Sharon Naylor Toris - How to Plan an Elegant Wedding in 6 Months or Less: Achieving Your Dream Wedding When Time Is of the Essence

Copyright 2000 by Prima Publishing, a division of Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

THREE RIVERS PRESS and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published by Prima Publishing, Roseville, California, in 2000.

Certain suggestions are made in this book. While these are intended to be helpful to the reader, the reader must assume all risk associated with following any particular suggestion. Therefore, in purchasing this book, the reader agrees that the author and publisher are not liable or responsible for any injury or damage caused by the use of any information contained herein.

In order to protect their privacy, the names of some individuals in this book have been changed.

Interior illustrations by Andrew Vallas

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Naylor, Sharon.

How to plan an elegant wedding in 6 months or less : achieving your dream wedding when time is of the essence / Sharon Naylor.

p. cm.
1. WeddingsPlanning. I. Title.
HQ745.N389 2000
395.22dc21

00-048303

eISBN: 978-0-307-80913-1

v3.1

To Rose, Anna, Helen, Millie, Minnie, Connie, and Annie:
The Butterfly Club.
With eternal love and gratitude

I T WOULD TAKE ME more than six months to thank all the people who, in some way, contributed to the makings of this book and the makings of the author. I must begin by thanking my wonderful editors at Prima, Denise Sternad and Michelle McCormack, as well as my agent and longtime friend, Elizabeth Frost Knappman.

Immense gratitude goes to my father, Andrew Blahitka, an unsung hero and role model for all the success I have attained. Money isnt everything, he taught me, family is. Remember that when youre making out your wedding budget and when the seating chart has to be arranged.

Mom, thank you for your listening ear and for being my personal thesaurus.

Steve and Leanne, thank you for your support, for always calling to see how my book signings went, and for creating my Web site. Steve, you are the future of film, and I have no doubt that you will find yourself at a podium someday.

Karen and Greg, my love and thanks go out to you.

Madison and Kevin, thank you for your tired smiles, your ready hugs and kisses, the joy and wonder in your eyes, and the sound of your laughter. You will never know how important you are to me and how much I adore you.

To the most loyal and loving friends in the worldJill, Jen, Pam, and Susanthank you for a long history of trust and laughter. To have one true friend is the greatest of blessings. I have four, and am grateful every day.

I would also like to thank the many newly married couples and wedding professionals who gave their time and input to this project.

And, most importantly, I would like to thank Kathryn DeGuire and Lee Suckno for keeping me in it.

Y OURE PLANNING A wedding in less than six months? Are you crazy?

Youre going to hear that a thousand timesif you havent alreadyso let me ease your mind. No, you dont have to be crazy to plan a wedding in less than a year. In fact, you just might be smarter for it. No matter what nightmare stories youve heard about brides who tried to pull together an elegant wedding in less time than it takes to grow out a bad haircut, you actually are in a far better position than brides who give themselves a year (or two) to plan their weddings.

Think about it. The average bride who chooses a date far in advance does all of the major planning and booking in the first month or two, and then she has the rest of the year to sweat out her decisions, waffle on them, change them, argue with her mother and mother-in-law about them, and make each little detail such a big deal that shes a frazzled wreck by the time the wedding comes around. She may even just want to get the whole ordeal over with, so tired is she of even hearing the word wedding.

You, on the other hand, have a great advantage. Because your time is limited, you dont have the luxury of waffling and changing your mind a million times. You know what you want, you get in, you make your plans, you get out, and on to the next task. Your wedding is therefore more efficient and enjoyable, focused on the fact that youre getting married, not on whether or not the ice sculpture will be swans, cupids, hearts, or a likeness of the two of you. While brides with plenty of planning time go practically insane with all those idle hours, you smartly avoid the conditions that make for bridal horror stories.

This, of course, is not to say that your wedding planning experience is going to be (pardon the pun) a cakewalk. Planning a wedding in less than six months is going to take some extra time and effort, especially in our current age of rushing around and having more responsibilities in our lives. You wouldnt be able to do it without a good guidebook and the benefit of inside advice from wedding professionals and real-life brides who planned beautiful weddings in six, three, and even one month.

Yes, it will be a lot of work. You will need to be smart about your steps and decisions. You are, after all, entering the world of the wedding industry, where everything is pretty much planned according to a set schedulethat is, a year in advance. You will find that the best catering halls have been booked for two years. You will find that some gowns have to be ordered nine months in advance. You will find that some florists, bakers, and limo companies will just be too busy on your wedding day. I can hear you sighing from here. Why bother then? My answer, from years of experience as a wedding author and syndicated wedding writer, is that it can be done. It just takes a little extra leg-work, a whole lot of patience, flexibility, creativity, diplomacy, a good support and help network, and the ability to work the wedding industry from a knowledgeable standpoint. With this book, you are armed and ready, and will be able to plan the wedding of your dreams in less than six months and will probably have more fun and more positive memories than brides who lose a year or two of their lives to the planning process.