We’re excited to announce that Pam DuVal, a Certified Wedding Planner and Instructor at Carteret Community College in Morehead City, North Carolina, has been given a 2010 Bride’s Choice Award! Pam’s company, Promised Hearts Inc., has been chosen for this award, which recognizes the top 5 percent of local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service and professionalism. The Bride’s Choice Awards are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds through extensive surveys and reviews, which means Pam’s past clients have spoken on her behalf and chosen her to receive this honor.

“We are excited to recognize and honor the success of the top wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “The annual Bride’s Choice Awards™ program has given us the unique opportunity to highlight the best wedding professionals in each region as reviewed by brides and grooms who have utilized their services in the past year.”

Everyone at the Wedding Planning Institute is extraordinarily proud of Pam for the excellent work she is doing for her wedding planning and rental clients, as well as the incredible lessons and example she provides for Carteret’s certification students. It is especially impressive that this award was determined exclusively by surveys and reviews from actual newlyweds.

You can contact Carteret Community College about upcoming sessions at 252-222-6204 or learn how to become a wedding planner online. For more information for interested vendors or brides, you can contact Pam DuVal at 252-671-6939. Congratulations to Pam on her much deserved recognition and continued success in all of her endeavors.

Brides.com Top 75 Wedding Planning Web Sites

Brides.com, Condé Nast’s premier bridal destination, last week released its list of the top 75 web sites for wedding planning. Here are some of our favorites for the Certified Wedding Planner or those learning how to become a wedding planner in today’s tough economy.

Cost of Wedding, operated by The Wedding Report, not only shows couples the average wedding budgets per zip code, but also includes a wedding cost estimator that pinpoints the costs of each wedding budget item. Learn the marital legalities of your state with US Marriage Laws, which provides wedding license regulations from Alabama to Wyoming.

If you are in the market for unique wedding invitations at a very low cost, try Formal Invitations. In addition to affordability, they also offer recycled papers and customizable designs. Wedding Mapper provides mapping software to help you create wedding directions your guests will love as much as your invitations.

Use the free website application at eWedding or Wedding Book to communicate your wedding plans and ideas to family and friends. To capture the memories while preserving the budget, You Shoot will rent you digital cameras and then host your wedding photos online for sharing.

Color Hunter allows you to plan a color scheme by uploading an image and generating a complimentary color palette. To learn whether you have what it takes to design your own wedding florals, take the DIY quiz at Flower Bud.

Top Table Planner gives you drag and drop online seating planning software to arrange your tables, chairs, and guests until you find the perfect fit for your reception space. To find decorations and favors that will impress without breaking the budget, try Save on Crafts which everything from centerpieces and aisle runners to organza bags and vases.

The dress guide at The Dessy Group will keep bridesmaids in line and in fashion. The tuxedo boot camp at Groom Groove strives to do the same for the men in the wedding party. Nexxus and Smashbox both offer the do-it-yourself bride tutorial videos on hair and makeup techniques. Emitations offers an answer to recessionary accessorizing with faux jewelry that mimics top quality without costing you your bottom dollar.

For the bride and groom who know what they want to say but have not a clue how to say it, My Wedding Vows offers inspiration and samples for writing wedding vows. For the creative couple, DIY Bride offers advice, downloads, and links to solutions provided by their DIY members. The folks at Wilton not only provide wedding cake recipes and designs, but walk you through the kitchen cupboards to show you exactly what you need to create confectionery perfection.

Many of the sites on the Brides.com list offer unique solutions to many wedding planning issues, while others are geared toward themes such as eco-weddings. Take a few minutes to check out the entire list and let us know about your favorites, whether they made the top 75 or not.

Get Married with Colin Cowie

It seems that everyone is weighing in on how brides and grooms can realize their wedding day dreams on three-fourths of previous year’s wedding budget averages.

Lifetime Channel’s Get Married host Colin Cowie, in his new book Wedding Chic, offers these seven tips for the budget-savvy bride:

1.       Dream big: Small ideas get small results, so put budget aside while envisioning your dream wedding, then figure out what you can afford.

