that it is the 3-hole puch style so that I can keep all of my contracts in one place. I wish that it had more folders so that you could separate out each section like flowers....catering....cake....etc, but I guess you could always buy more folders. I would purchase this only if you were looking for the organization aspect. The information this folder came with wasn't that helpful to me, so in the end I ended up removing the provided information to give me more room to add what I wanted. I wasn't expecting too much out of it, but it does it's purpose for me.

(224 pages)

Your Stress-Free Wedding Planner: Experts' Best Secrets to Creating Your Dream Wedding by: Judy Allen publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca released: 2004-10-01 ISBN: 1402202970 $13.57

Use the tools and techniques the experts use for stress free planning

Every wedding moves through the same series of planning steps, but the time,
money, energy and emotion invested can vary tremendously. Couples who use
the tools and techniques the experts use are prepared to do what matters,
when it matters most. With the logistics in order, they have the freedom to
enjoy the events leading up to their special day as well as time to relax
and plan their future life together.

As they work their way through the planning stages, couples will find that
their initial stress over planning their wedding day has disappeared.
Couples committed to creating a memorable, meaningful wedding day will come
to view the wedding planning process not as an ordeal to get through, but as
a fun experience.

Judy Allen is a professional event planner and shows brides a step-by-step
approach to minimize the complexity of planning the wedding day. When an
event is planned in these 10 stages, whether over six weeks or a year or
longer, the planner will always be in control of the process, will not go
over budget and will find the whole process relaxed and stress free.

The 10 stages:
1. Visualization: Wedding-Day Dreams
2. Decision Making: What Matters Most
3. Designing a Realistic Blueprint
4. Choosing the Perfect Wedding and Reception Site
5. Selecting the Right Wedding Vendors
6. Before You Sign on the Dotted Line: Questions to Ask
7. Organizing Wedding-Day Timelines and Wedding-Day Flow
8. Wedding-Day Flow Sheets
9. Wedding Supplier Previews and Wedding-Day Rehearsal
10. On-Site Wedding-Day Orchestration

This gift has given a great deal of well deserved advice to a very special bride-to-be!

This book covers every detail you can think of and those you can't think of. You can tell the author has experience and she offers great advice about contracts and financial matters. Something that I think tends to get overlooked in the whirlwind of wedding dreams. She also walks you through the entire planning process and combines all the sections at the end to form a flow plan for the day of the wedding.

I bought this book/organizer because I can be a little [...] retentive with details and I wasn't sure exactly where to start since I'm the first in my family to plan a wedding in the last 20 years. it has been extremely helpful in both information and organization. It does work! Plus, there are a ton of worksheets in it that think of things I would normally have forgotten about until it was too late. Very helpful!

Your wedding vision is the starting point in Your Stress Free Wedding Planner - Expert's Best Secrets to Creating the Wedding of Your Dreams by Judy Allen. After couples complete an independent questionnaire, they will have a better understanding of their thoughts and dreams about creating a custom wedding. This planner gives careful attention to all wedding tasks, therefore, leaving no assignment unaccomplished. The only drawback for this planner would be difficulty removing the pages from its spiral binding as the planner recommends for copymaking.

I have purchased four different wedding planners and miscellaneous wedding planning books over the last year and this is one worth buying. All the wedding related books I have purchased have some helpful things and some not so helpful things but this one I have not found a page in it that has not been helpful. The book breaks the planning process down into ten easy steps to simplify the planning process. This book also has a handful of different questionnaires for you and your fiancée to take. The wedding vision questionnaire helps you better understand each other's "dream" wedding and then helps you to make that into "our dream wedding". It also includes questionnaires for choosing a ceremony site, reception site, supplier questionnaires and many worksheets to help you plan your big day. As you will see if you look at reviews of the other event planning books by this author she knows what she is talking about when it comings to planning a corporate party or a wedding. I would highly recommend this book to anyone planning a wedding who would like to not go insane in the process.

(384 pages)

The Wedding Ceremony Planner: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Part of Your Wedding Day by: Judith Johnson publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca released: 2005-03-01 ISBN: 1402203438 $11.53

Many couples want a spiritual but not a religious ceremony that truly celebrates their unique set of beliefs, values and life circumstances. They want their ceremony, their way but don't know where to begin or what questions they need to ask. The Wedding Ceremony Planner is a comprehensive and user-friendly guide. It covers everything you need to know to create a beautiful ceremony text and to anticipate and address all the profound and mundane logistics with ease, grace and fun. It includes hundreds of text excerpts reflecting the many voices with which our hearts speak. There are also ten sample ceremony texts for the inclusion of children, the telling of the couple's story, the renewal of vows and a commitment ceremony. Checklists and worksheets are included to manage all the details. The Wedding Ceremony Planner is also an invaluable resource for clergy of all faiths, wedding planners and location coordinators. Sprinkled with anecdotes about lessons learned by couples creating their weddings, this book is filled with the wisdom of experience

