Weddings are big business.

The Association of Bridal Consultants estimates that consumers spend a whopping $46 billion on their weddings every year. In 2008 the average wedding cost about $32,000, and many couples spend more than that! Today's bride is spending more money than ever before to ensure that her wedding day the single most important day of her life is planned to perfection. Once reserved only for the very rich, today's brides and grooms-to-be, often busy with dual careers yet wanting to make their wedding uniquely personal, are turning to consultants for help to help save time, money, and considerable stress planning a wedding. More people are finding that a good wedding consultant is a great source of information, ideas, and contacts for the bride-to-be. Hiring a wedding coordinator could help ensure that the wedding day turns out to be far more spectacular than the bride ever envisioned. They provide guidance on etiquette, invitations, planning and directing the rehearsal and ceremony, even arranging transportation and accommodations, and help you manage your time with all the details. Wedding coordinators may also assist in locating a site for the ceremony, shopping for the wedding gown and wedding accessories, and even arranging for childcare. As such, professional wedding consultants are compensated well for their knowledge, talent, time, and expertise. A wedding consulting and planning career makes an ideal home based or part-time business.

Planning a wedding can be an exciting, overwhelming, and time consuming endeavor. COUNTDOWN TO YOUR PERFECT WEDDING will give brides the exact amount of information they need to plan the wedding they want. It breaks down pre-wedding tasks into manageable bits of information and serves as a point-by-point checklist so that nothing slips through the cracks and nothing is left undone. Unlike other books, COUNTDOWN is arranged on a 52-week timeline (one year is the average amount of time brides take to plan a wedding) that explains what needs to be done when. Each week will feature an essential aspect of a beautiful wedding and will include tips and insider information on how brides can get what they want, budgeting considerations, definition of terms, as well as feature information for "Brides On A Budget" and "When Money Is No Object. For brides who wish they could hire a wedding planner but can't afford one, this book will hold their hand through the process so they can plan the wedding of their dreams.

Review of:

Countdown to the Perfect Wedding by Joyce Scardina Becker

It breaks the wedding planning details down into very do-able steps. The book takes the overwhelming task of planning a wedding and explains it in small tasks, week by week,and makes your "wedding vision" seem easy to achieve. It's obvious that the author has "been there, done that" many times for brides. Also there is a list of wedding websites in the back of the book.