If you have recently become engaged, then you're likely wondering where to start in planning your wedding. Head to the store and pick up some bridal magazines, search for local bridal shows, and if affordable, hire a wedding planner. Good planning and time management are the keys to a happy bride.

One of the most important things you need to decide on for you wedding is the location of the ceremony and the reception. Start scouting venues by looking online for places, asking friends for suggestions, or even thinking of places that are special to you and your fiance. Once you have settled on a few places, make appointments to look at them, price them, and ask how many people the venue can hold. When you find one, book it! Wedding locations fill up fast. The location and date of your wedding will shape the rest of your planning.

Next, you should decide on the wedding party and the guest list. These two things can be time consuming and a headache. Once the bridesmaids are chosen, you need to go dress shopping. Look at several places that sell wedding dresses and make an appointment to try on dresses for you and your wedding party. Plan on this being an all-day event, and as a bride you want to take close friends with you whose opinions you value.

Next you need to start thinking food and flowers. Decide if you want to have a sit-down meal at your reception or a buffet-style meal. Oftentimes caterers will have a taste testing to help you choose food. Look for bakeries that specialize in wedding cakes and set appointments to get samples of flavors and to discuss what kind of cake you want.

Talk to florist and decide on the colors you want in your wedding. Most brides have two colors in their wedding. All of your decorations and planning will center around those colors, so be sure to choose colors that you love. Next, book a photographer to capture your special day. Keep in touch with all of the people you have hired to make your day special. Make sure they are making things exactly the way you want them. Being a bride is one of the best days in a girl's life, and making it the way you want is essential.

The Maid of Honor is one of the most important roles in a wedding ceremony. She is the right hand of the bride and is there for the bride through the whole process of planning, decision making, and most importantly on the big day itself. You are the glue that holds the bride together, and keeps her focused and organized.

One of the first things you will do is go with the bride to check out venues. You will also take part in helping her decide which invitations she likes, decorations, favors and also make sure they are ordered in time.

One of the most important things you will do is go with the bride to try on dresses. This can be a fun and overwhelming experience. With so many options of dresses, she may become lost in all the sea of white. Help her narrow down the search by asking what styles, fabric, and trains she likes.

After she has chosen a dress and plans are well on the way, you will need to start organizing the bridal shower and the bachelorette party. It helps to get a list of family and friends that are near and dear to her so you can make sure you don't leave anyone out. Send out invitations a month before both of the dates and get a head count on how many you expect to attend.

Next is the big wedding ceremony, the most important day of all. Make sure the bride gets to the venue on time, and don't forget the dress! Help her get her hair and makeup done, and then help her into her dress. Make sure everything is in order and people are seated and there are no problems, that is the last thing the bride needs on her big day. When everything is ready to go and you have made your way down the aisle, help the bride when she gets to her spot. Hold her flowers for her, and make sure her dress is perfect. Hand over the ring when its time, and be available if she needs anything else.

When the ceremony is over and pictures are taken its time to head over to the reception. You will also need to help her if she needs her dress bustled or fluffed out before she makes her grand entrance into the reception. Always be available to her and offer moral support during the whole wedding process. She might need to vent to you, cry on your shoulder or just be there to listen to her.

Being the Maid of Honor is a once in a lifetime experience and one that you should take seriously. You are helping make the bride's dream day come true and with your help it will be.

The wedding dress appeared in the Middle Ages with the solidification of the Christian marriage ritual. The dress was an essential part of the ceremony for the bride, who not only had to prove her suitability as a wife, but also had to prove her literal worth: the amount of money she would bring to a marriage. Using the best fabrics and vibrant colors, which were then difficult to obtain due to the cost of dyes, the bride could show that she came from significant wealth using a well-made dress.

Today, the majority of brides prefer to wear a white dress on their wedding day. The symbolic meaning of white is purity, or in other words, virginity. The tradition of a white dress began, however, with Queen Victoria of England. Her choice of a white wedding dress for her marriage to Prince Albert inspired a fashion trend that still holds considerable sway. Before Victoria, brides might marry in any color, even black. Outside of Western culture, many brides would not even consider a white dress. The color red is particularly popular in Eastern cultures, signifying luck. Some cultures have garments that are even more complex than a simple dress, all with their own symbolic meaning.

