Meet Delilah Winchester. . . There was a time when the pedigrees of neither my fiancé nor my engagement ring would have mattered to my mother, as long as I was happy. That was then. Now she's a celebrity, and my wedding is the ultimate publicity stunt. . . Meet Carmela Cantano. . . The Queen of Queens. She cooks; she cleans; she dotes on Anthony, The World's Most Wonderful Son. My future mother-in-law has her own ideas about the proper matrimonial send off for her precious baby boy. What there won't be is Delilah's vision of WASPy nuptial perfection . . . Meet Me. . . Emilie, hapless bride-to-be caught between Momzillas with opposing views and sharpened claws. When, exactly, did my big day become theirs, and how do I get it back? "As delicious, layered, and inventively crafted as a Sylvia Weinstock cake." --Jacqueline deMontravel, author of Escape from Bridezilla

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.

It's MY Wedding! presents 101 hilarious, heartbreaking, theatrical, and sometimes unbelievable testimonials from real women (and a few men!) who have gone through the wedding planning process, from engagement to the big day. Following each anecdote, the authors present sane, human and helpful advice for prospective brides and grooms with the goal of reminding readers about the one thing that is truly important during the wedding process love! It's MY Wedding is a perfect gift for engaged couples, prospective brides, their friends, family and members of the bridal party. Universal in its appeal, the book is unique in the wedding advice category. Instead of quizzes, planning tips and advice, budgeting secrets, wedding etiquette, wedding toasts or wedding vows, the authors present readers with the same straightforward, girlfriend-to-girlfriend advice that they offered each other when they used to trade war stories about their upcoming nuptials. Nicknamed The Bathroom Book For Brides, the book is not only entertaining and insightful, but easy to pick up and put down-ideal during the often hectic wedding planning period! Please visit our website at www.ItsMyWeddingSite.com

“After years of debate and inquiry, the key to a great marriage remained shrouded in mystery. Until now...”—Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Eli J. Finkel's insightful and ground-breaking investigation of marriage clearly shows that the best marriages today are better than the best marriages of earlier eras. Indeed, they are the best marriages the world has ever known. He presents his findings here for the first time in this lucid, inspiring guide to modern marital bliss. The All-or-Nothing Marriage reverse engineers fulfilling marriages—from the “traditional” to the utterly nontraditional—and shows how any marriage can be better. The primary function of marriage from 1620 to 1850 was food, shelter, and protection from violence; from 1850 to 1965, the purpose revolved around love and companionship. But today, a new kind of marriage has emerged, one oriented toward self-discover, self-esteem, and personal growth. Finkel combines cutting-edge scientific research with practical advice; he considers paths to better communication and responsiveness; he offers guidance on when to recalibrate our expectations; and he even introduces a set of must-try “lovehacks.” This is a book for the newlywed to the empty nester, for those thinking about getting married or remarried, and for anyone looking for illuminating advice that will make a real difference to getting the most out of marriage today.

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.”

From the #1 wedding brand, the bestselling wedding book, updated with all-new budget ideas, online tools, and event planning and personalizing trends. First comes love, then comes . . . planning! Before a fabulous celebration, there are vendors to hire, budgets to calculate, decisions galore to make. Packed with The Knot’s top tips and worksheets, checklists, and contact sheets for you to fill in, this book is the one-stop resource that keeps brides focused but stress-free. The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner paperback takes you through the process step by easy-to-follow step, with: · Budget worksheets (and all the latest digital tools for keeping track of costs) as well as hundreds of invisible ways to cut costs when selecting everything from flowers to the venue and menu · Wedding planning timelines (including a brand-new express timeline for couples getting married in 3 months or fewer) · Guest list and invitation worksheets (with guidance on what you can now do online) · Vendor contract checklists (and tons of new online resources for finding the pros you need) · Fun ideas for personalizing your reception, from photo booths to signature cocktails in any color your heart desires · Web links and other useful resources for planning on the go (including recommended apps to download and up-to-the-minute advice on building your wedding website)

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

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, Harry hatches one of his bright ideas. He's going to stage a wedding—to Song Lee!

An inspiring memoir of life, love, loss, and new beginnings by the widower of bestselling children’s author and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal, whose last of act of love before her death was setting the stage for her husband’s life without her in the viral New York Times Modern Love column, “You May Want to Marry My Husband.” On March 3, 2017, Amy Krouse Rosenthal penned an op-ed piece for the New York Times’ “Modern Love” column —”You May Want to Marry My Husband.” It appeared ten days before her death from ovarian cancer. A heartbreaking, wry, brutally honest, and creative play on a personal ad—in which a dying wife encouraged her husband to go on and find happiness after her demise—the column quickly went viral, reaching more than five million people worldwide. In My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me, Jason describes what came next: his commitment to respecting Amy’s wish, even as he struggled with her loss. Surveying his life before, with, and after Amy, Jason ruminates on love, the pain of watching a loved one suffer, and what it means to heal—how he and their three children, despite their profound sorrow, went on. Jason’s emotional journey offers insights on dying and death and the excruciating pain of losing a soulmate, and illuminates the lessons he learned. As he reflects on Amy’s gift to him—a fresh start to fill his empty space with a new story—Jason describes how he continues to honor Amy’s life and her last wish, and how he seeks to appreciate every day and live in the moment while trying to help others coping with loss. My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me is the poignant, unreserved, and inspiring story of a great love, the aftermath of a marriage ended too soon, and how a surviving partner eventually found a new perspective on life’s joys in the wake of tremendous loss.

Unenthused by a white wedding gown and bored by the hoopla of the Hollywood-style reception, Ariel Meadow Stallings found herself absolutely exhausted with the nuances of traditional nuptials . . . so she chose to take a walk off the beaten aisle. In this updated edition of Offbeat Bride, Stallings humorously recounts the story of the original offbeat wedding-hers-and shares anecdotes and advice from dozens of other nontraditional couples. She also includes a chapter on budget weddings in today's weak economy, along with sidebars, tips, tricks, and planner encouragement to help you figure out your special day. What results is a combination of hilarious wedding stories and tons of helpful how-tos-a perfect mash-up of memoir and handbook. At once practical and enjoyable, Offbeat Bride validates choosing the funky, different, and offbeat over the traditional, and leads couples through the planning process-from unique ideas on how to announce their engagement all the way to answering the question, "So, how's married life?" Stallings is the ultimate guide to the alternative wedding of your dreams, and with Offbeat Bride, she brings you a book that serves both as an encouragement and celebration of aisles less traveled.