AisleDash

Admit it -- you've looked through what seems like hundreds of wedding magazines and found loads of inspirational pictures and articles, but when you've gone back through to find a specific article, you realize you have no idea whether it was in April's Modern Bride or February's Martha Stewart Weddings. And it's so frustrating, because you know exactly what it looked like, but it's hard to explain to someone else, so you need that article.

You're not alone in this problem -- not by a long shot. In order to get organized and alleviate a bit of the stress, you might want to check out Scanalog.

The ever-helpful folks over at DIYBride have declared July to be "Multi-media Month". This week's post deals with online wedding planning, all those lovely sites which offer budget trackers, checklists, guest list and RSVP trackers, pages for vendors and music and dress sizes and ... everything you need to plan your wedding, really.

If you're a binder bride or a spreadsheet bride, that's fine. But if you'd love to use online tools, but have simply been overwhelmed by the sheer range of choice out there, check out the Online Planning Tools post. A range of sites were evaluated using a number of factors: ease of use, selection of tools, overall design and presentation, and reputation/reliability.

Dear AisleDash,

My best friend and my mom and pretty much anyone who would help me plan my wedding live two hours away. I don't mind the drive, but gas prices are making the trip way too expensive, and I'm worried that I won't be able to do any of my planning with them. I'm having the wedding here, so it's not like I have to drive there to do the planning, I just want them to be involved, and I know they don't always want to drive out here to help me. Gas is expensive for them, too. I just don't want to be on my own for all my wedding stuff. I'm not good at this! What should I do?

~P.

Dear P,

I'll bet this is a problem lots of brides are facing right now. In fact, pretty much everyone in the country has been forced to adjust their travel habits. I think it's safe to say that we can all sympathize. I don't have some magic solution that will get you two hours away without burning any fuel, unless you've considered becoming a marathon cyclist. So you are going to have to do more of your planning without the help of your mother and best friend, but that doesn't mean you have to be on your own.

Just this month -- June 2008 -- C & G Weddings (a New York-based wedding planning firm) announced the release of their CEO bag, a stylish and useful all-in-one handbag for the busiest (and most organized!) of brides.

There are a million details to keep track of when planning a wedding -- regardless if you have professional assistance or not. There's the cake, the flowers, the attendants, the place settings, the favors, etc, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. To keep all of these things straight, and to keep your head on straight, as well, this is the perfect product to carry with you, to keep at home and to help you plan the perfect wedding.

This bag -- in addition to coming in a variety of chic colors -- comes equipped with pens, highlighters, scissors, a calculator, Post-its, business-card holders and even a place to store a laptop.

The bag can be yours from $189 to $229 and can be purchased exclusively at CandGWeddings.com.

Many brides present their bridesmaids with a gift when they ask them to join the wedding party. Not usually a big gift, sometimes just a thanks-for-being-a-great-friend card is all it takes. But we have a suggestion for a new gift for this occasion: gas cards.

When you ask someone to be a bridesmaid, you're not just asking her to stand at the front during the ceremony; most bridesmaids are involved in planning the wedding with you, running around shopping and going to dress fittings and coming over to help you stuff envelopes. You're asking her to do a lot of driving, and with the price of gas relentlessly climbing, you're asking her to shell out a lot of money.

A gas card may not be very wedding-y, but we think it's a nice way to subsidize your bridesmaids so they can afford to be involved. All major gas stations sell gift cards; pick one that's convenient to all the bridesmaids and load it up.

Dear AisleDash,

I'm getting married in 3 months. I have three bridesmaids and one maid of honor. The girl who I really wanted to be my MOH was pregnant this past year and I felt bad asking her to take on the huge responsibility of being my MOH on top of all she's going through, so I chose my close friend from high school instead. Well, throughout the whole wedding planning process, my MOH has been a total disaster! Standing me up for appointments, not returning my phone calls, being totally absent from my life, etc. In my heart I want the other girl to be my MOH, but I don't want to risk losing a friend by demoting my current MOH. Is it too late to have two MOH's? If I choose to do this, how do I tell my current MOH that I've added another girl to share her title?

~J.

Dear J,

I think a lot of women make the issue of bridesmaid titles more complicated than it needs to be. Lots of people have two maids of honor, so I see no problem adding another to your lineup, as long as she wants to do it. Have you talked to her about it at all since she had the baby? Has she decided that she does have the time and energy to dedicate to your wedding? If she has volunteered for the job, go ahead and start including her more in your planning, but I wouldn't ask this of her unless she has made it clear that she is available and eager. Being a new mom is much more time consuming and stressful than being pregnant, so don't ask any favors that would put her in a difficult place.

If you live in New Orleans or just plan to get married there, we found a great site that can help you plan a spectacular wedding in The Big Easy. It's called the New Orleans Wedding Planning Experience and it is chock-full of advice and ideas.

For instance, you can find some great articles on choosing photography, flowers, entertainment, and venues. You can view the WPE TV show archives and find local vendors. You can even download a free wedding day planner!

We love how they give step-by-step instructions on things such as booking your transportation or finding the right entertainment. Go check them out and see if something there can help you reduce the stress of planning your big day.

Choosing your wedding day is often a process of balancing interests, schedules, holiday time, obligations. Once you've chosen the general time frame, you pretty much have to simply hope for the best, that the details come together, that the weather co-operates.

We can't help you with your friends and personal logistics too much, but we can suggest something that might help with the weather! Bridalweather offers a service that helps you choose the weekend most likely to have good weather. Available only for American brides (including Alaska and Hawaii), you choose your state, time frame, and specific location, and you'll get a forecast -- and even a link to a podcast. You can also approach it from the reverse: see the forecasts for every weekend throughout the year, and pick a weekend based on the likelihood of good weather.

