November 25th, 2006
The Real Bride: Books, Books, and More Books: Part 2
Some of the books I got from the public Library:
Wedding Planning For Dummies, Second Edition
To be fair, I read the 1st edition, and it was an ok book, written by a wedding planner, Now, I have nothing against wedding planners (I have one for my own wedding) But this one had some very different ideas about what a bride’s priorities should be. There was an addendum in the back of the book about how she was challenged to plan a wedding for $16,000. And how she worked so hard and made so many deals to get it done. Puhlees. It was interesting to note that she received her full fee for the planning…she could have saved a good amount there.
She also mentioned that silk and real flowers are about the same price–Yeah, tell that to my mom who has to pay $50.00 for 3 real gardenias (they had to be ordered in 3 because they were out of season) when my sister got married in November 16 years ago…. And I just looked on-line–the price for a DOZEN silk ones (no matter what time of year) was…wait for it…$16.00!! Yeah, pretty close in price…
I just thought she wasn’t super concerned about saving any kind of money on anything–certainly not what I was looking for…
The Wedding Ceremony Planner: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Part of Your Wedding Day
When I looked at the blurb at the library, I thought this was going to be a great book–my fiance’ and I are looking for a more spiritual, rather than religious ceremony, and I thought this would fit the bill. Unfortunately, the ceremonies she suggested were much more religious than we were comfortable with. Not to mention that some of her comments regarding certain ceremony rituals seemed uninformed to me…
Diane Warner’s Complete Book of Wedding Vows: Hundreds of Ways to Say “I Do” (Wedding Essentials)
Both of these books were ok, just more of the same I have some across such as suggestions for readings, music and the like, examples of other people’s weddings, and general etiquette tips…
The Knot Guide to Wedding Vows and Traditions: Readings, Rituals, Music, Dances, and Toasts,
This book had ALOT of great ideas, as well as links to The Knot for even more…I really liked the fact they spoke to many and varied types of weddings, from Catholic, to Buddhist, to Civil, to Handfasting Ceremonies–this book has something for just about everyone…
The “I Have A Life” Bride’s Guide: Plan The Wedding You’ve Always Wanted–without Losing Your Mind
This really wasn’t a “planning guide”, rather a cheerleader of sorts–there were some good tips, but it was basically a “Don’t forget why you are getting married” and “Don’t turn into a Bridezilla”. If you are looking for a good planning book, this isn’t it…
I Do: A Guide to Creating Your Own Unique Wedding Ceremony
I found this on Amazon…and I was less than impressed. It was very vague about how you actually go about creating your unique ceremony–basically told you to look within and figure out what was important to you, and then incorporate that into your ceremony…well, YEAH, I know that…it’s the whole HOW part I am having trouble with…
In my travels on the internet, I came across an E-book by Stephi Stewart “Fire Your Wedding Planner” , neither she, nor I are advocating doing that, but the overall theme of her book fits in nicely with the Denise and Alan Fields book I mentioned last time. Her motto is: “It’s your money, so act like it!” She also has daily companion e-mails she will send, as well as a wedding website. She offers a 30 day money back guarantee if you don’t save 10 times the cost of the book ($29.95). I really liked it–it offered a different approach to planning a wedding, and also showed alot of the pitfalls than can happen out there…and some GREAT tips on how to get the best deal fro things–She is the reason I found an amazing photographer–for less than 1/2 the going price!
The bottom line is to look around and ask around…what you are looking for in terms of your wedding is the best place to start. For example, I have a limited budget, and wanted tips and such to save money, so I looked for books to help me do that…and I went from there…
Good luck–and happy reading!
