Elegant Bride Magazine: Mediocre
Written: Nov 19 '07 (Updated Nov 21 '07)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Some good ideas and photos
Cons: Expensive, Articles not very diverse, Only a few good ideas
The Bottom Line: Elegant Bride Magazine is one of the more mediocre bridal magazines available. It features a few helpful articles, but falls short in the diversity of its content.
|
|
|
| noangels's Full Review: Elegant Bride Magazine |
Engagements are an exciting time. Your finger wins the company of this beautiful new ring and you’re immediately plunged into the planning of one of the biggest parties you’ll ever throw. It seems every company wants in on the planning of this party. Publications want to instruct you on how to plan, online vendors want to personalize the napkins, matches, and tissue boxes for your event, and everyone has a product that you absolutely need for this grand event. It is a well devised industry that capitalizes on the excitement of the couple to-be-wed.
The news of our engagement brought the gift of many bridal magazines from friends and family. I must admit the aforementioned industry certainly capitalized on my excitement as well. I purchased quite a number of magazines on my own. Now that I have my collection of 20 or so bridal magazines, I am hoping to help those brides-to-be make the best choices of which magazines to purchase and which to leave on the shelves. Unfortunately, Elegant Bride Magazine fits into the latter category.
Content
Ads, ads, and more ads... Like all of the other bridal magazines, Elegant Bride Magazine is full of ads. You’ll find ads for anything you can think of; gowns, bridesmaid dresses, cake toppers, registries, perfumes, makeup, engagement rings, wedding rings, honeymoons, venues, invitations, and personalized bridal underwear. Some could be very useful, depending on how far along you are in the planning process.
Plenty of planning information can be found in this magazine. You will find questions and answers about the logistics of your wedding day. "How many makeup artists do I need for my bridesmaids?" is just one of the many questions answered. There are checklists and timelines to keep you on track with your planning. You’ll find advice and ideas for every aspect of your wedding. There are tips for getting ready, ideas for personalizing your ceremony, and suggestions for the reception.
Photos are also plentiful. You’ll find lots of inspiration for your flowers, attire, and decorations. There are a few pictures from real weddings so you can see what real brides are doing.
How it Stand Out From Other Magazines
Elegant Bride Magazine was the least helpful magazine I purchased. I had picked up this magazine with the hopes of finding ideas that were well suited to the style of wedding we were having. Many general bride magazines had a lot of ideas for modern, casual affairs. We were going for something very classic and romantic. I thought this magazine would be a great resource for the ideas we were looking for, but I found just the opposite.
The features in this magazine are not diverse enough. In one issue, most of the photos and decor ideas revolved around two themes they were featuring: nautical, beach-inspired weddings and pink weddings. Our wedding falls into neither category so I found few pictures that were of use to me. I’m sure they’ll have other issues that may be of more use to me, but it is unrealistic to expect readers to buy every issue in hopes that this time something will be of use to them. There was a feature on flowers that was helpful, but the information was limited and the article was short.
I found many of the articles to be too general, as well. Once you have the basics of wedding planning down, some of the information gets repetitive. It seems like this magazine focuses a great deal on information that would only be helpful to those in the early planning stages.
The same could be said for the ads. Once you found your dress, half of this magazine becomes useless. There are far too many gown ads (seemingly more than other magazines) and the gowns are a little unrealistic. You’ll see some normal gowns, but quite a few bizarre gowns... the ones that trigger the reaction, "Who would wear that?"
Some of the ideas in this book were also unrealistic. One page suggested you "reshuffle your crowd" at your formal reception. Basically, after the first course at dinner, guests flip over their place card to reveal their new table. Guests must pick up and move to their new table for "fresh conversation." Perhaps in dream worlds of rainbows and candy, this sounds like a brilliant idea. Fact is, in the real world, most people will be annoyed at having to move and even further annoyed at having to sit near people they don’t know or be pulled away from their current conversation.
Cost
This magazine costs $5.99 on the newsstand. It is printed on a quarterly basis and runs about 300 pages long. Although it is the average price of bridal magazines, I feel it is a little expensive for what the magazine contains.
Overall Recommendation
Elegant Bride Magazine isn’t necessarily a bad bridal magazine, but only average. It has limited benefit, with a lack of variety in articles and photos. You may find a few good ideas, but many of the ideas aren’t as good in real situation as on the paper of this magazine. This magazine is much more helpful in the beginning stages of planning for someone who could still use the dress ads and the planning and etiquette advice.
More Bridal Magazine Reviews:
Bridal Guide Magazine
Brides Magazine
Martha Stewart Weddings
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
noangels
|
 in Online Stores & Services |
 - Top 1000 |
|
Member: Jamilynn
Location: Staten Island, NY USA
Reviews written: 219
Trusted by: 41 members
About Me:
So glad to almost be done with Christmas shopping!
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.