On the supermarket shelves and at an arm’s length at the doctor’s office, wedding magazines can be found nearly anywhere. Even with the wide availability of wedding resources on the Internet, nothing is like fresh dress designs and hottest honeymoon destinations featured on the glossy pages.
Most of the wedding magazines on our list have been around for years and that’s because of the quality content they provide. And over the changing times, with the infiltration of Pinterest boards and niche wedding websites nipping at their heels, we have found that these magazines continued to evolve as well.
There are plenty of us who have envisioned their dream weddings since childhood, and bridal magazines have played a giant role in shaping those dreams. And one of the first prints appeared in the early 1930s entitled Brides and is still in circulation today published by Condé Nast Publications.
With that, welcome to Team Wedding’s ultimate list of the Best Wedding Magazines. Our popular Best Wedding Blogs post was a hit with our readers so we decided to share our favorite wedding magazine list. These are the perfect wedding and bridal magazines for wedding inspiration.
Best Wedding Magazines for Bridal Inspiration
Martha Stewart
A bridal magazine overview would not be complete without mention of Martha Stewart Weddings, which continues to be one of the highest-rated wedding publications available. Packed with advice, articles, project guides, and do-it-yourself suggestions, this magazine is one that can help today’s smart brides create a beautiful, elegant wedding even with a small budget.
Bridal Guides
Another highly-acclaimed wedding magazine, Bridal Guide offers breathtaking and inspiring photos along with ample advice, articles, honeymoon information, and much more for today’s brides. Longer than the average magazine, Bridal Guide is a high-quality bridal magazine with a small price tag for a twelve-month subscription featuring six issues.
BRIDES
With an upbeat tone that speaks to every-day brides, Brides offers question and answer sections along with advice, planning calendars, information on destination weddings, and much more. The Brides website includes tips on fashion, beauty, style, etiquette, planning, registry related information, shopping links, and honeymoon advice.
Wedding Style
Expert bridal advice, planning tips, and trend coverage, plus celebrity wedding news and style alerts. Wedding Style has amazing bridal fashion with the latest, top designer creations from the runways of New York, Paris, and Milan. It’s a powerful tool to assist you in finding qualified resources.
Premier Bride
Bringing brides and bridal business together is what Premier Bride does best. Their goal is to provide the bride with a complete source of information for planning a wedding locally and to provide local businesses with opportunities to give the bride this information in print and online.
Style Me Pretty’s Best Of Magazines feature the most steal-worthy, oooooh and ahh inducing,
Style Me Pretty Best Of Guide
Style Me Pretty’s Best Of Magazines feature the most steal-worthy, ooh and ahh inducing, crazy beautiful weddings that they’ve featured over the course of a year on SMP. With weddings from brides and vendors all over the world, these are the best of the very best, voted on by readers.
The Knot Magazine
The Knot weddings magazine is normally jam-packed with real wedding stories about couples just like you — go behind the scenes and steal ideas from their spectacular celebrations. It’s also filled with up-to-the-minute wedding info and the top wedding resources.
INSIDE WEDDINGS
Inside Weddings is the source brides rely on for real wedding inspiration and trends. Included are amazing photos from the best wedding photographers and extensive vendor lists help brides plan the perfect day. Great tips for bridal beauty, inside wedding trends and themes, guides and much more can be found inside.
DESTINATION WEDDINGS
The natural wonders of Costa Rica, Provo’s Grace Bay Beach, or a coconut plantation at Sugar Reef, these are just some of the great locations and destinations that this wedding magazine reviews. Wonderful pictures and help with planning your special day from a distance can be found throughout your flipping of the pages.
SOUTHERN BRIDE
Southern Bride magazine is one of the oldest wedding brands in the business and is one of the most trusted wedding publications in the South. Their website is also a great resource for those looking to find out how the South plans weddings and what trends are big.
INSTYLE WEDDINGS
InStyle Weddings offer the latest in celebrity wedding style and trends to bring your dream day to life. Browse the top dresses, rings, flowers, hairstyles, and celebrity looks. It’s a great space to offer up the newest in terms of inspiration.
