Creative Ideas for Planning a Beautiful - and Meaningful Celebration

It's a pretty good book, but not the only one out there as to how to have a wedding that doesn't break the bank. I would read several and pull info from each of them. And if you are a Mom reading this, but your daughter has a different idea how her wedding will be, you will be stuck. Brides often don't understand how silly most of the costs are until either they are way deep in planning, or planning their own daughter's wedding 25+ years hence.

I read this book just at the right moment. It was just what I needed because I didn't know what to do anymore. I was feeling lost in the world of chaircovers, big fancy dinners and what seemed to me a huge budget (8000 €) but apparently is really tiny in the wedding business. The book tells you that you really can do it your way, and shows you how to mix the expectations of others with your own wishes and budget. There are two periods in which this is a good time to read the book: a) you're just engaged and starting the planning process (it will keep you sane during the planning) b) you've been going through pinterest for months, people have told you all their horror stories and expectations, your fiancee doesn't engage in the wedding planning as much as you would hope, and you are feeling overwelmed (it will bring you back to life). Don't read it if everything is going smoothly and you have everything in control. This is not a good book if you expect rules and factual tips on what to do next. (Do check out the website for that, there are free excelfiles to download to make sure your day remains as organised as you have it in your head.) The book takes you through the different stages of the planning process, no matter your personal timing, handing you tools to deal with each stage, and tells you everything will be ok, no matter how you plan it. After all, you are marrying the person you love. It's a reality check without smothering the love and happy feelings that come with a wedding.

This book is easy to read and has laid out where to begin planning a stress free wedding. I would buy it again and recommend it to a friend. It covers all different types of weddings from DIY to catered and professionally planned affairs.

I bought and read this shortly after getting engaged and the message of not slavishly following everything that the wedding industrial complex tells you to do is refreshing. However during the planning process, I found Miss Manner's Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding more useful for the particular circumstances of my wedding.

Quick summary of the book's message: "Your wedding is yours. Do what you want to do. People who sell wedding stuff like to make you feel like you need to spend more than you actually do. "

It's an entertaining, quick read. Overall the main thing I gained by reading this book was a renewed sense of "I can make my wedding whatever I want it to be, and it will be awesome." Beyond that, some of the wedding tradition history outlined in this book could probably be read on Wikipedia. If you feel like you need somebody to tell you that your wedding can be whatever you want it to be, this book may make sense for you. If not, I wouldn't buy this book. The information you need likely is available for free on the internet already.

I recommend this book to anyone and everyone who is getting married. And it's not just for brides -- grooms should read this, too! If you are getting married, get this book and read it together with your partner. This book reminds you to "keep the main thing the main thing" and has a lot of good, common-sense tips for discerning what are "musts", "shoulds", and "optionals" for your wedding. It also addresses important issues like dealing with family, religion, finances, even difficult life events (like illness or death), while preparing for your wedding and your future together. This book has an all-inclusive approach in regards to gender, religion, financial status, number of times down the aisle, etc. So no matter what kind of bride or groom you are, there is probably something in this book that will be helpful to you.

Loved this book! Helped me figure out how to handle what really mattered to me about my wedding. This book is great for the bride OR GROOM who wants to plan a meaningful wedding and feel grounded in the process!

Love it! A quick and easy read. This book is exactly what it claims to be-a guide for a practical, insanity-free wedding. I keep coming back to it when the pressure of wedding planning gets to me. Meg's blog is also amazing. Thanks!

This book is a breath of fresh air! It brings you back down to earth after your newly engaged high and really puts into perspective the reality of a wedding and helps highlight what really is important. I'm buying this book for friends who are also planning their weddings.

This book completely changed my view on wedding planning. What a great de-stresser! It calls out the wedding industry and how we really don't need all of "that stuff" to have a meaningful, traditional wedding! Great. Great. Great.

This book is definitely worth reading! It gives a very realistic approach to wedding planning. Highly reccommend reading it before diving into all of the wedding magazines and planning that goes along with it. It will decrease your future stress levels significantly.

Brilliant ideas, very respectful, excellent read, had ah-haa moments, was enjoyable and very helpful (gave it to my fiance and helped him describe what he has envisioned for himself. ;))

Very happy with the purchase, thanks!

