Simple Stunning Weddings: Designing and Creating Your Perfect Celebration

Simple Stunning Weddings: Designing and Creating Your Perfect Celebration
by Karen Bussen

Simple Stunning Weddings: Designing and Creating Your Perfect Celebration
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Book Summary Information

Author: Karen Bussen
Photographer: Ellen Silverman
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-11-16
ISBN: 1584793651
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Stewart, Tabori and Chang

Book Reviews of Simple Stunning Weddings: Designing and Creating Your Perfect Celebration

Book Review: My Wedding Planning Bible
Summary: 5 Stars

I used this book to plan my wedding that happened in May '07, which was done without a wedding planner. My wedding was held in a historic, beautiful synagogue and historic beautiful hotel (similar to the country club chapter). So many of our guests have commented directly to us or my parents about how beautiful our wedding was -- and I have to say this book helped me more than any other. Simple Stunning Weddings guided most of my decor decisions over the 9 months that I spent planning our wedding.

For starters, I used this book to communicate with my florist -- it was extremely helpful for that. So many of my friends and family have commented on how stunning our flowers were -- we used fresh seasonal flowers in colors that suited our venue but they were of a style and in containers similar to the ones presented here.

In addition, her ideas about where to splurge and where to save for a given venue were invaluable. Not only did they save money, but they also saved time and stress.

Her suggestion of bringing old family photos into a reception site was one of the biggest hits of my wedding -- both my husband and I found old photographs of our family going back to the early 20th century and had them displayed on a large table. People couldn't stop talking about them -- not just our relatives, but friends too. That suggestion cost us about $50 -- how great is that? Her idea to hire a swing band to harmonize with the classic space was another giant hit -- the dance floor was full until the band stopped at midnight.

I didn't copy her ideas, rather I adapted them for the synagogue and ballrooms that we used -- and I found it quite easy to do so. It is so easy to be overwhelmed by all the choices around planning a wedding -- everything from table linens to wineglasses to lighting to picking a band -- it was wonderful to have her photos and text to guide and influence our decisions.

I spent nine months being fairly wedding obsessed while planning our wedding -- I purchased many books and magazines, spent lots of time figuring out our options and looking around for ideas, and I have to say that the ideas presented here were the best resource I found. My other favorite book (in a very different vein) was Bridal Bargains -- it's discussions on how to hire vendors from photographers to caterers to dress shops informed and influenced all of our vendor selections. By doing so I hired great vendors right away and avoided many of the hassles that my friends went through while planning their weddings. I'm not sure how much money I saved through their suggestions, but they really do understand what good vendors look like -- which was tremendously helpful.

Summary of Simple Stunning Weddings: Designing and Creating Your Perfect Celebration

The three biggest trends in weddings are simplicity, personalization, and colour! Wedding designer and expert Karen Bussen focuses on these elements as she shows couples how to design their own weddings without going crazy or broke. Simple Stunning Weddings is the first wedding design book to focus on the WHERE of the event. Location is the first and most important decision; everything else flows from it. Bussen then shows how to create unifying themes with colour, flowers, and personal touches; how to talk to vendors; how to decide where to spend the wedding budget; how to adapt the design for every budget - for example, by changing tablecloths from silk to cotton; striking flower arrangements that use only one or two flower types, which can be a significant cost saving; and advising the reader when it is actually faster, safer, and less expensive to hire someone else to do a job than to tackle it oneself.

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