Today, the wedding dress is still used to show a bride's social status. Celebrities and socialites turn to the world's most celebrated fashion designers to create their dresses. Wedding editions of tabloid magazines sell like hotcakes. Every upper-class bride wants to see pictures of her and her dress in print. Even brides who don't have quite that much to spend will go out of their way to get the "perfect dress" for their wedding day. While the dress is no longer used in the same way it once was, to signify worth, it continues to hold a great deal of symbolic meaning to brides all over the world.

With the announcement of your engagement behind you, you are now faced with the daunting task of planning your wedding day. Make this an enjoyable experience by following these tips for a stress free dream celebration.

First accept the fact that somethings will go wrong. Maybe the flowers are not just the right color or maybe the entree is a little well-done. Don't stew over the little mistakes as they will not detract from your big day.

Possibly the most important advice is to delegate. You can't do everything yourself. Have members of the bridal party, family members and friends all chip in by assigning them all small tasks. By splitting up the chores amongst many people they will all be glad to do their part to make your day wonderful.

Make your fiance an integral part of the planning. You have chosen to be partners for the rest of your lives, don't start off by leaving him out of the planning process. There are many things your future husband will be glad to do to make your wedding day special.

Know what your realistic budget is. By sticking to a realistic spending limit you will not short yourself in one area by spending too much on another. Avoid extravagant expenses and you will be sure to reduce your stress level later when you are not paying off credit card debt.

Don't stress out about problems you can't control. If Aunt Martha doesn't want to have to talk to Cousin Andy, don't get involved. All you can do is be as nice as you can and let other people take care of their own problems.

Most of all make your focus on the marriage itself more so than the wedding. By understanding that the floral arraignment or the color of the table cloths are not really that important in the big picture, you can assure yourself of a stress-free day.

The most important part of planning your wedding reception is staying organized. Before you begin any planning, talk with your spouse and agree upon the type of wedding that you both want before discussing any ideas with families or friends. You should discuss the number of guests that you both want to invite in general terms. The final number of guests is not important at this point, but decide upon a small, large, or some where in between affair, and understand what those terms mean to both of you.

After the size of your affair is determined, you should together make a list of what each of you would like at the reception. Discuss, decide, and write down where you would like the party to be, the type of food you want, what kind of music you would like, the theme for decorations, and any other items that are important to both of you. This master list should be the main point of reference as you move forward with your planning.

Once you both have decided what is important to you, then you can discuss your ideas with your families. Update your master list with suggestions you receive, but keep the items from your original list. Always remember what is most important to you and your fiancee.

The master list that you have created is the starting point for all your planning. Keeping in mind the importance of organization, you should create smaller, more detailed lists for each individual item on your master list. Your budget should be allocated to each item at the beginning of the process. Knowing your budgeted amount for each step will help keep your cost in control and avoid overspending on any one area. Check off each detail on the individual list as you go along. When all the smaller details are checked off, you should check off the main item on you master list.

This system of staying organized with detailed lists will reduce your stress and let you see the big picture of a beautiful, well planned wedding reception. Then all you have left to do is relax and enjoy the party.

Begin your marriage off on the right foot and have some fun getting involved in your wedding planning. There are plenty of tasks that are perfectly cut out for you as the groom in the wedding. You have to do more than just show up, because you can help relieve her stress and earn some points in the process by stepping up and helping. If you're like most guys, you're picturing your bride picking out flowers, dishes, and the cake with her maid of honor or mother. In most cases, that is how it is. It won't have to be that way if you don't want it to be.

Every bride has dreamed of her wedding since she was a little girl. She may have a much clearer picture in her head of what she wants the wedding to be like than you do. But, as the groom, it's your job to get involved, ask to go to appointments with her. Give an opinion if you don't like something, or like one thing over the other. She might not take the opinion or go with it, but at least you spoke up and she knows you are wanting the wedding to be perfect too.

Budget, size of the wedding, date, location are all things you both should agree on. Sit down and talk to her and see what plans she is considering. If you can't come to an agreement then you can always compromise and meet somewhere in the middle. Your bride will be happy you're thinking about making the wedding as perfect as she wants it to be.

Planning the wedding together and being a part of every aspect of the wedding will lead to the wonderful wedding of both of your dreams. After all, a wedding is for the bride and groom and should reflect both of your tastes and likes and dislikes. Sharing the planning with your bride will only make the day more perfect for the two of you.