Some brides probably need to hear this, I just didn't. In summary, the message of this book is, "It's your wedding; do what you want and ignore the opinions of people that aren't important to you." I didn't need to read a while book to get that... I was hoping for more actually practical advice and honestly I didn't find the book helpful.

With the same grace, wit, and no-nonsense common sense she uses on her blog, Keene guides you through the basics of wedding planning. This book is not a how-to guide for a certain "type" of wedding (traditional, offbeat, LGBT, religious, secular, outdoor, indoor, winter, spring, etc. etc. etc.) but rather a rudder by which anyone planning a wedding can remain true to themselves and (relatively) sane.

Keene discusses the origins of some modern American wedding "traditions" (spoiler alert, most of them have to do with money and nearly all of them were invented in the last 100 years) in a way that's both respectful and realistic; she addresses the budget with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and absolutely zero guilt tripping; she reminds you to respect your family and guests as adults and still remain firmly committed to your values and beliefs, and tells you how to manage it all gracefully.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the history of traditions, the chapter on crafting your own ceremony (or appreciating a traditional ceremony), and the "Day Of" chapter--it's hard to address nitty-gritty spreadsheets and the overwhelming emotional impact of saying your wedding vows within the same chapter and with equal weight, but darn it, Meg pulls it off.

I've been a longtime reader of the blog and found the book both an excellent addition to it *as well as* a strong stand-alone treatise on planning the modern wedding. If you're a blog reader waffling about whether or not the book will add value to your planning process, it will. Buy it. In fact, buy two. Someone else you know is going to get engaged someday, right? :)

I have recommended this book to everyone I know who's getting married, has a friend getting married, or has a friend of a friend getting married... Save your sanity and definitely give this a look. Highly recommended!

A great read to put your wedding in perspective in a time when it's so easy to get swept up in the hype and drama that the wedding industry tends to bring to what should be one of the most meaningful days of your life.

The basic tenet of this book is very simple: a wedding requires two people who want to marry each other, and an officiant. The rest is just details.

Meg Keene empowers brides to have the wedding they WANT, not just the wedding they feel they are supposed to have. If you don't want an aisle runner? Okay! Don't have one. Ms. Keene provides thoughtful advice on how to manage expectations, stress, emotions and opinions from others--and reminds you not to completely disregard the feelings of family members. Each topic includes vignettes from other brides on how they dealt with the topic at hand.

This book is a quick and easy read that I turn to when the planning process is making me crazy and I need to feel grounded again.

My partner and I hit a major challenge just weeks after getting engaged: she wanted a romantic wedding with all our loved ones present and I wanted to elope. There is really no compromise between something and nothing. Luckily, a mutual friend (thanks, Carissa!) recommended all sources of APW and I gulped the Koop aid! It's a super easy read that you can pick away at and refer back to as needed, plus all of the tools that are available online. I'm both happy and relieved to say that we have found the feeling for our wedding and are in the midst of sealing the deal for something that we are both comfortable with--and excited about!

Even being skeptical when considering the hype, I expected more than was delivered. I can't say that it's bad (hence the 3 stars), Just can't say it's fantastic either. Most of it is common sense if you take the time to think your day through.

I would give 10 stars if it were an option. By far the BEST wedding book available! Wedding planning can test your sanity! This incredibly helpful book does a fantastic job of easing some of the stress and providing some much needed humor. I bought two additional copies for my mother and best friend (who is also getting married). HIGHLY recommend!

I won't call this a wedding planning book. This is a book to make you better understand the wedding industry, what weddings mean to you, and where you fit. Meg Keene does not tell you what kind of wedding you should have, but helps you figure out why you want the wedding you want. Whether your budget is $500 or $50, 000, she does not judge. This is a must-read before you get caught up in the chaos of wedding planning.

This book was recommended by a friend as 'The only book about wedding planning worth the paper it's printed on". I have to agree! It's great. Simple and straight-forward. It deals with the tangible and emotional sides of planning. When I first saw it I thought, "Pssh, I am already practical!", but I wish I had picked it up earlier in my planning. I probably would have ended up with a lot of the same plans, but it would have given me a more organized approach and helped me manage family expectations. It's still a good read if you have already started. It helps put things in perspective.

So completely inclusive. This book answered questions we didn't even know we had! Covering details on managing flower girls, including families, choosing dresses and who to tip... this book opened our eyes and helped us feel confident that we can plan a lovely, elegant, memorable wedding.

