54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great ideas and details for across the seasons!, 22 Feb 2001
By A. Maxham "Just trying to help..." - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Perfect Wedding Reception: Stylish Ideas for Every Season (Hardcover)
I wanted to get some sort of book for ideas because all that the brick-thick bridal magazines do is show you wedding gown after wedding gown with the occasional bridesmaids gown thrown in for variety. I wanted ideas for place settings, place cards, flower arrangements, cakes, favors, and even menus and was getting frustrated.
When I ordered this book, I was a little concerned because it is advertised as a reception for each of the four seasons. I'm having a winter wedding, so I was thinking "Oh Great- I'm only going to be able to use a fourth of this book." I was WRONG! Generally speaking this book manages to give you ideas for how to give your wedding (or any formal event) the *feel* of the season, but also gives you detailed ideas that may generalize throughout the year. For example: The spring bouquet with some modification would be beautiful for my December bouquet.
In addition to the seasonal advice, there are sections called "Fine points" dealing with general details such as "confections" (desserts), table accents (for formal, semi-formal and informal occasions), flowers, etc. The ideas that seem to be lacking in the literally foot-tall stack of bridal magazines are here in this book.
Yes, some of the ideas in the book are sorta pricey, but some are less pricey and very do-it-yourself (e.g. Juniper shrubs in galvanized tin buckets, covering the topsoil with moss and tying a silver mesh ribbon around the trunk- VERY cute, and highly do-able).
I highly recommend this book! I do wish there were a book for each of the seasons, but until then, don't be afraid of this one!
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful book full of ideas, 16 April 2001
By andrea stieff - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Perfect Wedding Reception: Stylish Ideas for Every Season (Hardcover)
As a special event floral designer, I have a HUGE library of books from all over the world and this is the BEST one I've found so far.I constantly stress to my clients to look at the big picture when planning a wedding, not just one aspect at a time, such as flowers, colors, linens...This books shows how all the elements of a wedding can work together to give you a wonderful event that looks fantastic. Use this book as a jumping off point for your own wedding, it is full of inspiration,and you can adapt many of the ideas to suit your own color scheme and setting.This book is a MUST HAVE for Brides and anyone in the wedding business.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful pictures, but not enough different weddings, 21 May 2004
By Kristy M. "kristykat" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Perfect Wedding Reception: Stylish Ideas for Every Season (Hardcover)
This book has wonderful pictures of four weddings, one in each season.
The pictures are truly extraordinary, but they are almost exclusively of these four weddings, so there aren't tons of different ideas for each season, rather one "theme" idea for each season. One thing that disappointed me was that her summer wedding was a casual one on the beach, so if you want more formal ideas for a summer wedding you are out of luck. Like other reviewers have said, most of these perfect presentations would be completely out of a lot of people's price range, but you could definitely pull a few ideas that you loved from her spreads and make it work on a smaller budget. By and large this is a good supplementary book on reception ideas, with tons of photos and some good "idea" text (as opposed to "how-to" text.)