2.       Cut your coat according to the cloth: It’s better to do five things correctly than ten things on the skinny.

3.       Consider a destination wedding: Weddings can take place anywhere, so think beyond the exotic beach and think about a bed-and-breakfast or country inn.

4.       Opt for a fantastic DJ: Instead of a big orchestra band, find a great DJ who can create great background music and just as easily keep the guests moving on the dance floor.

5.       Invest in a trusted wedding planner: A professional is there to ease some of the pressure while bringing your vision to a reality.

6.       Design a signature drink: Rather than serving an open bar, offer guests a specialty beverage that is as delicious as it is memorable.

7.       Create monochromatic flower arrangements using one type of flower: When bundled en masse in short ceramic vases, whether roses or carnations, tulips or spider mums; these flowers are beautiful and impactful.

For anyone studying how to become a wedding planner, Cowie’s tip to invest in a trusted wedding planner combined with a strong economic outlook for the wedding industry is great career news.

For brides and grooms hoping to get the most wedding bang for their wedding budget buck, hiring a Certified Wedding Planner is the best advice they can take.

By understanding current wedding trends, Certified Wedding Planners and those learning how to become a wedding planner can provide value and solutions to their clients during continued economic unease.

According to research compiled by The Wedding Report:

Areas of spending decline from 2007 to 2008

·         Wedding dress fell by 31%

·         Rehearsal dinner fell by 34%

·         Spending for a DJ fell by 6%

·         Bridesmaid bouquets fell by 36%

·         Gifts for attendants fell by 38%

·         Wedding invitations fell by 34%

·         Engagement ring fell by 30%

·         Photographer fell by 26%

·         Videographer fell by 24%

·         Wedding cake fell by 33%

·         Wedding favors fell by 9%

·         Reception food service fell by 53%

·         Limo rental fell by 24%

The current economic state is the primary factor for most spending declines, with smaller guest lists and lower-priced vendor options also contributing.

Areas of spending increase from 2007 to 2008

·         Tuxedo/suit increased by 47%

·         Ceremony location increased by 108%

·         Bride bouquet increased by 1%

·         Brides wedding band increased by 21%

·         Grooms wedding band increased by 38%

·         Reception bar service increased by 12%

·         Reception location increased by 15%

·         Reception rentals increased by 84%

Combined reception and ceremony events led to the increase in location costs while a de-emphasis on engagement rings led to higher-priced wedding band choices.

When Pam DuVal, Certified Wedding Planner and Instructor at Carteret Community College in Morehead City, North Carolina, opened Promised Hearts, Inc., she turned her lifelong passion for weddings and events into a successful business helping countless couples realize their “Day Of” dreams.

Promised Hearts Inc

In recognition of her excellent quality of service, responsiveness, professionalism, value of cost, and flexibility, WeddingWire, a leading wedding technology company, has awarded Promised Hearts their 2009 Bride’s Choice Award™. Out of over 100,000 wedding vendors in the WeddingWire community, Pam’s business is rated among the top three percent nationwide.

Everyone at the Wedding Planning Institute is extraordinarily proud of Pam for the excellent work she is doing for her wedding planning and rental clients, as well as the incredible lessons and example she provides for Carteret’s certification students. It is especially impressive that this award was determined exclusively by surveys and reviews from actual newlyweds.

Brides Choice Awards 2009

“We are excited to launch this annual award program to honor high-performing vendors based solely on the experiences of our WeddingWire community,” according to Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s CEO. “This year’s recipients have set the bar high, exhibiting excellent service and expertise in the wedding industry.”

Although Pam’s current classroom session is well underway, you can contact Carteret Community College about the upcoming summer session at 252-222-6204 or learn how to become a wedding planner online.