Ironic that while trying to save money on my wedding, I ended up wasting money on this "money saving" wedding book! To me all of the advice was either very obvious or impractical. It basically said things like, "Want to save a lot of money on the reception dinner? Don't have one and serve cold appetizers instead." Or, "Having a Saturday night wedding and want to save money on an expensive venue? Get married on a Tuesday afternoon instead." Well that's not very helpful. They make weddings seem sort of "all or nothing." I thought it would give tips on what to look for in a caterer, how to negotiate better deals, what you can provide yourself to save money, etc.

This is a MUST for anyone planning a wedding that wants to resist the expensive wedding traps of most vendors and expectations of the industry. It keeps you in check while offering practical money-saving and expectation-grounding advice. It came highly recommended to me by friends and now I'm recommending it to others!

Not much of a practical advice except for repeating that the wedding is yours, do it your way. Anyone who has a bit of a personality would come to that conclusion on their own. Oh and get help. Isn't that commonsense? So, I enjoyed reading the chapter on traditional weddings and other than that it was not useful in actual planning of my wedding. I hate paying for a book that tells me what is basic commonsense. It was a fast and easy read hence the three stars.

So completely inclusive. This book answered questions we didn't even know we had! Covering details on managing flower girls, including families, choosing dresses and who to tip... this book opened our eyes and helped us feel confident that we can plan a lovely, elegant, memorable wedding.

Ironic that while trying to save money on my wedding, I ended up wasting money on this "money saving" wedding book! To me all of the advice was either very obvious or impractical. It basically said things like, "Want to save a lot of money on the reception dinner? Don't have one and serve cold appetizers instead." Or, "Having a Saturday night wedding and want to save money on an expensive venue? Get married on a Tuesday afternoon instead." Well that's not very helpful. They make weddings seem sort of "all or nothing." I thought it would give tips on what to look for in a caterer, how to negotiate better deals, what you can provide yourself to save money, etc.

This is a MUST for anyone planning a wedding that wants to resist the expensive wedding traps of most vendors and expectations of the industry. It keeps you in check while offering practical money-saving and expectation-grounding advice. It came highly recommended to me by friends and now I'm recommending it to others!

Not much of a practical advice except for repeating that the wedding is yours, do it your way. Anyone who has a bit of a personality would come to that conclusion on their own. Oh and get help. Isn't that commonsense? So, I enjoyed reading the chapter on traditional weddings and other than that it was not useful in actual planning of my wedding. I hate paying for a book that tells me what is basic commonsense. It was a fast and easy read hence the three stars.

The only reason I didn't pick 5 stars is because I bought this a month away from the wedding so most of the advice didn't apply anymore as I had most of the wedding sorted. But I still found the book INCREDIBLY helpful in grounding me in the count down to the wedding when everything goes crazy and we become a pile of nerves over things that don't really matter.
Would definitely recommend it; the earlier you can buy this into your engagement, the better off you'll be!

This book is just one long "don't freak out," without any helpful information. If you're looking for actual guides, it's best to just trudge through the ones on theknot.com and exclude anything you think is to nit-picky.

The book got great reviews and I bought it. The shipping, price and time frame was perfect. It was not what I personally was looking for. I needed more of a check list format. Got some great ideas but was really not interested in reading a book.

From what I can see it has some valuable information in it that help keep the wedding planning process reasonable and the bride sane by giving realistic expectations of problems that might come up and how to deal with them. There is some DIY but no where near as much as I hoped. Also, it is read like a book and not an assortment of random ideas to poke through.

Meg Keane's A Practical Wedding is an excellent resource for planning a heartfelt, thoughtful wedding. As a reader of Keane's eponymous blog since 2009, I was concerned that her book would be a recycled version of her blog. The book is a standalone, cohesive resource. Keane's informal and friendly voice is consistent with the blogs, as are the themes on marriage equality, partnership, and civility. The 209-page book offers big picture planning advice and more precise advice on certain topics.

The book covers the following topics:

* Getting Started - The first chapter contains Keane's central wedding planning theme. While planning your wedding, remember: "I will not remember what my wedding looked like; I will remember what it felt like." She offers specific advice on how to decide on how you want your wedding to feel and how to use this vision to plan the nitty-gritty details. This chapter should be required reading for all bridges, grooms, and mothers-of-the-bridge.

