Resources

There were a few resources I relied on heavily while planning.

1. The Knot Magazine (print version): The most important thing to me was my dress, so pretty soon after I was engaged I picked up a copy of The Knot magazine. I think they do an issue every year that features hundreds of pictures, page after page of different dresses. The dress was one of the most important things to me and I wanted to start early with looking at every possibility and getting inspiration for my own dress. I think it's important and helpful to be able to look at images of things in actual print instead of on a computer screen.

This was so helpful as I dog-eared several pages of dresses or elements of dresses that I love.

2. HereComesTheGuide.com: I mostly used this to find a location. They have very helpful reviews of many reception sites and this is how we found our location (which is the hardest part of the process), The Summit House.

3. Wedding Blogs: I have several wedding blogs listed on my sidebar which are all helpful, but the one I ended up browsing the most was GreenWeddingShoes.com. This is especially helpful for brides in the Southern California area. Snippetandink.com is also another favorite of mine. I didn't so much use blogs for actual, concrete recommendations, but more for inspiration. It was fun to get my daily fix of wedding-ness bliss while I was engaged. A guilty pleasure of sorts.

4. TheKnot.com: All brides should join theknot.com as early as possible in the wedding planning process. They send weekly emails to you based on the date of your wedding suggesting things like a "1-month checklist" if your wedding is a month away. There is also a Knot Wedding Shop where they can personalize almost anything you can think of. They also offer lots of great ideas for favors, party decorations, and bridesmaid/groomsmen gifts, if you choose to do that.