Pam is hosting the Lejeune Bridal Gala in Jacksonville, North Carolina on Sunday, February 15, 2009. For brides attending the show, there will be many door prizes, including:

·         Spa Day Pass and teeth whitening session courtesy of Planet Beach Contempo Spa

·         Two $300 Gift Certificates courtesy of MM Digital Photography

·         12”x18” sheet cake in a variety of flavors (Serves 50) courtesy of Kathy Canby Cakes

·         Gift Certificate for an engagement, bridal or portrait session with an 8×10 fine art print courtesy of R. D. Decker Photography

·         Certificate for a custom aisle runner courtesy of Chapel Runners

·         Cake knife & server courtesy of Promised Hearts

·         11 x 14 photo frame courtesy of Uniquely You Photographs

·         Wedding music CD & songbook courtesy of The O’Neil Brothers

In addition to the growing list of door prizes, the first 100 brides to attend will receive a free goody bag filled with tons of gifts and saving from our vendors.

For more information for interested vendors or brides, you can contact Pam DuVal at 252-671-6939 or visit www.LejeuneBridalGala.com.

Congratulations to Pam and her husband and partner, Joe, on their much deserved recognition and continued success of all their endeavors.

Lejeune Bridal Gala

As we try to do most weeks, we have searched high and low to compile current events and news from the wedding world to help today’s Certified Wedding Planner keep an eye on our ever evolving industry. If you have a wedding-related news item you want to share, leave a quick headline or summary and a link in the comments section.

For those of you considering whether you want to become a wedding planner, encouragement is just a web click away. Not only is the overall wedding industry holding strong in the face of unprecedented economic turmoil, but wedding planning is enjoying resurgence as a wise budget decision for the bride and groom as well as an excellent career choice for the planner. For many of the millions of workers displaced by layoffs and outsourcing, the decision to become a wedding planner will come from a personal inspiration or the simple fact that marriage rates are rising during the recession.

Of course, there have been challenges to our industry due to financial concerns. Many businesses are struggling as the market is dialing back spending. As weddings no longer adhere strictly to set traditions or trends, successful industry vendors are adapting the meet the needs of cost conscious clientele.

Second Hand Wedding Dresses

Today’s brides are considering secondhand wedding gowns, scrutinizing which wedding elements can be downscaled, and eliminating unnecessary extras in order to maintain a tighter wedding budget. Successful wedding planners understand that while no wedding is perfect, our job is to create a wedding experience that is perfect for the client.

Across the spectrum, weddings continue to be a hot topic for contests and giveaways. This week, Essence Magazine wraps up their ‘Will You Marry Me?” contest. Five grooms-to-be from around the country are finalists to win a $50,000 dream wedding. The winning couple will be chosen by readers deciding which of their video proposals most deserves the grand prize.

An Ohio newspaper is running a ‘Once Upon a Wedding’ contest in which essays written by its three finalists will be judged to determine who wins $9,000 in wedding goods and services. The Get In Touch Foundation is sponsoring a bridal event where they will give away brand-new wedding gowns as door prizes. After sharing with a radio audience how she was saving money for her wedding by moving in with her parents, a Tennessee woman received numerous offers of free goods and services from wedding vendors, venues, and a Certified Wedding Planner.

Other businesses are using innovation and creativity to improve their wedding market performance. Upscale hotels are seeking to stand out as the perfect wedding venue through in-house planners, customized packages, and room discounts. The Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto is hosting a ‘Wedding University’, a day-long interactive educational affair that focuses on how to cut wedding costs in a shaky economy.

Supermarket chain Safeway partnered with WedNet to launch an online window shopping and budgeting tool that allows brides to make design, cost, and portion decisions on wedding cakes, flowers, and wines. Pronuptia, a United Kingdom wedding shop, is gaining market share by establishing a reputation as the place to go for plus-size wedding gowns. A Virginia town is enticing couples to enjoy a destination wedding at an exotic locale without leaving their home town.

Destination Arboretum Wedding

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, wedding promotions are naturally in the air. The Florida Botanical Gardens will team up with a local barbershop quartet and a county court clerk to host a free group wedding on February 14^th. At the Detroit Science Center, any couple who becomes engaged at the opening of their new Star Trek exhibit will have their photo taken on the Starship Enterprise and be entered into a contest to win a ’Star Trek: The Exhibition’ Ultimate Wedding Package.