* The Basics - Keane discusses some of the basics of wedding planning - mainly wedding venues and guest lists. She recommends that couples first book their venue and then deciding on other vendors.

* Battling the Myth of Tradition - This is a fascinating glimpse into the American wedding tradition. Spoiler: many wedding traditions (e.g. unity candles) aren't all that traditional at all. The take away - liberate yourself from traditions that aren't meaningful to you.

* The Budget - Keane offers two budgeting gems - 1) prioritize your spending on only the things that matter to you, and 2) spend to make your life easier. We found this to be great advice at our wedding. We skipped the florist because we didn't particularly care about flower centerpieces but we did splurge on a day-of coordinator to keep the stress away.

* The Planning - This is a great chapter to return to again and again during the planning process. She has a few central tenets - organize your information early on; hire people you like; and don't drive yourself crazy on a quest to find the perfect dress/venue/florist/photographer etc.

* Doing it Yourself - She offers advice on DIY flowers, food, music, and photography. She reminds prospective bridges that do-it-together is often way more sensible (and fun).

* The Hard Stuff -- Keane discusses family arguments, bereavement, and conflicts between couples. One line in the chapter is more than just wedding advice - it's life advice: "The hardest part of wedding planning is often the conflict between what we hoped would be, and what is. Dealing with this can painful and emotional."

* The Ceremony: In this chapter Keane advocates that couples devote themselves to planning the ceremony, working with officiant, and figuring out how a traditional ceremony can reflect your personal partnership.

* One Wonderfully, Wildly Imperfect Day - In this chapter it feels like Keane is sitting down with you a week before the wedding and laying out a doable plan for the actual ceremony and reception. She recommends putting in a lot of energy planning and delegating before the wedding so that you and your partner can enjoy the actual wedding day.

* It Actually Wasn't The Best Day of Your Life - Keane discusses what to emotionally expect after the wedding. She also discusses the advantages to honeymooning.

Whether you are planning a backyard picnic wedding or a country club fete, there's practical advice for creating a wedding that will serve as the foundation for your marriage.

My fiancée and I have both tried to love this book. The book is packed with useless real life stories of weddings. There's an entire chapter on depressing junk including a story about a bride who had family die during the planning process. Um, why?! It's a fine story, but does there need to be an entire chapter on depressing stuff that has very little to do with wedding planning? I felt burdened and guilty reading this book.

I found this book quite by mistake, but it helped me so much, I just can't help but share it with all my newly engaged friends!! my husband and I had a 6 month engagement, were moving cross country 4 days after our wedding, changing jobs, and planning a wedding all at the same time. My levels of stress were through the roof, and truly this book was a blessing. We read it together, and it put everything into perspective that made planning such an important day simpler. While there isn't anything in here about how to make your own soaps with hand-picked lavender, it dealt with bigger issues. How to decide what KIND of wedding, how to stick to a plan, how to include your partner in the decision making that has you both satisfied with choices, how to handle finances. Personally, those were more vital inquiries I had, rather than getting seduced by the glitz and glam of a wedding reception. If you're looking for a book that will take the stress out of getting hitched, this is the one!

The first 2 months of planning our wedding were overwhelming, to the point that I was regretting our decision to have a wedding in the first place and not just elope. Then reading this book happened. What an amazing book for budget-savvy wedding planning with fantastic ideas and alternative suggestions for certain aspects you may not care about all that much. By the time I finished it, the majority of my stress had completely vanished. I reference back to it constantly when I lose my way. Thank you x a million for publishing this! I will forever recommend it and gift it to every bride to be in my life.

What a great book. Years ago I worked in the wedding industry, and I've been thinking about getting back in. I've been reading the latest best sellers to get back up to date and this one is great. A lovely level headed book, that reminds us it isn't so much about the wedding as it is about the start of your new marriage. I also started following her blog (apracticalwedding.com) which is fantastic. I signed up for her email list as well, which means her blog is delivered via email to my inbox (was I the last one to know you could follow blogs that way?) with beautiful pictures, beautiful first hand wedding stories and such great care paid to her words that I have been moved more than once this past week.

Brides, even if you don't buy this book right away, go follow her blog now (for free) and you'll want to soon.

This book is excellent. I've skimmed it cover to cover and my FH and I will totally read portions together in detail. This book puts the focus of weddings back where it belongs--on the people getting married and the importance of strength in that relationship.

