Blog Posts by Bridal Guide

Last week, I wrote about how to book your wedding photographer. Now, I'd love to share my engagement photos with you! Brides-to-be often use these images for their engagement announcement, Save-the-Dates, or to display as artwork during the reception. Since those near and dear to you will be viewing these photos on multiple occasions, it's extremely important that you are happy with the end result. (I'm pretty sure most couples want to avoid looking awkward or uncomfortable in pictures they are going to see time and time again!). To ensure that your photo shoot is both positive and productive, learn from my experience and follow the tips I've listed below.

1. Photographers Wanted: After Michael proposed in July 2010, we decided on a two-year engagement and wanted to run an announcement in our local newspaper right away. Since we were nowhere near ready to book a photographer, but still wanted a professional picture for our announcement, we turned to our family friend, Sally

Here at Bridal Guide, we can't help but swoon over celebrity rings. But let's face it, we can't all afford 20.5-carat rings. With these great look-alikes from Leo Ingwer and Diamond Ideals, you can get the luxe look for less.

Kim Kardashian

Photo Courtesy of Diamond Ideals

This stunning ring by Diamond Ideals weights in at 4.05 carats.

Kate Middleton

Photo Courtesy of Leo Ingwer

We've seen hundreds of royal replicas, but this Leo Ingwer ring is easily one of the closest, from the shape of the center stone to the scale of the halo.

Katherine Heigl

Photo Courtesy of Leo Ingwer

A pear-shaped ring is a great twist from the traditional round or square. We love the extra bling on this Leo Ingwer ring from the halo and on the band.

Reese Witherspoon

Photo Courtesy of Leo Ingwer

Reese's rare Ashoka diamond features 62 displayed facets and rounded corners. But you can get a similar look for less with an emerald diamond, like

These photos are just too good not to share! Barbie and Ken have finally gotten hitched. Check out this hilarious (and gorgeous!) photo shoot by BdG Photography.

See more photos on Bridal Guide!

Related:

Amazing Harry Potter Theme Weddings
Zombie Invades Engagement Photos?!

More from Bridal Guide:

Revealed: First Full Photos of Kim Kardashian's Three Wedding Gowns!
10 Mistakes Brides Make When Dress Shopping
Get Inspiration from Real Weddings
75 Ways to Throw a Luxury Wedding on a Budget
5 Delicious Wedding Cake Alternatives
What Your Wedding Vendors Won't Tell You

Kim Kardashian's walk down the aisle took on black-and-white Old Hollywood glamour with a gorgeous white aisle runner accented by flourishes in black, as well as the famous K & K intertwined monogram logo.

Julie Goldman, president of The Original Runner Company, is the creator of that magical path toward Kim K's happily-ever-after, and she shares the details on how Kim's camp came to her to create the Runner of the Century:

"When we were asked by Sacks Productions to make a black-and-white aisle runner for Kim Kardashian's wedding, we knew this would be a big project. We had done many celebrity weddings before, such as Kevin Jonas, Fergie, and Bethenny Frankel, but we knew this wedding would have the world's attention.

"Her runner entailed replicating the couple's classic KK logo in Swarovski crystals - two times! Then we added a delicate vintage flourish down the sides. We had been told that there would be no other décor for the ceremony aisle, so the runner really

Photo Courtesy of Bridal Reflections

Bringing an Entourage

We know it's the most important dress you'll ever wear, and you want to make sure it's absolutely perfect. But having 10 different opinions makes it much harder to come to a consensus-and it can bring you farther away from what you actually want. "I have always been a believer that the most a bride should bring when dress shopping is two people," said Cristina DeMarco, of Bridal Reflections in New York, NY.

Most brides do best with just their mom and maybe a sister or best friend, said Debra Lash, of The Wedding Tree in La Crosse, WI. "They generally have the bride's best interest at heart, not what they want her to wear." One of our real bride bloggers, Theresa Misso, recently wrote about her dress shopping experiences and said, "When you're standing there in a big dress, and random people in the store are ohh-ing and ahh-ing and all you want to do is take it off, you'll need an honest, reliable companion to

Now that our wedding date has dropped to a two-digit countdown (YAY!), I thought I might share with you what this has meant to us in numbers and dollar signs. I also decided it would be good to give you lovely ladies an honest look at why we chose the things we chose, why we didn't choose the things we left out and which vendors we thought were worth spending the big bucks on!

1. Ceremony location: $2,500
As soon as we decided to get married in Vegas, we knew we didn't want a chapel wedding. (Exhibit A: That scene in The Hangover when dentist Stu weds a stripper in a gaudy chapel overflowing with fabric flowers. Exhibit B: Britney Spears-enough said.) Besides, despite The Man and I not being The World's Most Outdoorsy Couple, we've always wanted to be married in the sunshine, out in the open. We picked The Valley of The Falls (pictured above) after we realized that our first-choice, Mandalay Bay, didn't offer their Cabana Wedding Ceremony between September and

The Wedding Gazebo at the Club Med Sandpiper Bay Resort

47% of engaged Bridal Guide readers have a child or children under the age of 17 living at home. And let's face it, weddings take on a different meaning when you bring kids into the mix. If you're getting married and one or both of you have kids, it can get really sticky.

I'd never been to Club Med, and I have to admit I was feeling particularly uninspired when my marketing director convinced me to join a press tour back in March to the Club Med Sandpiper Bay Resort in Port St Lucie, FL. She was definitely feeling bad about the weathered new-mom look I had been sporting since my son was born 5 months earlier (and had yet to bless us with a full night's sleep). Worn down and exhausted, I packed my full piece bathing suits (baby weight not-be-gone!), my sunscreen and my sheepish attitude thinking there was little chance this trip would change my life. Boy, was I wrong.

From what I remembered about Club Med, people

This week, all three of our real bride bloggers shared their dress-shopping experiences! Here, why Tolu purchased her gown online.

I'm going to share a secret that will probably shock you: Unlike most brides, I bought my dress online. This is probably a big faux pas, but I am a believer in the ease and simplicity of the Internet. When I told this to a few friends of mine, they forced me (in the nicest way possible) to go to a bridal shop and try on dresses because, "it is an experience every bride should have." I did it, I enjoyed it, but I still kept the dress I bought on the internet! When shopping for your dress, it's important, as with all aspects of the wedding, to know what matters most to you and use that as a guide.

Here's the criteria I used when deciding which dresses should make the cut into my shopping cart:

Retailers: Before you start looking at specific gowns, you need to research online shopping vendors to make sure they're reputable. Find a website