I just started planning my wedding and found this book extremely helpful. It has all the details and steps of a wedding and great ideas for different options for each of them. For every part of the wedding planning I find my self referring to the book to see what exactly I am supposed to do and how early before the wedding I should do it. It also has some creative ideas to reduce costs. The book does not have very helpful checklists and I am using another book for that.

As the groom-to-be, I originally was not as interested in reading books about wedding planning as my wife. After hearing way too many times that I was not helping enough with the wedding planning and decision making, I started paging through this book. I quickly became engrossed in the book and soon found myself becoming more involved in helping with the planning. The book is well organized and reads as if the author was speaking to you directly in a casual conversation. It walks you through the wedding planning from choosing a date and location through writing the thank you notes. There were very good explanations of the various dress and tuxedo options, which previously all looked the same to me. I really appreciated the advice on developing the invitee list and dealing with family and in-laws- two of the most stressful parts of the planning process. I would highly recommend this book to any couple getting ready to tie the knot.

I just got engaged and am floored on how to plan a wedding. "The Knot" was recommended to me as a website, and I found this book while searching for a wedding planner. It's been extremely helpful. And I especially like that it's not stuffy - the information is well laid out, easy to find, and they throw in interesting tidbits/facts and advice. It's made planning my wedding much more enjoyable. Even my fiance enjoys looking through it.

I found this book helpful as I began planning our wedding. I've never been much of a "wedding person," so prior to getting engaged I hadn't spent much time figuring out which flowers I wanted in my bouquet or what color my bridesmaid dresses should be. This book was exactly the crash-course I needed to get oriented and then get to work.

At first the planning was a little overwhelming, but The Knot Complete Guide to Weddings in the Real World provided a great overview in the first section of the book, before delving into the endless details in the second section. This format works well, and the book is well-organized, with the middle section comprised of chapters on all of the aspects of your wedding: your gown, the ceremony, the reception, music, photography, etc. That makes it easy to find exactly what I need to know depending on what I'm working on at the moment. The third section includes helpful information on all kinds of situations you may face, from spats with your darling fiance, to cross-cultural issues, to managing your future inlaws.

One of the best features of The Knot Guide is that it doesn't assume you know a lot about planning a wedding, but it doesn't talk down to you, either. It includes a lot of helpful illustrations, explanations, and glossaries to help you figure out what different bouquet shapes mean, what kind of cake frosting works best depending on where you're having your reception, and what the different shades of white are when shopping for your gown. Reading this book helped give me the information I needed to communicate effectively with my vendors and "speak their language."

Overall, this book works best as both a guide and a resource--it walks you through everything step-by-step, and is also helpful to refer back to as you progress through your planning. Because of its general nature, it's not the only book I used when planning our wedding, but it is one of the most useful.