This of course was followed by several emails and a lengthy skype conversation the following day, where I learned such details as her wedding date (THIS Labor Day!), where they are getting married (his hometown), her wedding color (ALSO purple), and her fiancé's name (Mike. Whoops).
Being in a position to dole out any sort of advice at all about wedding planning is a pretty novel idea to me, but there I was, talking with a good friend with an even tighter schedule than I have, advising her on the books, magazines, and sites that have garnered the most useful information for me. At the top of the list? "The Knot Book of Wedding Lists," brought to you by the wedding gurus behind The Knot franchise.
Your average 7-year-old girl reading up on recent wedding trends.
When I first knew I was getting engaged, I browsed through the wedding section at countless bookstores and bought nothing. There are several reasons for this. First, I am not the sort of girl who has dreamed about her wedding since she was five, and so any book that either states that directly or implies it on the first page is immediately out. (Believe me, this gets rid of about 80% of them.) Second, a lot of them had information or advice that I have no use for, such as hiring the perfect wedding planner (no), planning a destination wedding (does it count if both of our families are traveling here?), or other froofy crap I just do not care about. What mainly interested me were the DIY books, which are somewhat helpful but never seemed to have enough ideas in them that I would use to warrant a purchase. Why should I buy a book for just 1 or 2 crafts when I can look up ALL the crafts I want for free online? So in the end, the one and only book I did buy is one that is completely utilitarian. No froofy crap, no lovey dovey stuff, no hearts, doves, nothing. Just lists of stuff that wedding neophytes such as myself would never have thought of. And I love it.
Don't worry, I left the bookstore with plenty of material: piles of bridal magazines. I don't know why, but I've always had an addiction to magazines. Something about flipping through page after glossy, colorful page sparks my imagination. At the suggestion of an engaged Borders employee who was commiserating with me on the sorry state of bridal books, I purchased an accordion folder and have been cutting out every page or image that speaks to me. By now my inspiration folder is looking pretty impressive, and it's also really interesting to me to see how clearly I favor a certain style or look. For example, I didn't have a clear idea for a hairstyle, but checking the "hair" category of my ideas folder proved me wrong. Almost every single image I pulled for that section is the same style. Who knows how long it would have taken me to figure that out otherwise! D: (And, for the record, the magazines I've found most helpful so far are Chicago Brides and Martha Stewart Weddings.)
For some reason this hairstyle keeps showing up in my "inspiration folder"...
So, how's about those helpful links? We all know about the big ones (The Knot, Brides, Martha Stewart Weddings), and these all have TONS of useful information and ideas. But there is a website I've been using quite a bit recently called Wedding Bee. It's basically the cutest wedding site ever, and features several brides blogging about their upcoming nuptials. There are also pretty extensive forums for brides to share their tips and tricks. The best part is how DIY-heavy the site is, and how these women make it seem their projects seem, well, do-able. No offense to Martha Stewart, who is clearly a master of the trade, but her projects can be a little ... out of my reach. (See: DIY Wedding Cakes) But seeing a bride just like me cutting and gluing and drawing and folding and creating? Ah, now that's just the sort of inspiration I need.
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