Product Description

Once couples decide to say "I do" there are dozens and dozens of decisions to be made. It's hard to know where to begin and even more difficult to fit all the dozens of details together into one wonderful event. Thankfully Maria McBride-Mellinger, author of acclaimed bridal books, stylishly illustrates just how to create a dreamy reception that will be forever memorable.

The Perfect Wedding Reception features exquisite wedding celebrations designed by Maria McBride-Mellinger that capture the magic of each season in refreshing, contemporary style. The nuptial adventure begins in a formal spring garden but soon its off to a beach front for a fanciful summer wedding, to a revolutionary era stone barn for a rustic fall wedding and finally to a gracious country home for a candle lit winter wedding feast.

Glorious photos of each location, flowers, menu selections, table details, centerpieces, bouquets, invitations, wedding cakes and favors tell the story of each wedding with helpful tips and most importantly McBride-Mellinger's favorite resources from around the country that will actually help bring your wedding reception to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #334691 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

About the Author

Maria McBride is internationally recognized as a wedding style guru. She produces special events and her work appears in Brides magazine where she is currently the Wedding Style Director. Additionally, she has written columns for InStyle and Country Home, and her work has been featured on Brides.com, TheKnot.com, BizBash.com, WeddingChannel.com, and on her own site, MariaMcBride.com. McBride has also been a featured guest on the Today show and Movie & A Makeover. She is the author of the series of books, The Perfect Wedding, The Perfect Wedding Reception, and The Perfect Wedding Details.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful pictures, but not enough different weddings
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.)

Waste of Money!!
There are better books out there. This is a big waste of money. The book was not what I was expecting.

OSTENTATIOUS IDEAS FOR EVERY SEASON BUT NOT EVERY BRIDE
If Kennedy or Vanderbilt is your last name and I mean The Kennedys and The Vanderbilts, if Bill Gates is your wedding sponser or if you are a member of the Royal Family then this book is for you. If you live in the real world you may not want to bother reading a book that would embarrass even Martha Stewart. Even if your wedding budget isn't that of a small nation you can uncover some ideas to use on a realistic day of bliss. But I would leave out the "Honeymoon bed out in the open" next to a swamp unless you are marrying Jeff Corwin or the Crocodile Hunter. Look at page 116 and see if you would like to spend your wedding night there but McBride-Mellinger says "far from sight of the area's inhabitants". It's also far from sight of a bathroom,room service and Walgreen's to get some mosquito spray and close to sight for anything with four or six legs or even eight hairy ones that hopefully would be four groomsmen rather than a spider. As in all the weddings in the book, the cakes are works of art, the prettiest I've ever seen (pgs 106&107, 214&215 "a masterpiece" and the chapter on Confections) and the flowers are magnificent. If you read this book make sure to have a dictionary for all the $2.00 words as it must have been written with a word processor in one hand an a Thesaurus in the other. Also, a really good cook book will come in handy to try and figure out what everyone was eating. McBride-Mellinger is even so helpful as to tell you how to dress the "help" as if in this day and time the guests even know what to wear, where the "help" should go to the bathroom, and to prepare food incase they work more then four hours. But do show respect because Maria McBride-Mellinger has a very high opinion of herself and a much over inflated ego. "The Perfect Wedding Reception" is that: perfectly ostentatious,pretentious,over the top and prefectly not for middle class America. The book is a "perfect" waste of a good tree. For over 30 years I have been a floral artist and wedding planner with the experience of over 500 weddings in all parts of the US and Europe.