“Simple Stunning Wedding Etiquette: Traditions, Answers, and Advice from One of Today’s Top Wedding Planners”

By Karen Bussen, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2007, $19.95

Wedding etiquette has always been a tricky landscape to maneuver. But this handy manual will bring you up to speed on the many rules and guidelines of planning your big day.

Bussen, a wedding planner who’s been featured in Modern Bride and InStyle Weddings, covers everything from announcing an engagement to hosting the perfect reception party and beyond.

Warning: The list of “dos & don’ts,” is enough to make your head spin.

Some good dos: Expect to be the center of attention at an engagement party, wedding shower and bridesmaid’s party, all taking place before the actual wedding.

Some bad ones: Good etiquette apparently means giving up any ambitions of saving the environment or simply saving the trees. You are expected to print an engagement announcement, save-the-date card, wedding invitation with reply card, escort card, place card, program, menu card, and, well, you get the idea, the list goes on and on.

Nothing, of course, is written in stone, and a bride-to-be can toss some of these guidelines with the same abandon as her bouquet. In the end, the best tips are the ones based in common sense, such as:

“If it’s against state law, it’s generally considered a breach of etiquette.”

—Anne Machalinski