We all know you can't get 100% accuracy that far in advance -- but knowing that a weekend is statistically likely to give you good weather can be reassuring, anyway.

There is very little about planning a wedding, and in particular, a green wedding, that isn't covered in My EcoChic Wedding. There's a wedding classified market, where you can buy, sell, and trade items, there are lists of vendors and lists of questions to ask those vendors, there are budget worksheets, timelines, to-do lists for every member of the wedding party. They will, for a fee, host your very own wedding website, which they'll let you try out free for a week.

They even give you a free, down-loadable 43-page wedding planning book. This is a seriously all-inclusive site, and though eco-oriented, it's not preachy. Even if you're not interested in having a 'green' wedding, you'll find the site useful. And you never know, some of those green tips might save you a little green money!

Don't you just love free stuff? We certainly do, especially as it relates to our wedding budgets! Right now Weddingbee is giving away 8 copies of Crane & Co.'s Wedding Blue Book.

What's a Wedding Blue Book and why would you need it? Well, this guide tells you what you need to know about wedding correspondence - both traditional and contemporary. It normally retails for just under $20.

So if you're interested, hurry on over and leave a comment on the post before 8pm EST tomorrow. Best of luck to all who enter.

George Mason University has a Wedding Planning and Management class. Students plan a wedding for their final project. They use real vendors and a strict budget. But this class isn't for engaged GMU students - it's for those who would like to be wedding planners.

Maria Abrams is a student in the class at GMU, and she's blogging at the Washingtonian site about her final project. She makes updates every Thursday and is on her third post in the series. Maria's group is limited to a $15,000 budget.

In her most recent installment, Maria tells readers how to save money on the cake. Her tips? Downsize the display cake and have a less expensive sheet cake in the back for cutting and serving. Or use fill-ins for a larger cake.

We'll be keeping an eye on this series, as it sounds like Maria is going to learn a lot of interesting things about wedding planning.

Photo by makelessnoise licensed under Creative Commons.

In a world of weddings and wedding planning and in a time when more and more brides are employing the services of a professional wedding planner, it's hard to know if you're getting the best (and most honest) service available.

Liene, from Blue Orchid Designs, has written a hugely interesting and frank article on the dirty secrets of wedding planners. Or, perhaps we should call it their unethical trade secrets. She deals with the issue of how you could end up paying your wedding planner twice because of a system of kickbacks and how vital it is to read through the contract your planner gives you. Preferred vendors and "best of" lists are also clearly explained.

There is advice on how to deal with a situation where you discover you're paying over the odds for services and she also highlights other gray areas and potential problems. It's a must-read for any bride who is considering using the services of a wedding planner, and even enormously useful if you're having doubts about a planner you've already hired.

Having said all of that, it doesn't mean that all wedding planners are automatically engaged in dishonest practices. It's always a good thing, though, to be aware of how things work and how you can avoid being ripped off.

Wedding planners can bring an enormous wealth of experience to the planning process. Unfortunately, if you choose the wrong one, they can also bring a wealth of problems, which is why you really should get referrals on any wedding planner you choose -- after all, you're basically putting you're Big Day into their hands!

For brides getting married in the UK, I have good news -- Simply Wedding Planners has taken care of a great deal of the research for you when it comes to choosing a wedding planner. Every planner on their site has proven to be professional, qualified, and experienced, and by filling out just one form, you can receive quotes for four wedding planners.

Brides have used wedding planners for ages -- it's about time there was a resource to make the planning of the wedding planner a bit easier!

We all love Martha Stewart, don't we? Yes, a big cheer for Martha and her infinite ability for taking DIY to a whole new extra-complicated level. Especially when it comes to wedding favors and hand-tied ranunculus bouquets.

But the folks over at Real Simple have thankfully taken it down a notch. The Time Inc. publication embraces a philosophy of paring down the extras, cutting out the needless, and streamlining to gorgeous simplicity, while still existing on a plain of fashionable coolness. And they've taken this way of living and poured it into a lovely concise volume entitled Real Simple Weddings.

Available at your newsstand for a mere $12.95, it's unimaginable that you could really need much more than this esthetically, economically and effortlessly pleasing guide. Divided into easy to digest sections, Your Plan, Your Ceremony, Your Reception, and further drilled down into the simply necessary items, Attire, Timeline, Food, etc. Each chapter is nicely laid out with "Getting Started", section specific ideas, "10 Common Questions" and the handy sidebars of "Save Stress" and "Save Money".

Really, who could ask for anything more ... say "I do" to the Simple way.

Want to maximize your wedding time and money? Think about taking a cruise. Cruise weddings provide convenience and ease of arrangement, especially when you leave the details to the cruise line wedding planner.

You can marry in your U.S. port before the cruise begins, allowing guests to come aboard and enjoy the festivities and depart before the trip. Or, you can get married in a foreign port and bring the wedding guests along for the ride. Just make sure your planner knows the requirements of the foreign port so you'll be legally married when you return home.

A lot of major cruise lines offer wedding packages and you can choose the amenities that suit you and your soon-to-be spouse. Check out several providers to see what's right for you. Have friends who can't make it? Princess offers web cam coverage of your ceremony. Want to get married on a private Bahamian Island? Try Disney. There are a lot of fun and creative options to choose from.

So if you want to break from tradition a bit, combine your wedding ceremony and honeymoon. The convenience and cost may just be right up your alley.

Image by Independentman licensed under Creative Commons.