In wedding venue news, as Las Vegas’ fortunes falter, New York’s newlyweds celebrate in record numbers. Elsewhere, couples struggled to relocate their celebrations as venues were shuttered through bankruptcy and disaster. At one end of the venue spectrum, an Illinois couple exchanged vows in a Wal-Mart garden center. At the other end, Hawaiian wedding planners are in court fighting to keep their state’s legendary beaches accessible to newlyweds from around the world.

Regardless of budget level or geographic location, brides and grooms everywhere are embracing the environment along with their wedding dreams and choosing eco-friendly alternatives to traditional wedding planning solutions. 

Green Wedding

The celebrity world continues to give and take when it comes to nuptial news. Singer, songwriter Lisa Loeb married Conan O’Brien’s music coordinator, Roey Hershkovitz, last weekend at a restaurant in New York City. After a covert courtship on the set of the Fox Television series ‘Fringe’, costars Anna Torv and Mark Valley revealed that they had secretly celebrated a holiday wedding.

Lisa Loeb Roey Hershkovitz Wedding

Keeping true to the engagement season, Mark Wahlberg is reportedly planning a Catholic wedding and Clare Danes and Hugh Dancy will follow the standard ‘costars to newlyweds’ script. The music world heard rumors of Jennifer Hudson’s plans to marry Davie ‘Punk’ Otunga and Eddie Van Halen’s engagement to stuntwoman-turned-publicist Janie Liszewski. Meanwhile, Sarah Jessica Parker may either fear divorce-induced poverty or deny anything is wrong with her marriage to Matthew Broderick, but she definitely regrets the black wedding dress she wore at their 1997 wedding.

On the television, the CBS Network is diving headfirst into wedding programming with the drama pilot ‘Marriage’, a matrimonial dissection, and the reality-documentary ‘Arranged Marriage’, a controversial series exploring the Eastern tradition of selected mating among Western couples. The show is already drawing comparisons to the 2003 Fox Television show ‘Married by America’, in which viewers voted on which contestants got hitched.

Married by America

In a storyline seen by many to be a step forward in the marriage equality debate, the ABC soap opera ‘All My Children’ will stage daytime television’s first gay wedding next week. In reality, two famous lesbian couples seem to confirm the conventional wisdom that any marriage has a fifty percent chance of surviving. Julie and Hillary Goodridge, lead plaintiffs in the landmark Massachusetts lawsuit that lead to legalized same-sex marriage, are reportedly heading for divorce. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi, however, are reminding people of the loving way Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn used to look at each other.

Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn

In California, on March 5, the state Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether to allow the gay marriage ban approved by voters last fall. In that record setting ballot battle, the Mormon Church has acknowledged that while its financial support for Proposition 8 was more than previously disclosed, its contribution was an insignificant portion of the $83 million total spent for and against the proposed constitutional amendment.

In New Hampshire, the state legislature is debating three separate and opposing bills on same-sex marriage. A same-sex civil unions bill in Hawaii has reignited the battle over marriage equality rights in the Aloha State. And just as Vermont lawmakers introduced a same-sex marriage bill, their counterparts in Wyoming voted down a similar measure.  

Is Marriage a Right or a Privilege?

A city judge in Manhattan ruled that under New York law, same-sex marriages that are valid elsewhere should be recognized in the Empire State. Across the Hudson River, a state judge in New Jersey agreed, but only for the purpose of divorce. In Maine, supporters and opponents are lining up for an anticipated bill proposing legalized gay marriage.

The ongoing fight between marriage equality and traditional marriage values appears to have no end in sight. States are debating, experts are weighing in, countries are deciding, television networks are advocating, and everyone involved seems confident in the certainty of their beliefs. History suggests we, as a society, will find a solution. It just may take several decades.

March Schwartz and Carol Sanders

In other wedding news, an Arizona couple, who will form their own marital team in April, was on separate sides for last Sunday’s Super Bowl. When the Pittsburgh Steelers captured their record-setting sixth championship, the groom-to-be won a bet that means his future wife will pay for their upcoming wedding. A Georgia couple, five decades after their first no-frills wedding ceremony, renewed their vows with three generations of their family on their fiftieth wedding anniversary and finally enjoyed their first piece of wedding cake.

