Cheers to us! WeddingWire has received the honor of “Best Local Planning Website” from Arizona Bride Magazine. The “Best of Bride 2008″ winners are selected by Arizona Bride readers to showcase the top wedding service providers in the area. Congratulations to all of our fellow honorees!

A Virginia Beach, VA couple is trying to plan the wedding of their dreams, but needs a little help in the financial department to do so. They, most likely, received advice telling them to scale down their selections, re-work their budget, or even ask family members for help. Apparently that wasn’t good enough. Instead, the couple chose to be very creative in their quest for some extra dough. Where did they go? Ebay, of course!

The bride, 23-year-old Kelly Gray, allowed perfect strangers the chance to bid to be a bridesmaid in her wedding! The bidding ended yesterday, June 25th. A total of 59 bids were entered with the winning bidder offering to pay $5700 to be a bridesmaid in a stranger’s wedding!

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Would you ever consider doing this??

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By now, we are all aware of the tragic flooding in the midwest and our hearts certainly go out to all affected by the floodwaters. 

Some good news has emerged, however, from this unfortunate situation. Iowa National Guard Specialist Curtis White and his fiance Dannie Ritter, whose wedding plans were tarnished by the devastating floods, were married on a Columbus Junction, Iowa highway last week. The community came together to make their wedding dreams come true in the midst of chaos and cleanup. What a great story!

The bride wore a white t-shirt that sums up her feelings on the big day - it read, “Come hell of high water.”

Congratulations Dannie and Curtis!

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What happens when Charmin toilet paper meets the wedding industry? A wedding dress of course! Katrina Chalifoux of Illinois recently won $1000 as her first place prize in the Cheap and Chic Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest.

Katrina used seven rolls of Charmin, tape, and glue to create this unique gown. I’m impressed!  Unfortunately, I’m not sure how well it will hold up while dancing, or walking for that matter!

This is certainly one of the most…creative…uses of the paper product I have seen! Congratulations Katrina!

In the flood of celebrity wedding news lately, Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz announced they are engaged according to US Magazine. Hopefully she has more success in her first marriage than her sister and she’s not “just another line in the song.”

Yesterday Andy Roddick announced he is engaged to 20 year old model Brooklyn Decker.  The couple met and started dating last year and have yet to set a wedding date.  Read more on Andy’s website.

The Farmers Almanac had been soliciting entries for worst wedding weather as part of a contest to see who had the worst disaster story to tell, but also to see which states tend to have the worst wedding weather.  Interestingly enough, Texas had the most submissions for weather disasters, with Florida, Indiana Ohio and Penn. right behind it.  The states with the least submissions were South Carolina, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, and North Dakota.

Also, the Farmers Almanac is running a contest for the Worst Wedding Weather Disaster story.  They chose 10 stories for users to vote on through March 17th.  The stories include:

• Two Louisiana couples and a North Carolina couple who had hurricanes crash their wedding parties.
• A Philadelphia area couple whose wedding day plans were postponed by record snowfall.
• A Massachusetts couple caught off guard by a freak snowstorm in May.
• Couples in Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas whose weddings were dampened by heavy rain.
• A Michigan couple whose Hawaii wedding vacation in paradise felt like an episode of Survivor.
• An Indiana couple whose reception hall became an infirmary in the wake of a deadly tornado

The winner of the contest actually gets a cruise, complete with vow renewals, aboard Royal Caribbean International®! Vote away.

Newsweek is running a long article on the pressures women are facing to look great for their wedding day and the negatives it can have when women try the wrong methods of weight loss. The article quotes one study that followed 272 engaged women studying their dieting patterns leading up to their wedding.

“The study found that most engaged women choose healthy ways to achieve their goals: they cut the junk from their diet and increase their exercise levels. But the researchers were distressed that more than 20 percent of the women they studied used methods they characterized as “extreme,” including skipping meals, going on liquid diets, fasting, or taking laxatives or unprescribed diet pills and supplements.”

It’s a good article to read if you’re feeling stressed to look like the brides in all the magazines you see on the news stands. You can read the full Newsweek article here.

via Bridal Party

Southwest Airlines is running a contest to help the company come up with new headlines for the Ding! application. The “Creative Your Own DING! Headline” contest is aimed at updating their 3 year old headlines and I guess they figure it’s cheaper to give rewards for creativity than to hire an ad agency, which is good for you. The 2 grand prize packages include a three or four-night cruise on Royal Caribbean for two to your choice of The Bahamas or Mexico. Other prizes include 2 Southwest airline tickets or a $500 Southwest gift card.  So put your creative hat on win and yourself some free travel to save some dollars on your honeymoon or destination wedding travel.

Beginning May 12th the Post Office is raising rates on their stamps for the second consecutive year from 41 cents to 42 cents. The price of the Forever stamp will go up at the same time, meaning those stamps can still be purchased for 41 cents but will remain good for first-class postage after the rate increase takes effect. Other rates are going up as well so depending on the size of your wedding invitations, you should check with the postal service so you’re not surprised when it comes time to mail them out.

My advice is to think about using online RSVP to help save money on your postal costs. I realize that not all family members are able to use the internet to RSVP, so two ideas are to either just send RSVP cards to those specific family members or simply call them. No reason you or your parents can’t just call certain family members.