The Bridal Biz not only triples the price of wedding services, it literally takes the wedding away from the bride and makes it an impersonal, secular event that is all they know and treats your wedding like a Ken and Barbie runway at a fashion show, based on Hollywood movies and silly TV shows. It's Your Wedding Not Theirs is a comprehensive, creative guide to help you plan a distinctively unique, personal and sacred celebration. If you want a Martha Stewart wedding, do not buy this book. With photos and suggestions from 55 brides, this book offers dozens of tips on how to make your celebration a memorable experience, not just an expensive event. This simple, 65 page guide book will walk you through 40 plus chapters, including your goal, your attitude, your groom, your mother, your focus or theme, your family, your budget, your guest list, your location, your celebrant, your wardrobe, your rings, your vendors, your ceremony, your legal requirements, your program, your rehearsal and dinner, your ceremony and reception, your honeymoon, and your marriage. With very practical tips on every aspect of your wedding weekend from welcome to readings and love letters to vows and symbols of unity to cultural customs, favors, toasts and cake this book shows you how to present yourselves as hosts rather than self-conscious stars and how to move from a costly, cookie cutter party to a sacred, fun, mature, memorable celebration.

Bestselling author Susan Wiggs literally wrote the book on happily-ever-after love. But orchestrating her daughter Elizabeth's real-world wedding turned into a different story altogether, and one that takes two to tell—the mother and the bride. Here is the all-too-true tale of a mother and daughter collaborating on life's ultimate celebration—a dream wedding. Often poignant, sometimes irreverent and always hilarious, this charming book is also packed with useful advice from both ends of the cupcake-tasting table. Join mother and daughter as they wade through the trenches of flowers and favors, grueling gown decisions…and the cold, cruel realities of a budget. With luck, love and loads of patience, they come out on the other side, bloodied but unbowed, replete with life lessons—and closer than ever before.

Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette is the classic indispensable, comprehensive guide to creating the wedding of your dream, now in its sixth edition. Today's weddings are more complicated than ever, with new traditions replacing old, and new relationships to consider as family life grows more complex. Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette has everything a bride will ever need to know to have the perfect wedding. Anna Post guides brides and their friends and family through weddings to maximize fun and reduce stress, including: How to handle awkward family situations How to address envelopes and word invitations How to choose an officiant How to blend family traditions The timeline of events throughout the engagement and during the wedding Who to include on your guest list How to use technology to your advantage

A companion to the popular website APracticalWedding.com and A Practical Wedding Planner, A Practical Wedding helps you sort through the basics to create the wedding you want -- without going broke or crazy in the process. After all, what really matters on your wedding day is not so much how it looked as how it felt. In this refreshing guide, expert Meg Keene shares her secrets to planning a beautiful celebration that reflects your taste and your relationship. You'll discover: The real purpose of engagement (hint: it's not just about the planning) How to pinpoint what matters most to you and your partner DIY-ing your wedding: brilliant or crazy? How to communicate decisions to your family Why that color-coded spreadsheet is actually worth it Wedding Zen can be yours. Meg walks you through everything from choosing a venue to writing vows, complete with stories and advice from women who have been in the trenches: the Team Practical brides. So here's to the joyful wedding, the sensible wedding, the unbelievably fun wedding! A Practical Wedding is your complete guide to getting married with grace.