Instead of a hokey list of things I "need" to do when planning my wedding (like I can afford a facial every 2 weeks, a manicure every week, and the other craziness recommended by other wedding planning lists), this book debunks "traditions" and reveals the real history of the commercialized wedding industry. This was extremely helpful to me. I'm planning a very inexpensive wedding and it is refreshing to see that this was the reality for so long throughout history.

I also appreciate all the sections about the emotional minefields of wedding planning, from guest list drama to family drama and everything in between. Those kinds of situations are so hard to navigate and this book offers practical advice to deal with it.

I recommend this awesome book to anyone planning a wedding. It is an excellent reminder to stand back a bit, take a deep breath, focus on what's really important, and keep your sanity during the whole nutty process!

There are a lot of wedding books out there. This one is fantastic. Other books might center on the author's experience and draw out some advice for readers, but this one centers much more on the reader, with interesting tidbits from the author's life (and the lives of others as well). It was like a wise, good friend, holding my hand through the process.

Needless to say, I immediately gave it to the next person I knew planning to get married.

Also: 10,000 bonus points from me for being the only wedding book out there that is LGBTQ couples, straight couples, etc. The whole book is written so that you could be marrying a woman or a man or someone on the trans/genderqueer spectrum. Brava to Meg for that.

In summary: Fantastic book. (And go read the blog, too!)

When you get engaged, you'll start looking at wedding magazines and blogs. You'll be overwhelmed by all the pretty. Then you'll start panicking about the cost and all the expectations. This book will help you. It will be your touchstone to sanity.

This book and the eponymous website saved me. They reminded me that what's important is what your wedding FEELS like, not what it LOOKS like. A Practical Wedding delves into actual wedding traditions, so you can feel OK saying no to favors, Chiavari chairs, and even the white dress. None of them are traditional or necessary. Your wedding is a deeply personal, important celebration for the people you love the most. This book will help you stay focused on that.

I cannot over-emphasize how crucial APW has been to my sanity throughout my 15 month engagement. I've ready APW cover to virtual-cover. I know the ethos backwards and forwards, and it has served me SO well leading up to our wedding celebration, which will finally take place in about 2 weeks. So, when the book was released, I bought it out of a sense of duty to Meg, and to help spread the message that she and her team preach to thoughtful, sensible engaged persons (I realize I'm using strong language here, what with "message" and "preach", but seriously, I clung to this community for dear life during the early stages of wedding planning. It has been like a religion to me...).

To my complete surprise, upon reading the book, I found it absolutely valuable in it's own right! This is not just a re-hashing of the existing blogs, this is something new and different. It's a tender, witty, coherent and sensible intro to wedding planning, and it was super useful to me even in these last few months of planning. The first ten pages alone made me cry and laugh out loud, and the thing is now littered with underlined phrases and exclamations in the margins.

Nobody could ever regret reading this book. It's just that good. Seriously, buy it, for yourself, for your partner, for your marriage. Thank you Meg!!!!

My friend always talked about the writer's great wedding blog. She actually let me borrow this book because she had an extra copy. I think we all know that a wedding or even begin to researching about how to plan a wedding could be just as hectic as convincing your parents that a church weddings is not for you.

The way she has written this book not only is it easily legible, funny, and entertaining! If I am in bed reading a book, I can fall asleep in 5 minutes no matter how good the book is, but I just cant stop reading this one.

She pretty much breaks it up in all of the areas that require the most attention such as talking to parents about what you want, to benefits of having different venues, or how to handle the guest list. Just a fantastic step by step guide on how to make this a pleasant and memorable day for everyone.

There was one thing that I believe was so helpful it goes something like this: You wont remember what your wedding looked like, but you will remember what it felt like.

To begin with, I had no idea what I was doing when I first started planning a wedding. The more things I read the more overwhelmed I became with all the things that I though I had to include within a wedding to make it special. That was all before I started reading this book. Meg Keene makes planning a wedding less about "what needs to be" and more about the couple and the feeling of getting married. She promotes ideas in a very logical and practical way so that planning a wedding no long seems so overwhelming. She walks through EVERY part of wedding planning and really picks apart the whole idea of what a modern wedding should be like. In moments of insanity I refer to this book to bring me back down to the real world and concentrate on what really matters and let go of all the things that don't.

