300 plus Ways to Make Your Wedding Your Own

This book, 300 plus Ways to Make Your Wedding Your Own, is a comprehensive collection of ideas from every area of wedding planning to help brides and grooms from every walk of life to plan the unique wedding they desire.

Victoria Van Ness is a well-known wedding planner/author, and owner of the Nationwide company A Piece of Cake Wedding Design. Throughout her years as a wedding planner, her goal was to reach out to brides with smaller budgets and show them just how possible it really was to have exactly the wedding they had always wanted for pennies on the dollar.

She is now sharing her years of experience with you, by giving you plenty of unique, fun ideas for your wedding so you can have an event that will be remembered for years to come.

This book includes ideas and projects for areas like wedding photography and videography, the wedding venue (location), stationery, catering, flowers, the wedding cake, wedding décor, and even the big day.

The author makes sure to present her ideas in the order that couples would reasonably plan their weddings, so they can simply follow along chapter by chapter while planning, and let the book guide them.

I give it an A+.

Photography

Why just have a wedding photographer that will take all of the normal wedding poses a couples expects? It sounds good right? It is, but your wedding photography doesn't have to stop there. Get ideas for creative poses, uses photos to get your guests involved, excited, and actively participating in your wedding, and think about photo booths in a new and interesting way.

Venue

Why get married at the same place your best friend, her sister, and your niece got married? Not only are there more options than you could imagine for where to get married, the author can offer you places and ways that you haven't even considered.

Stationery

For those that need help with invitation ideas, Victoria has provided a variety of specific themed invitation ideas to spark the imagination of even the most frustrated couple, including passport invites with plane tickets, luggage tags and a map of the area, secret agent invites with top secret clearance, documents, ids and instructions for the secret mission, etc. Learn how to make your own invitations, get ideas for creative inserts, and even get some interesting surprises to delight your guests.

Catering

If you think it stops there, the ideas keep coming! You will find tons of recipes that you can use yourself or pass on to a caterer for hors d'oeuvres, main courses, sides, salads, and even unique desserts. She also provides great vegetable, fruit and pasta recipes for those couples that would like to save some money on their wedding menu and still have a decadent meal.

Videography

Little did you know, there is more to wedding videography than simply great wedding videos! Here you can find more than a dozen different alternative videos, and incredible ideas for your main wedding video, that cost nothing more than a little creativity, and will truly make your wedding video a movie you'll want to watch over and over.

Flowers

Next to the gorgeous bride, flowers are one of the most beautiful parts of a wedding. In her book, the author shares many beautiful uses for flowers in centerpieces, on the ceremony/reception chairs, down the aisle, on the altar, and everywhere else flowers could possibly be used. She even discusses buying flowers wholesale, buying petals and candles in bulk, and recycling any flowers and arrangements after the wedding.

Wedding Cake

She provides a variety of great wedding cake recipes for those motivated to bake their own wedding cakes, or have an amazing recipe to pass on to a friend, family member, or even their wedding baker. Alongside wedding cakes, dessert bars, candy and cookie buffets, ice cream buffets, wedding pies, themed wedding desserts, and tons of other great ideas make an appearance.

Wedding Décor

Learn how to make your own decadent chandeliers, make your own tablecloths, chair covers, and napkins, create amazing backdrops for your buffet table, your photo booth, and even your head table that will take your guests breath away. There are an endless number of fabulous décor ideas, see some of those here!

The Big Day

Even the Big Day isn't left to chance as the author addresses transportation for guests and the wedding couple, seating issue resolutions, incredible exit ideas and getting your pets involved in the wedding day.

Victoria leaves nothing to chance as she shares a plethora of ideas from her vast experiences working with brides and grooms and planning hundreds of weddings over the years. Victoria has worked hard to spread knowledge of over-pricing in the wedding industry, dishonesty amongst wedding vendors, and budgeting skills to make sure that couples are getting the gorgeous day that they’ve always wanted for the price they deserve to pay for it.

There’s no reason that any couple should have to wait (what is becoming more common) 3, 4, 5, 6, or more years to get married while they are trying to save up enough money. You probably have just enough money right now to have a splendid affair worthy of attention, and she wants to make that possible for you.

Just as you start thinking that she forgot a few key planning areas, she's got several more books coming out! There was simply no way to cram any more into this already 450 page book. Check out her upcoming More Ways to Make Your Wedding Your Own, Obtaining the Perfect Look for Your Big Day, Wedding Themes, Parties, Favors, and Much More Wedding Fun, Wedding Faux Pas, and even Wedding Disasters. They will all be packed with fun stories, great information, and lots of wonderful ideas to make this the most fun you’ve ever had.

Engagements only come once in a lifetime. She wants to help you make the absolute most of it!

In her book More Ways to Make Your Wedding Your Own, topics like wedding trends, wedding planning, the dress, the bridal party, wedding music, and even alternative wedding vendors will all be addressed in a much more detailed way. Check out all of her books for inspiration, motivation, and guidance all the way through your engagement and wedding planning process.

You can find any of these books on Amazon upon publishing. Enjoy!