The Reverend Ed Taylor, the ‘Marrying Minister’ of the Smoky Mountains, has performed an estimated 85,000 weddings over the last three decades. His retirement after Valentine’s Day will not help the four Whitaker sisters of Annapolis, Maryland, who each have weddings scheduled in 2009. Congratulations and good luck to the entire Whitaker family!

We told you it was a great year for weddings.

Whitaker Sisters

As Certified Wedding Planners around the globe gear up their schedules for the spring wedding surge, we will attempt to help you keep up with current events and news throughout the wedding industry. Whether you are a veteran professional or just learning how to become a wedding planner, it is always a good idea to stay informed about what is happening in our wide-ranging and wonderful business.

We’ve all seen it in the bride who giggles over every planning detail. We’ve seen it in the tears of wedding guests who cannot control their emotional response to the pomp and circumstance. We’ve even seen it in ourselves whether at the beginning of our career, during a particularly rewarding client experience, or when we quickly squelch any consideration of doing something else for a living. It’s called wedding sickness and it seems to be spreading.

From Hollywood’s television and motion picture obsession with all things marital to brides with plans to spice up the ceremony as well as the boudoir, weddings are gaining popularity and prestige across all demographics. Wedding-related contests are being run with prizes such as a free bridal party spa day or a Valentine’s Day ceremony atop the Empire State Building. Weddings are being given as gifts by charities and businesses to the terminally ill and members of our armed forces.

Empire State Building Wedding

Newspaper and online fashion and style pages are featuring articles on wedding design trends, wedding cake styles, and red carpet bridal couture. Entrepreneurial companies are attempting to capture a share of the bridal dollar with pre- and post-wedding wear, online gemology lessons, and marryoke. Some unscrupulous and incompetent service providers are also targeting our market with empty promises that invariably lead to broken dreams.

Despite an ongoing economic crunch that has reduced spending on wedding-related goods and services on average, many brides and grooms are still willing to splurge on their once-in-a-lifetime event. In many states, the wedding industry continues strong as couples find ways to realize their wedding day visions without breaking their budgets.

Even grooms are getting much more involved in wedding plans, holding ‘man showers’, and sometimes turning the entire wedding theme into a videogame.

Halo Wedding

In Vatican City, Pope Benedict XVI, expressing dismay over the ease at which over 40,000 annulments are granted by the Catholic Church each year, declared that marriage is not as impossible as some would make it seem. In the United States, programs such as the Healthy Marriage Initiative are working with couples in areas not experiencing the same reduction in divorce seen nationally.

Some couples are expressing their belief that a healthy marriage begins with an environmentally healthy celebration. From recycled gowns and stationery to locally grown foods and flowers, the eco-friendly wedding is one of the fastest trends today. And more brides and grooms are discovering that going green does not diminish the grandeur of their event in the least bit.

Beach Wedding

As usual, the celebrity world is filled with news of weddings being planned, canceled, or otherwise denied. Actress Anna Faris is engaged to Anne Hathaway’s on-screen fiancé Chris Pratt. Saturday Night Live’s ‘President Obama’, Fred Armisen is planning a low profile wedding to actress Elisabeth Moss.

Just as actress Ione Skye exchanged vows for the second time with musician Ben Lee, Paul McCartney, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Naomi Watts were adamant that bliss with their significant others need not be wedded.

The battle for and against same-sex marriage continues across the nation. In California, a federal judge has ruled against blocking the names of supporters of the controversial amendment, Proposition 8, which was passed last November and effectively banned gay marriage in the state. New York’s recently appointed junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, is rumored to support marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Kirsten Gillibrand and Hillary Clinton

Following the recent success of another ban on gay marriage in Arizona, an effort is underway to gather the nearly quarter million signatures needed to put forward a bill to allow civil partnerships with rights identical to marriage. Washington State lawmakers are also considering expansion of a domestic partnership law to give same-sex couples all the rights and benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples, without the title of marriage.