A recent poll indicated that for every American who believes he or she is going to Hell, there are 120 who believe they're going to Heaven. This optimism stands in stark contrast to Jesus Christ's words written in the Bible: "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few"(Matthew 7:13-14). The truth is that according to the Bible we don't automatically go to Heaven. In fact, Hell--not Heaven--is our default destination. Unless our sin problem is solved once and for all, we can't enter Heaven. That's the bad news. But once that's straight in our minds we're ready to hear the good news of Jesus Christ--Jesus took upon himself, on the cross, the Hell we deserve so that we could experience for eternity the Heaven we don't deserve! The Only Two Options There are two possible destinations when we die--Heaven or Hell. Can we really know in advance where we'll go? John, one of the writers of the Bible, said this: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). We can know for sure that we'll go to Heaven when we die. Do you? To sin means to fall short of God's holy standards. Sin is what ended Eden's paradise. And all of us, like Adam and Eve, are sinners. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Sin separates us from a relationship with God (Isaiah 59:2). Sin deceives us and makes us think that wrong is right and right is wrong (Proverbs 14:12). Sin has terrible consequences, but God has provided a solution: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, loved us so much that he became a man to deliver us from our sin. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). He came to identify with us in our humanity and our weakness, but he did so without being tainted by our sin, self-deception, and moral failings (Hebrews 4:15-16). Jesus died on the cross as the only one worthy to pay the penalty for our sins demanded by the holiness of God: "For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). But God raised Jesus from the grave, defeating sin's consequences and conquering death (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 54-57). When Christ died on the cross for us, he said, "It is finished" (John 19:30). In those times "It is finished" was commonly written across certificates of debt when they were canceled. It meant "Paid in full." Christ died so that the certificate of debt, consisting of all our sins, could once and for all be marked "Paid in full." The Critical Decision Only when our sins are dealt with in Christ can we enter Heaven. We cannot pay our own way. Jesus said "No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Because of Jesus Christ's sacrificial death on the cross on our behalf, God freely offers us forgiveness. To be forgiven, we must recognize and repent of our sins. Forgiveness is not automatic. It's conditioned upon confession: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Christ offers to everyone the gifts of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. "Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price" (Revelation 22:17). There's no righteous deed we can do that will earn us a place in Heaven (Titus 3:5). We come to Christ empty-handed. We can take no credit for salvation. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). This gift cannot be worked for, earned, or achieved. It's dependent solely on Christ's generous sacrifice on our behalf. Now is the time to make things right with God. Confess your sinfulness and accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on your behalf. You are made for a person and a place. Jesus is the person, and Heaven is the place. They are a package--they come together. You cannot get Heaven without Jesus or Jesus without Heaven. "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near" (Isaiah 55:6). For all eternity you'll be glad you did. If you understand what God has done to make forgiveness and eternal life possible for you, you may want to express it in words like these: "Dear Lord, I confess that I do not measure up to your perfect standard. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for my sins. I now place my trust in him as my Savior. Thank you for your forgiveness and the gift of eternal life."

Seven essays celebrating the beauty of the imperfect marriage. We hear plenty about whether or not to get married, but much less about what it takes to stay married. Clichés around marriage—eternal bliss, domestic harmony, soul mates—leave out the real stuff. After marriage you may still want to sleep with other people. Sometimes your partner will bore the hell out of you. And when stuck paying for your spouse’s mistakes, you might miss being single. In Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, Ada Calhoun presents an unflinching but also loving portrait of her own marriage, opening a long-overdue conversation about the institution as it truly is: not the happy ending of a love story or a relic doomed by high divorce rates, but the beginning of a challenging new chapter of which “the first twenty years are the hardest.” Calhoun’s funny, poignant personal essays explore the bedrooms of modern coupledom for a nuanced discussion of infidelity, existential anxiety, and the many other obstacles to staying together. Both realistic and openhearted, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give offers a refreshing new way to think about marriage as a brave, tough, creative decision to stay with another person for the rest of your life. “What a burden,” Calhoun calls marriage, “and what a gift.”

Fans of WE tv’s My Fair Wedding have watched celebrity wedding planner David Tutera miraculously create celebrations that are each as unique as, and perfectly suited to, the bride herself—and in keeping with the theme or mood that is her vision of her special day. From a chic city loft feel to retro Hollywood glamour, from exotic destinations to sleek winter landscapes, David has translated the oftentimes scattered, misguided, or underwhelming visions of his brides into brilliant and artistic expressions of love, passion, and personality. But only a handful of lucky brides-to-be get the wedding makeover of their dreams as part of the WE tv hit reality show. Now, you can plan the wedding you want and deserve with this wonderful companion volume. It not only features the stories of the most memorable My Fair Wedding brides from three fabulous seasons but gives you the “Tutera touch” as well as expert tools for creating an affair that you, your groom, and your family and friends will cherish forever. Not your average wedding guide, My Fair Wedding is grounded in David’s philosophy that regardless of budget, every bride can have a fantasy wedding as long as the right choices go into the planning—and every detail counts. Here you will find: • insightful and indispensable “What Would David Do?” sidebars • self-quizzes that help you zero in on your preferences and tastes for a truly personalized wedding • real-life etiquette and time-tested manners that add class to every occasion • advice and inspiration for choosing everything from gowns, shoes, hair, and makeup to invitations, photographers, music, lighting, centerpieces, favors, thank-you notes, and so much more • helpful pointers for logistical planning— transportation, outdoor ceremonies, timelines, and other factors for keeping things stress free. Most important, David Tutera helps every bride-to-be to reach deeper, aspire higher, become transformed from within, and radiate a special glow and renewed self-confidence that lasts long beyond her wedding day.