Praise for The Wedding Ceremony Planner

"Weddings are sacred acts surrounded by material hoopla. The Wedding Ceremony Planner clarifies the worldly issues but keeps the spirit central. It's the balance that every couple needs."
-Marianne Williamson, author, The Gift of Change

"With countless samples of ceremony segments and worksheets to put them all together, The Wedding Ceremony Planner affirms what we all hope for: to communicate our love in a clear, heartfelt manner that truly reflects who we are."
-Jack Canfield, co-author, Chicken Soup for the Bride's Soul®

"In this time of increasing exchange and friendship between people of many cultures ... what the world needs is an intelligent and compassionate 'how to' book on performing interfaith ceremonies. This book is an excellent example."
-The Very Reverend James Parks Morton Founder and President of the Interfaith Center of New York

"[This book] was [wonderful] in helping us create our wedding ceremony. Not only was it easy to follow, but it made us think of things we never would have thought of on our own ... Going through the book also brought us closer ... it is the one thing we have sat down and done 100% together."
-Jennifer Buehler and Frank Yanoti Jr., Bride and Groom

"Planning the wedding ceremony in itself can be a process of discovery for a couple entering marriage ... this marvelous book ... help[s] couples design a ceremony that truly and personally characterizes the meaning and uniqueness of each union."
-Pril Smiley, Mohonk Mountain House

"This book will aid and guide the couple in the creation of their unique wedding ceremony that appropriately states their personal beliefs. How refreshing, how important, how appropriate to help make the wedding yours."
-Alexandra Stoddard, author of Choosing Happiness

My Mom, our officiant, found this book and recommended I pick up a copy. The ceremony was one of the last things we nailed down but I was able to use her structure and some of what she wrote, add our own stuff, and the end result was wonderful. Neither the groom nor I are religious or spiritual, but I still wanted an emotional and meaningful celebration of our relationship. This was the first book I read that really treated that like an option. But also had lots of stuff for people who would want a religious ceremony.

I found this vendor to be fantastic. The moment I ordered the book, I had already received an e-mail notifying me it was going in the mail. I got it only days later with standard shipping. I would use this vendor again.

The middle portion of this book was invaluable in creating a "custom" wedding ceremony for my own and for the wedding of two friends for which I am officiating.

My friends took their time (up to the wedding day!) to create their ceremony. This book helped them to get their creative juices flowing by helping to explain the mysteries around the different elements of wedding ceremonies.

Absolutely a must purchase for anyone writing their own ceremony vows etc.

After meeting with our officiant, and not being thrilled with the ceremony scripts she had in mind, I stopped by the bookstore. I browsed through about 10 different vow-writing books, and ultimately decided on this one. Boy! I'm glad I did! This book helped me craft every aspect of our ceremony, and helped me feel like the words spoken on our wedding day meant something to us. This book had sections for every type of service, and with a little cutting and pasting, we had some beautiful words to join us in marriage. I highly recommend this book if you want to have a hand in the wording of your wedding ceremony.

I came across this wonderful book in my local bookstore, burst into tears reading it, and bought it on the spot. Rev. Johnson's message, tone and suggestions spoke right to my heart and are unlike anything else I've seen out there in wedding la-la land.

My fiance and I are in the midst of planning our wedding now. Before I read this book, we didn't know where to begin even thinking about the ceremony. There are so many books out there about planning the reception, but so few that focus on the most important part - the ceremony. This book is full of great ideas and beautiful words to say for weddings of all shapes, sizes and persuasions. It's given us a great template to use with our officiant in creating a meaningful ceremony that truly reflects who we are.

(432 pages)

Wedding Planning For Dummies, Second Edition by: Marcy Blum, Laura F. Kaiser publisher: For Dummies released: 2004-10-29 ISBN: 0764556851 $13.59

A great book , written in plain English, explaining in full detail all the difficult situations of these emotional days. It simplifies a lot of problems. It is a must read for every bride and groom.

This book answered so many questions I had about wedding planning ... even AFTER I had done hours and hours of research. I find it to be an extremely valuable reference to hold on to during the planning process.

I strongly disagree with reviewers that say this book is only for rich brides who want that cookie-cutter princess wedding. I'm NOT having that kind of wedding at all, and I tailored the basic information I used from this book to create a very individualized wedding that's a little traditional, and also a little offbeat. The tips in here are mere guidelines, and it's a great place to get started if you haven't the slightest clue where to start when planning a wedding.

One section I found particularly helpful was the invitation wording. Our families are very different, and both are contributing in their own way, financially or otherwise, and this book had about 10 different way to word invitations based on your individual family situation. SO helpful!