The discussion over marriage equality is continuing in council meetings in Iowa, in debates in Texas, and in courtrooms in Massachusetts. In Wyoming, a bill asking voters to amend the state constitution to deny recognition of same-sex marriages was introduced. Meanwhile, the online donor community eQualityGiving.org has compiled pro same-sex marriage statements from 34 Members of Congress representing 15 states.

Finally, no week would be complete without news from the offbeat. While some news channels relate anecdotal wedding mishaps and mayhem, others witness the carnage in their own back yards. Wedding crashers at a house reception in Lake Placid, New York were turned away when the homeowner responded to their unruly, uninvited behavior by shooting one of them in the foot. An Indiana wedding turned into a surreal-life version of the movie “Rachel Getting Married” when the uninvited sister of the bride not only crashed the reception, but attacked her newlywed sibling, pulled out clumps of her hair, and beat her to the ground.

Rachel Getting Married

And a Missouri woman was in shock, but determined to make her marriage work despite just seeing her husband-turned-bigamist marrying another woman on a televised mass wedding.

We’re thinking Pope Benedict might make an exception for this one.

While in the midst of the engagement season, many brides and grooms are finding it more than necessary to prioritize their wedding budgets. Whether they are slashing guest lists, sharing vows with betrothed friends, bartering their time and skills for venues and services, taking weekend ‘mini-moons’, or turning a Taco Bell into a drive-thru chapel/reception hall, couples are demanding more for less from their Certified Wedding Planners and their wedding vendors.

Taco Bell Wedding Venue

According to The Wedding Report, the median cost of a wedding in 2008 dropped by 24% from the previous year. While wedding budgets in 2007 averaged $28,704, including almost $1,500 spent on wedding planning services, recession concerns drove wedding budgets down to $21,814 for the most recent year. The wedding industry overall, which boasted a market value of over $72 billion just a couple years ago, is estimated to reach just $61.4 billion for 2009.

Batering For Wedding Goods and Services

Meanwhile, as brides use creativity and bargaining to navigate the still unsettling economy, Certified Wedding Planners are poised to play a crucial role in helping squeeze the most value from wedding budgets in the form of vendor discounts and venue deals. Despite the average cost of the overall wedding decreasing dramatically, wedding planners and bridal consultants will be paid more money than ever to help couples match their eager dreams to their meager budgets.

Here are The Wedding Report’s projected earnings for wedding planners in 2009:

Week in and week out, dozens of wedding planning stories, some serious and some silly, challenge the Certified Wedding Planner to stay informed of wedding industry news and trends. To help you sift through the barrage of information, each week we will continue to offer a recap of wedding industry headlines from the past seven days.

While wedding planning is being accurately acclaimed as a profitable business option and some industry veterans are reporting business to be improving, many planners are utilizing innovative ways to raise awareness of their services. In an economic atmosphere of downsized budgets, deferred dreams, and wedding debt, some wedding professionals are writing wedding advice columns and sponsoring photography raffles.

In other efforts to counteract the effects of recession, planners in Texas shared their Bridezilla stories in a newspaper contest, County Hall registrars in Britain offered free weddings, and New York City spent over $12 million on new civil-wedding chambers in a bid to overthrow Las Vegas as the world’s top wedding destination.

Internationally, engaged couples in Taiwan have been rushing to the alter to avoid a superstitiously bad 2009, legislation in England is working to protect victims of forced marriage, and in a child wedding story that is more touching than troubling, two very young children in Germany were stopped by police as they attempted a New Year’s Day elopement to Africa.

Meanwhile, the ongoing battle over same-sex marriage rights continued in states, courts, churches, and legislative bodies. Proponents of the California Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage filed a lawsuit to hide the identities of donors to their cause amidst reports of threats and other backlash.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown advanced his challenge to the recent ballot initiative and repudiated a marriage definition bill he signed as governor three decades before. Former congressman and author of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act Bob Barr wrote an op-ed recommending that his legislation defining marriage as between one man and one woman be repealed in favor of states’ rights on the issue.

