Wedding Kit For Dummies

Marcy Blum, Laura Fisher Kaiser

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780764552632
• eBook ISBN: 9781118069318
• Edition: 1

You finally said "yes!" and decided to throw in your lot with Mr. Right. But before you can embark on your new lives together there's the little detail of your wedding. Handled correctly, it can be what it should be—the most wonderful day of your life. With Wedding Kit For Dummies in your corner, you can guarantee that your wedding celebration is everything you always dreamed it would be.

Whether you're planning an intimate affair, a huge event, or something in-between, this book/CD package arms you with checklists, templates, worksheets and other useful tools to help you manage all the details. And you get expert tips and advice on, among other things, how to:

• Select the perfect venue
• Track your guest list and RSVPs
• Choosing the food and flowers
• Finding a good photographer
• Negotiate rates with caterers and musicians
• Nail down the wedding-day agenda
• Outfit your wedding p arty
• Plan a destination wedding

Marcy Blum has created magical weddings for hundreds of couples. Now in Wedding Kit For Dummies she shares her tricks-of-the-trade on all aspects of planning, organizing, and pulling off a wedding without a hitch, including such crucial topics as:

• Financing your wedding and staying within your budget
• Seating for meals, tracking gifts, creating invitations and finding the perfect far-away destination for a destination wedding
• Getting all the details of the ceremony right—from choosing an officiant and who walks with whom to cueing the music and dealing with the jitters
• Throwing a whiz-bang reception—covers all the bases including meals, music, flowers, the cake, the bar...all the way down to the send-off

On the bonus CD-ROM you'll find:

• Live links to top wedding Web resources
• Templates, forms, worksheets, and sample contracts
• A calculator to help you plan your reception
• Spreadsheets to keep track of all your budget details

Your complete wedding planning survival guide, this all-in-one kit is the one accessory every bride-to-be absolutely must have.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Part I

Getting Started

In this part . . .

**IN a DROPCAP**

Y ou get a look at the big-picture issues that will shape your wedding, including what has to be done between now and the big day (and by whom), and how much it’s going to cost you. We introduce you to some wonderful spreadsheets and forms that help you keep all of these details in order and on track.

Chapter 1

Big Picture Stuff

In This Chapter

Coordinating your calendars

Pacing yourself for the big day

Pulling vital info (and yourself) together

I f you’ve read Weddings For Dummies (and for your own sake, we hope you’ve committed it to memory), you know that we’re not huge fans of those Stalinist manuals that dictate when you must perform every last detail, down to synchronizing your watches 72 hours before the ceremony. But we do believe in being organized. After all, a wedding is a complex affair to orchestrate, and keeping track of all the details, phone calls, expenses, and decisions is a job and a half.

Before you can get down to all those details, you need to understand the big picture. That’s what this chapter is all about. From choosing a date to creating a nothing-left-to-chance wedding-day schedule, we help you understand what needs to be done and give you the tools to get your wedding off to a great start.

Doing the Dates

Now that you’ve decided to go for it, you probably feel like there are several things you should be doing at once — making a preliminary guest list (see the sidebar “Guesstimating the guest list” in this chapter), calling all your friends, surfing online for a reception site, gazing stupefied into each other’s eyes — but for now, please flip open your Palm Pilots, Filofaxes, or wall calendars, and start thinking about when you’re really going to tie the knot. If you’re stumped about how to zero in on a date, we suggest you review Chapter 1 in Weddings For Dummies . Even if you have your hearts set on a particular date, choose some back-ups to be safe.

We recommend that you go through the Every-Last-Thing Checklist (later in this chapter) with your betrothed and divvy up the duties. Look at your calendar, estimate, and write in reasonable due dates for each task; then hang the calendar on the wall in a place of honor. Take those target dates and enter them in the columns in Form 1-1. This gives each of you a one-glance cross-reference when you need ammunition for who didn’t do what.

Any kind of calendar will do, but we think a year-at-a-glance format is most helpful. Form 1-1 shows a simple big-picture view, which you also find on the CD-ROM.

Form 1-1: Track target dates for planning tasks.

If you’d like to use an electronic calendar for keeping track...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Getting Started
• Chapter 1: Big Picture Stuff
• Chapter 2: Love Is a Money-Spender Thing
• Part II : Be Our Guest
• Chapter 3: Naming Names
• Chapter 4: Invitations and Other Stops Along the Paper Trail
• Chapter 5: Traveling On: Destination Weddings
• Part III : Ceremony Survival Plan
• Chapter 6: Sensational Ceremonies: All Together, Vow!
• Chapter 7: Cue the Music: Ceremonial High Notes
• Chapter 8: Creating a Foolproof Wedding-Day Schedule
• Part IV : A Rousing Reception
• Chapter 9: Ready to Where
• Chapter 10: Dance to the Music
• Chapter 11: A Taste of Things to Come
• Chapter 12: A Bed of Roses
• Part V : Gifts, Garb, Pics, and Tips
• Chapter 13: Greed Expectations and Registry Realities
• Chapter 14: The Best-Dressed List
• Chapter 15: Focusing on Photos
• Chapter 16: Nitpicky Tips for the Taking
• Part VI : The Part of Tens
• Chapter 17: Ten Ways to Use the World Wide Web to Plan Your Wedding
• Chapter 18: Ten Tips for Finessing Your Wedding Spreadsheets
• Chapter 19: Ten Amazing Places for Destination Weddings and Honeymoons
• Appendix: About the CD
• : Wiley Publishing, Inc., End-User License Agreement
• : Installation Instructions