After spending months of watching television shows, reading magazines, browsing online, attending bridal shows and reading other books, I found this book and I LOVE it. If you're planning your own wedding, and can't afford a wedding planner, this book is fantastic. It has TONS of details, large and small, on how the typical wedding works right down to the order of who walks down the isle when depending on what type of ceremony you're having, and nice personal touches you can add to your wedding (if you choose to) like using matching stamps on your invitation and RSVP envelope. If you don't have time to plan every detail of your own wedding, maybe you should be hiring a wedding planner so you don't have to worry about the small stuff, but if you're doing it yourself, this has a TON of useful info. It will tell you what elements are traditionally included, and then you can modify them to your own tastes. I've been leaving sticky notes on pages I want to refer to later, and for my wedding with under a $10,000 budget, I have about 50 sticky notes in the book, and I'm not even done reading yet!

Wedding trends change every season, if not every month. It's hard to print a book that can keep up with the ever-changing customs, traditions, styles, etc. This book was useful as a reference - such as for financial issues, tips, advice, seating arrangements, etc. However, it is already very outdated in terms of what is "in", who is expected to pay for what, etc which is what - i think - brides (and grooms!) would be most interested in.

This book was a life saver to me as I planned my wedding . It covers everything that you can think of from invitation etiquette, to wedding ceremony set up, to how plan your reception. I found this guide to be indispensable! It offers loads of sound advice, direction, and suggestions--it gets down to the specifics like what the difference is between a Pomander bouquet versus a Nosegay bouquet, or how to set up a Chuppah etc.. The authors give fantastic advice on how to handle all kinds of tough wedding situations and dilemmas. For those that have no clue and not the foggiest idea of where to begin to those that have a good amount of wedding know how-- this book will be an enourmous amount of help!

(485 pages)

The Wedding Book: The Big Book for Your Big Day by: Mindy Weiss, Lisbeth Levine publisher: Workman Publishing Company released: 2008-03-27 ISBN: 0761139605 $13.57

Announcing the wedding bible: the most complete, lively, handholding, step-by-step guide to help every couple have a perfect wedding—no matter their budget, taste, or personalities. More than 2.2 million North American couples tie the knot each year; until now, only a mere fraction could work with celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss. But the significant fact is not Ms. Weiss's clientele, but the reason for it: She's so very good at what she does. And now she shares all of her hard-won experience, wisdom, inspiration, and style tips.

The Wedding Book covers everything, in a voice filled with understanding: announcing the engagement, and what to do when someone isn't happy about the news; creating a budget; the pros and cons of destination weddings. Drawing up the guest list; planning the ceremony (and how to personalize your vows); menus to inspire; contracts and wedding insurance. Shopping for the dress, six great hairstyles, tuxedo vs. dinner jacket, the etiquette of invitations. Style tips for flowers, the tabletop, linens; a cake that says "you"; the crucial "Sixty Days Until I Do"; rehearsal dinner strategies; plus freezing the cake and preserving the bouquet.

Today the average cost of a wedding is $25,000—at $19.95, The Wedding Book is the smartest investment a bride-to-be could make.

this book won't give you the specifics on how to personalize your wedding, but it's a comprehensive, start-to-finish, practical guide that has been invaluable for taking the complex, overwhelming (and slightly insane) process and helping you think about it in manageable chunks.

I bought this book as a gift for my fiancé (mostly so she would stop bugging me to get it for her). I actually read some of it too and really found it helpful. The book even had some sections geared towards guys which I thought was kinda cool - especially the list of what to stock the bar with and the different types of suits to wear since that's all I will get a say in anyway.

This book totally saved me. After feeling overwhelmed about planning my wedding for weeks and weeks, I can finally take a deep breath and say that my fiance and I are REALLY EXCITED after reading Mindy's book. There are so many great ideas in here that I would have never thought of, and so many of them are absolutely inspiring. This book is so comprehensive, it really talks about everything you want and need to know about planning your wedding. It's like Mindy is right there guiding you through every step of the way! The BEST part though, is that there are so many fun facts and cute details in the book...I couldn't put it down :) If you're a bride-to-be, I highly recommend Mindy's book...you'll absolutely love it. If you're a bridesmaid, do the bride a big favor and pick this up for her!

I am getting married next spring and just bought Mindy's book and I am obsessed! I read it cover to cover and couldn't put it down! My fiancé read it too and thought it was really helpful and it helped him get more involved in the planning process. The Wedding Book has every piece of information that I need to plan my wedding - how to do a budget, who to invite, what to wear, what to serve, what flowers to choose, how to pick your cake, it has helpful diagrams, checklists and even a section on planning a honeymoon...there isn't a thing this book doesn't have! Who needs a wedding planner when you have Mindy's book! This is a must-have for anyone who is getting married and a great gift for a recently engaged friend or relative!

Having designed flowers for Mindy Weiss on literally hundreds of weddings, I know that nobody knows more about weddings than she does. And the fact that she has put it all together in this book is a gift to brides everywhere. It is amazing how many subjects she covers here and how many wonderful hints she gives you for the time leading up to the wedding day, the day itself and days long after the wedding. Even the most thorough bride and mother-of-the-bride will find somthing new in this book. If you can't have Mindy Weiss for your Wedding Planner, this book is the next best thing.

Mark Held
Mark's Garden