I had to get this book. I intended to get a huge, bossy, expensive wedding binder and clicked on this listing out of curiosity. The synopsis sounded like I had written it to warn my past self, and the advise in it has been more than what I expected and exactly what I needed to know.

Newly engaged as of three weeks ago, I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of my pre-order of this book. I stumbled upon the A Practical Wedding website shortly after starting my online search for wedding info and I am so very grateful. The book and the website reflect what I am looking for out of our wedding; love, fun and a way to celebrate forming a new family with our dearest loved ones. The author cuts through the wedding b.s. that is so dominant in current U.S. culture and helps guide you to figure out what you really want. I read it all in less than a day. Between my partner and I we are down to one living parent and I really appreciated the sections that discussed how loss and grief can be acknowledged at a wedding. I will be utilizing this book at every point in my planning.

If you're newly engaged and starting the wedding planning process and beginning to feel a little uneasy, buy this book NOW! It is so so so amazing. It's practical, good, down to earth advice. It really helped me stop stressing so much about the little stuff and focusing on what's important. It really helps put things in perspective. Yes, weddings are expensive and yes, planning can get stressful - but this is supposed to be a fun and happy time of your life, don't let little things ruin that for you! I had lost sight of that a bit and this book helped ground me again.

A friend of mine sent me A Practical Wedding after she used apracticalwedding.com to plan her wedding. (She's even quoted in the book, which is really cool.) It was just what I needed to reaffirm my belief that weddings don't have to be insane, and I didn't have to spend money on things I didn't care about that others thought were "supposed" to be a part of the wedding. I often found myself reading it before going to bed in order to help calm and organize my thoughts. My fiancé also read parts of the book and we found it helpful to fuel discussions on certain tough topics. I'm going to recommend this book to as many people as I can when they get engaged.

I received this book for an engagement gift. What a great read. She helps you remain focused on what matters most at your wedding (the people and how you feel are what you'll remember not the decorations or the fancy extras). And provides tips for dealing with sticky situations. I got a lot of good ideas from this book and some new ways to think of things like the registry (people want to support you in your new life and if having matching, new towels help you and your husband do that, then let your guests participate in that way). I'd recommend the book.

As a husband-to-be, I found thus book very useful in getting our head on straight. I read it prior to proposing and prior to doing a lot of collaborating with family and I'm really glad I did. Can't say enough good things. The profanity was pretty spread out but surprising when it came up. It's how I normally would describe things, it was just odd reading it in a wedding book.

This book is fabulous. I only wish that it would have been published when I was planning my wedding! I've been a loyal reader of apracticalwedding.com for two years now and am so heartened by all of the positive energy and saneness that Meg has been putting out into the world of weddings. The blog helped me tremendously in my wedding planning process and I know this book will be a great help to anyone setting out to navigate the sometimes choppy waters of wedding planning.

I started having a lot of anxiety about wedding planning after I got engaged. This book helped me put everything in perspective; it helped me understand that my wedding day really isn't about the flowers, food, venue, etc. - it's about being with my friends and family, and most importantly, to celebrate my marriage to a wonderful person. It also has a lot of practical advice about planning and logistics. I recommend this book to any of my recently engaged friends!

The book has given me great perspective on planning my wedding and accepting the not so great moments that go along with it. It was my first ebook purchase for my Ipad2 as well and I am looking forward to doing more tablet reading.

I didn't realize how much this book was going to change my perspective on weddings. We are told certain things are wedding traditions and how we must have them in our weddings; when in reality, they were created by the industry not that long ago and aren't necessary at all. Reading this will help you figure out what you really want, reducing the stress and cost of your wedding. If I read any other wedding books I don't think they'll compare to what I learned from this one.

I just finished reading this book and thought it was just great! It truly is a practical approach to wedding planning. As a newly engaged woman who is a little cynical about the wedding industry, I started searching the interwebs for other approaches. I stumbled on the APW blog, and then decided to read the book as well. I loved everything about it! Highly recommend for any future brides that are looking for something to help keep their sanity in tact during the wedding planning process!

Yes, it has "ideas" but no actual pictures as examples. I prefer bridal magazines/books that show you how to put a table together, what colors you can use or even different themes. This is just a paperback with text -no pictures or examples.

