Customer Reviews

The Perfect Wedding Reception: Stylish Ideas For Every Season

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I wanted to get some sort of book for ideas because all that the brick-thick bridal magazines do is show you wedding gown after wedding gown with the occasional bridesmaids gown thrown in for variety. I wanted ideas for place settings, place cards, flower arrangements, cakes, favors, and even menus and was getting frustrated.

When I ordered this book, I was a little concerned because it is advertised as a reception for each of the four seasons. I'm having a winter wedding, so I was thinking "Oh Great- I'm only going to be able to use a fourth of this book." I was WRONG! Generally speaking this book manages to give you ideas for how to give your wedding (or any formal event) the *feel* of the season, but also gives you detailed ideas that may generalize throughout the year. For example: The spring bouquet with some modification would be beautiful for my December bouquet.

In addition to the seasonal advice, there are sections called "Fine points" dealing with general details such as "confections" (desserts), table accents (for formal, semi-formal and informal occasions), flowers, etc. The ideas that seem to be lacking in the literally foot-tall stack of bridal magazines are here in this book.

Yes, some of the ideas in the book are sorta pricey, but some are less pricey and very do-it-yourself (e.g. Juniper shrubs in galvanized tin buckets, covering the topsoil with moss and tying a silver mesh ribbon around the trunk- VERY cute, and highly do-able).

I highly recommend this book! I do wish there were a book for each of the seasons, but until then, don't be afraid of this one!

As a special event floral designer, I have a HUGE library of books from all over the world and this is the BEST one I've found so far.I constantly stress to my clients to look at the big picture when planning a wedding, not just one aspect at a time, such as flowers, colors, linens...This books shows how all the elements of a wedding can work together to give you a wonderful event that looks fantastic. Use this book as a jumping off point for your own wedding, it is full of inspiration,and you can adapt many of the ideas to suit your own color scheme and setting.This book is a MUST HAVE for Brides and anyone in the wedding business.

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.)

In preparation for our wedding, I ordered just about every book that I thought looked appealing and got great reviews, literally HUNDREDS of dollars' worth of books! This and its companion, The Perfect Wedding, stood out among the rest.

I liked it for the following reasons:
1. Beautiful pictures of original ideas. There were lots of pictures and lots of ideas. Obviously you aren't going to find a book that has absolutely every idea for flowers or cakes (it would be HUGE!), but the ones that this book included were very nice.
2. Good mix of pictures and text. About 3/5 of the book was pictures and ideas. It was divided up into 4 sections representing the 4 seasons, so you could get ideas for your specific season (getting inspiration from the best of your season is a great idea!). The other 2/5 of the book was resources with phone number, addresses, websites, etc., so you could actually get ahold of the people who put together the beautiful things in this book or go to the places that would give you more of a similar idea.
3. Not just for the wealthy. Granted that I personally am not too concerned with books geared for my budget, this book gave ideas for all ranges of budgets. Of course, some of the cakes, flowers, etc., must have been expensive, but she also gives ideas that are more budget-conscious.

I would recommend this book, no question. It's better than Colin Cowie's, on par with Martha's, and definitely much better than Vera Wang's.

Buy this book!

The book is gorgeous -- until you realize that it is 99% photos and vague ideas, with no directions. Although not expecting step-by-step walk-throughs, I was unprepared for the lack of any hints on how to accomplish the projects shown. For example, it wouldn't have required very much space to mention the techniques used to make the favors. Okay, the reader would have to borrow library books or order books to show them how to make the projects, but at least they would have known where to start. [Money] for THIS? No way; this book arrived today, and has already been repackaged to return to Amazon tomorrow. If you have [money] you don't want, donate it to charity. Don't waste it on this!

The pictures in this book are absolutely amazing! It's sectioned into each of the four seasons, with each section focused on one particular wedding. I would have liked to see more examples of multiple weddings, however this approach lets you examine the details more closely. For example, I fell in love with the candlesticks in the winter section and am avidly searching for them. I'm having a difficult time finding them, however at least I know the manufacturer from the extensive index in the back. This brings me to another point; the page count is deceiving. Practically 1/3 of the book is reference, helpful but I like pictures.

You'll find lots of ideas to incorporate into your own wedding, no matter what your budget is. I highly recommed this book to anyone planning a fall wedding. The colors and decorations in this section are charming yet exquisite! The menu follows the fall theme perfectly, with pumpkin and pear based dishes.

For the most part, I'm very satisfied with the book. I actually told my finace, "It's too bad we can only have one wedding", since I fell in love with 3 out of 4. (The summer wedding left a lot to be desired, the colors were lime green and canary yellow! The decorations were too modern for my taste.)

Purchased this book for ideas for my sister's wedding. The pictures are beautiful and the ideas that you can glean from the photos are limitless. The reason that I gave this book only four stars is because it only covers four wedding receptions. Yes, these wedding receptions are not your average, everyday reception. They obviously cost a small ( or large ) fortune and are therefore not for the average bride. But with a little addaptation the ideas can be used by anyone. I would recommend this book to anyone. Makes a great coffee table book.

Wonderfully executed book! With my son's upcoming wedding, all of the wedding planners (mothers, sisters & sister-in-laws) in our family have spent many hours reviewing and re-reviewing the inspiring photos. Each of the four seasons of the year is featured. There are many, many wonderful creative ideas that can be used not only for weddings, but can also be adapted to use other gatherings and events. If you want to make your reception an event to remember - This is the one book to purchase!!!

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.

. . . just a few words to describe this book. Like her other books, The Perfect Wedding Reception is NOT a how-to book. Nor does it suggest that you have to do everything within its pages. Instead Maria gives us ideas and sparks our imagination so we can create a wedding that is classy, elegant, and fun!

Sure, it would cost a fortune to plan a wedding that is exactly like something out of these pages, but how can we find inspiration (and avoid a "cookie cutter" wedding) if we don't dare to dream big? Dare to pick one or two ideas from this book that you like, and use them. If they're on a grand scale, pare them down to suit your tastes and budget.

As ever, the photography is beautiful.

My only complaint is the large resources section - 100 pages that a vast majority of brides will never use.