How Do You Get Your Wedding Inspiration?

October 8, 2009 By Susan Southerland 2 Comments

I couldn’t let the week go by without mentioning the discontinuation of Modern Bride and Elegant Bride magazines. It was quite a shock to all of us in the wedding industry. For decades, both magazines inspired brides with interesting articles and stunning photos.

What does this mean? Are brides relying solely on the Internet for their wedding information and ignoring print publications? Are vendors turning to other advertising avenues in hopes of appealing to this generation of brides?

The engagement right-of-passage used to include running to the bookstore and purchasing every bridal magazine a girl could get her hands on. And why not? The pages were full of beautiful photos of place settings, floral arrangements, wedding gowns, cakes, menu ideas and great advice. I remember being a bride and “dog earing” page after page of ideas that I wanted to duplicate. My mom and I would tear out pages to take to meetings to show my vendors exactly what we wanted.

I can’t imagine that online photos printed on our ink-jets can ever fully replace the beautiful glossy pages of a magazine, but maybe I’m old-fashioned. I want to know your thoughts. Do you think magazines are passé? Do you think wedding planning should exclusively happen online? What do you think is missing from either online or print in the world of weddings?

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If you have questions on this or any other wedding related topic, please post for me here or send me an email to susan.southerland@pwg.com. Also become a fan on Facebook by clicking here and follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Your partner in perfect planning,

Susan

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Filed Under: Ideas + Inspiration
  • Robin

    I think magazines in general are going out of style. You can read blogs/articles on your phone now so the convenience of magazines are failing. The ather catch is that a magazine is harder to hide at work. You can have a few wedding websites up and hide them easily if the boss walks by.

    I think the bridal magazines have priced themselves out of competition as well. If they weren’t so expensive, perhaps people wouldn’t think twice about buying them.

    Finally, you can view thousands upon thousands of images online in a short time but a magazine is limited by its length. You have access to more “stuff” online and it is immediately gratifying to get new content instead of waiting until the next month or quarter to get a new magazine.

    Just my two cents.

  • Erin

    I agree that national newsstand titles will continue to experience rapid declines in readership, resulting in more magazine closings, and consumers turning toward the Web for information. Let’s face it: in terms of the wedding-planning industry, the Internet is a great place for brides to browse photos, find tips and tools or even making some wedding-related purchases. But I believe it’s imperative to have local print resources like Perfect Wedding Guide—which, by the way, is a small 4 X 7 guide that fits easily into your purse, workbag or under a stack of spreadsheets on your desk!—that connect brides to vendors right in their backyards. It almost works in tandem—a bride finds a photo of a wedding reception, floral arrangement or a wedding cake online, prints it out, and then turns to the local guide to find a vendor who can recreate that look. So, even if we see other 8.5 X 11 bridal magazines fold in the near future, local niche print publications will remain a viable option for brides searching for wedding-planning resources.