Emily and Matt

Wedding planning has been going along at about the same pace as wedding blogging. We’ve chosen the date, location, officiant and photographer thus far (more on that later). As the weeks pass by, I’ve been scouring the Internet for ideas and resources. I thought it might be helpful for any brides-to-be (or vicarious-brides-to-be!) to share my favorites. The wealth of information online makes me very glad to be planning a wedding in the growing technological age!

Blogs
Style Me Pretty — Beautiful ideas and advice, it also has been running awesome Inspiration Board contests. Unfortunately, all the ideas make me want to go the Pam & Kid Rock route and have several blessed events (except the last one, the divorce, of course!).

Something Old, Something New — Cute and classic. It’s similar to Style Me Pretty, not that there can ever be too much of this cutesy stuff! And not that I’m one to complain about this, but it’s a bummer that it’s not updated as often.

Wedding Bee — Cute pseudo-named brides blog about DIY, family problems, finding the perfect dress–everything! They update so often that my Google Reader is constantly replenished (RSS feed, that you really should be using if you read as many blogs as I do).

The Bride’s Guide — If you’re a fan of Martha Stewart, which I am wondering why I wasn’t before, you’ll feel blessed to be able to tap into the genius minds of Weddings editor Darcy Miller.

What Junebug Loves — A wedding planner’s blog. It highlights novel ideas, unique finds and local deals/events. These are all great, except that the deals are focused around Seattle. Apparently they don’t know that the Bay is the place to be!

Oh Joy! — While not really wedding related, it’s a great resource for chic parties. And from what I understand, there will be many from here on out.

Hostess with the Mostess — Again, another party blog. And I love parties!

Books
The Bargaining Bride: How to have the wedding of your dreams without paying the bills of your nightmares — Got this at the local library and it says how to negotiate, not settle for cheaper versions of what you want. It’s well written and easy to breeze through.

The Library — You’d be surprised how much great stuff is at your local library. So check it out. It’s free, that is, if you remember to return your books on time.

Forums
Project Wedding –Great design combined with knowledgable and frequent users, it’s a great tool for planning and deciding. Focuses on Northern and Southern California regions, but is also helpful for those elsewhere. It also has vendor reviews, but it’s not as easy to filter through as is the forum.

Bridal Insider — I actually only include this one since my co-worker said it was helpful. It used to be focused by region, but it looks like they threw that idea out the window. That being said, it was heavily used by San Diego brides that didn’t seem to frequent the site too much. Also, the forum is a little fugly.

Wedding Websites
The Knot — Where the checklist goes above and beyond, the gallery navigation falls behind. It has options to build your own wedding website, but that would be too easy for us! The latter is also nice for snoopers who like to see if friends are engaged yet (not that I would know anyone who does that…).

Wedding Planner — I like the galleries and scrapbook function. The budget calculator is also helpful, but is pretty generic. It also has website hosting, which I think are nicer than The Knots.

Kaboodle — This isn’t really a wedding website, but we’re considering it for our registry. It’s too hard to pick just a couple stores! All in all, it’s a good wishlist website.

Movies
Martha Stewart Wedding DVDs — I found one of these at my library and it was awesome! You got to see real life weddings, decorating how-tos and ideas for cakes, flowers, etc. These are much easier to get through than all the magazines, blogs and books.

Father of the Bride — Still makes me cry, this movie totally reminds me of my family. (Not that I think my dad would steal Matt’s dad’s bank book and throw it in the pool or go to jail for stealing hot dog buns!) You must own this. And before you think it would be a better idea to rent it from the library, double check their late fees!