This is a fabulous, funny, wonderfully written book about how to plan a wedding without going insane. I have been following apracticalwedding.com for over a year now and recommend it everyone I know who is married/is getting married/ might get married. This book is my new engagement present to couples! It shares stories of brides who know what marriage really means and doesn't just focus on the details of the first day of the marriage. I loved it! Well done Meg!

This is, by far, the best wedding planning book in existence. Since reading it, I have literally recommended it to every single bride I have ever come across, whether I know them well or not! It is calming, reasonable, and honestly just an amazing guidebook through the (often insane) world of wedding planning.

I am not what the wedding industry wants a bride to be. I wanted a celebration and not a "wedding" from the very beginning. This book helped me make some sense of everything pushed at the bride. You don't need to go crazy, or broke, or do what everyone does. I knew the wedding would start late, I knew no amount of planning could predict the weather, but mainly I knew we had planned to keep what was important to us about our day the focus and this book helped us do that. Thanks.

This is a witty, pragmatic and joyful book about planning your wedding. What I love most is the total lack of assumption (other than your buying the book as a way out of wedding madness) in the book. Meg doesn't assume you have a certain budget or that your looking for a non-traditional wedding.

Bought this for my soon-to-be sister-in-law and she was very excited! I flipped through it with her a little bit and even though I'm not a bride or bride-to-be yet I can't wait to steal it from her. The APW blog is so wonderful I'm sure the book is fantastic too!

This book is pretty funny, while covering the basics needed for a wedding (two people, officiant, paperwork, voila!) and the extras. "Traditions" are debunked and very helpful advice is given for those who may enjoy doing things DIY. It helped my Fiance and I find out what is important to us for our wedding, while helping us have the confidence to say, "No, I don't need a florist," or "No, I don't need a fancy wedding cake," while giving good advice on the fun things that excite us (food, venue, booze). There is a blog/community of the same name which is also very helpful but not as concise as the book.

I'm in the middle of planning my wedding right now and this book completely changed my views on whats needed, whats not and why, SO HAPPY i purchased this book! I started with the kindle version but ended up buying the book itself for adding notes and bookmarking pages. Must read for anyone getting married, HIGHLY reccomend! (PS the A Practical Wedding blog is also amazing)

I like that Ms. Keene is pushing her readers to think outside of the box and encouraged them to create the wedding of their dreams, not one that was conventional or filled with costly "traditions" (that aren't actually traditional in the least). I'm not a bridezilla in the least and I just wanted a beautiful day to combine our families. I never thought I'd be able to throw an amazing wedding while sticking to a modest budget, but once I took into account what was important to me and what wasn't, along with the invaluable advice in this book, I realized it was within my grasp. I'm so happy I found this book. It would make a great gift for any bride-to-be.

This book helped me avoid the traps of modern weddings. I'm spending around 5k on ours. Not the 28k average! I personally dislike all the random wedding "traditions". My wedding is going to be beautiful, fun, simple and elegant on the cheap.

I purchased this book based on all the reviews here and was extremely disappointed. Rather than provide tips on a practical wedding, the books is 200 pages of suggestions on how to have the cheapest wedding possible and then support you in making these cheap decisions by telling you they are "indie" and not to fall for mainstream wedding propaganda. Really, I can save money by baking my own cake and being my own wedding photographer? I mean seriously, I did not get one legitimate takeaway from this. All I took from it was the author had one of the cheapest weddings possible and used this book to tell herself what she did was actually the right thing. I wasn't looking for tips on how to get a 5-star experience for less, just some tips on how to have some smart savings. I know if I got my wedding dress from a thrift store or on Craigslist it would be cheaper, but please. Not worth the read.

There are so many pretty things out there to get the bride excited about her wedding (and yes, to also get the bride to buy "all the things"). This book grounds the bride. It gives you the permission to care a lot about your wedding and appreciate the big deal that it is, while giving you the insight into why the wedding was ever a big deal in the first place. This book also addresses some of the hard issues. I have yet to find a wedding planning book that has a section dedicated to "when to call off the wedding." So many thought-provoking moments in how to truly make the wedding your own. A feature I especially appreciated is that the last chapter of the book is not about the wedding day, it is about BEYOND the wedding day. This book celebrates marriage. And really, isn't that the point? Highly recommend.

Great book! I was already a fan of the APW blog and this book was just as great. It provides a great laid-back, less stressful approach to planning a wedding. A must have if you are in any stage of planning or pre-planning.