WEDDINGS WITH STYLE
Weddings With Style is focused on helping brides plan their wedding. It is a semi-annual publication, Winter/Spring, released the first of January and Summer/Fall, released in July. There are some more eclectic offerings inside this one so be on the lookout for trendy but offbeat ideas
ONLINE WEDDING MAGAZINES
Most of the bridal magazines you read about above are available online, either as an up-to-date website or a true digital version of the wedding magazine. If reading a paper-based magazine isn’t your thing, make sure you check out the links to the sites, social links, and other resources most of the magazines provide. In this day and age, wedding magazines online are just as robust as their physical versions (as well as their Instagram accounts).
Each of these wedding magazines has its own take on the wedding space. Some are popular mass-market content, while others are niche bridal magazines that focus on one type of area or wedding theme.
With more than 2 million weddings in the United States each year, the advice dispensed in the pages of magazines like The Knot, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Brides is useful, but don’t forget the niche titles and non-mass market bridal magazines, because they may have just the thing you’re looking for.
TO READ OR NOT TO READ?
Hopefully, you now have an idea of what you can expect from some of the most popular wedding magazines available today. These prints are some of the more robust resources for brides-to-be, from inspiring photographs and wedding stories to specific information regarding retailers and honeymoon destinations. Easily tucked into a bag for a long flight or train ride to the office, they are perfect for even the busiest of brides in making her wedding day go smoothly from start to finish.
What is interesting is that there are many brides who consume every bridal magazine on the planet, but there are just as many brides who say they don’t want to get “sucked into the wedding industry” so they avoid them altogether. We highly recommend that you take a few peeks, though. Think of it as “intelligence gathering” if you want to stay objective and not get sucked in.
We think you’ll find lots of useful guidance on the practical matters of wedding planning and more importantly, you’ll learn to navigate what is a stressful (but awesome) event. In saying that, be aware that most of them, whether a paid or free wedding magazines make their money on advertising. There is nothing wrong we a free wedding magazine making money on advertising, just make sure you know when you’re reading an advertorial or an ad versus editorial content.
LOOKING FOR FREE READS?
Like we’ve said all along, the Internet is a great place to start your wedding planning process, but there really is a different experience in having your own, tangible piece to read, tear out ideas from, and jot down notes. But we realize that buying subscriptions just adds to the cost of the overall wedding budget and we have some insight on finding freebies!
One little secret is that you can typically save a lot of money by looking for deals on wedding magazines. Often, you can get a free wedding magazine subscription by doing a quick search online. Coupon and deal sites are a good destination for finding those free bridal magazines. In fact, our newest writer added her full list of secrets to getting Free Wedding Magazines below.
Secrets to Getting Free Wedding Magazines:
- Search online and give magazine websites your email address. Enter your wedding date on some free planning sites including spots such as The Knot. Your mailbox will start filling up with freebies in no time!
- Very similar to wedding magazines are free wedding catalogs. Yes, these are focused on selling you something but you will be surprised just how high the quality is these days. We count this as free wedding magazines for sure because at the end of the day, even if you don’t purchase anything inside you’ll gather some great inspo and ideas.
- While most of today’s wedding magazines are reasonably priced, many also offer gift subscription options. There are always offers, coupons and straight-up free copies you can get by talking to your wedding planner or wedding dress boutique. Just ask!
- You may get offers for wedding magazines or even free subscription offers too by visiting bridal shows. Sign up for a free trial of the wedding magazines when you get those offers. You can subscribe and then cancel but often the deals they offer to get you to stay around are well worth spending a few dollars on.
- Some other old-school ideas are obvious. For example, my local library has stacks of free wedding magazines. Brides and Martha Stewart Weddings are available for weekly checkout as well. Visit your local library to see what’s offered there!
Ask on Craigslist or on your local community Facebook page. A reader of ours suggested this idea when she tried it and got 50 wedding magazines dropped to her door by a neighbor who had just gotten back from her own honeymoon.