And in trying to make sense of it all, conservative writer Andrew Sullivan presented a patient perspective on human rights, family dynamics, and the healing power of love and marriage.

As usual, Hollywood had plenty to report from the matrimonial front. Secret weddings were revealed for “Dark Knight” and “Harry Potter” actor Gary Oldman and his fourth wife, jazz singer Alexandra Edenborough, as well as CBS “Late Late Show” host Craig Ferguson and his third wife, art dealer Megan Wallace Cunningham. Similar news was adamantly denied for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, although the former husband of Jennifer Aniston was clear that no adultery precipitated their divorce.

Celebrity couple engagement news included Alyssa Milano promising her hand to Hollywood agent David Bugliari, “High School Musical” star KayCee Stroh singing the praises of her finance Ben Higginson, and Jennifer Love Hewitt cancelling wedding plans with former fiancé Ross McCall. Black Eyed Peas singer Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson made news for her pre-nuptial workout and parties leading up to her scheduled wedding on Saturday to actor Josh Duhmael.

On the reported downside of marriage were Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and the upcoming movie, “Not Easily Broken”. And continuing the Hollywood trend of mining tragic comedy from the wedding genre, and in the process insulting at least half its audience, the predictable flick “Bride Wars” offered little more than a shallow perspective on good and bad cinematic bridal gowns.

To help the Certified Wedding Planner keep up with current events from the last seven days, we offer an overview of wedding news you may have missed.

Many businesses are using innovative offers to attract brides and grooms. Engaged couples are being promised a complimentary room each year for life when they book their wedding at New York’s Renaissance Westchester Hotel. In St. Louis, a wedding boutique is drawing business from all over the country by offering wedding gowns for pregnant brides and the Brides Across America campaign continued to thrill military brides with free wedding gowns.

A Wisconsin couple’s western-themed wedding included Garth Brooks and Slim Whitman as well as the entire wedding party on horseback. More couples are going green by choosing farms as their wedding venue. In venue tip news, backyard weddings are reported to reduce cost and enhance memories while creative draperies and lighting can be used to evoke a celebrity-style wedding.

Preferred wedding vendor lists are a crucial component of the wedding planner’s tool kit, but be wary of paid advertising masquerading as vetted referrals. Controversy over beach wedding permits in Hawaii reached the negotiation stage between religious groups and the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

A Minnesota police officer, in collusion with a local jewelry store, proposed to his fiancé using a highway billboard. Many husbands-to-be are becoming more involved in wedding planning, but wedding planners are cautioned to beware of Groomzilla.

Hollywood made its usual wedding news splash as Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green denied rumors of the end of their four year relationship and are planning an intimate wedding ceremony. Jessica Alba and Cash Warren intend to continue the Hollywood tradition of following an intimate ceremony with a second, tabloid-worthy wedding bash. Kelly Osbourne announced her engagement to British model Luke Worrell.

Today’s episode of the Rachel Ray Show featured the mass wedding of 33 brides displaced by Hurricane Ike, Lifetime Network’s show Get Married named wedding design guru Colin Cowie as its new host, and Ellen DeGeneres fought back tears on her talk show as a seven-year-old piano prodigy performed a song she had written for the newlywed host and her wife, Portia De Rossi, called “Once Upon a Wish”.

The continued fallout from the November 4^th ballot measures banning same-sex marriage in three states included a California Supreme Court challenge, boycotts and vandalism of supporters of the bans, and the Mormon Church receiving suspicious packages and threats for their perceived roll in the controversy. Meanwhile, gay marriages began in Connecticut, Vermont and Illinois geared up as the next battlegrounds, and Subway Restaurants and the eHarmony dating company responded to gay activists’ complaints by tailoring their businesses away from discrimination to be more inclusive of alternative lifestyles.

Internationally, schoolgirls in Scotland are learning how to become wedding planners in a class project designed to spark their imaginations and teach organizational skills and wedding planners in Bollywood are inspiring a generation of betrothed with elaborate wedding backdrops on television and movie sets. Brides and grooms agonized over rising wedding costs in New Zealand while a distraught father in India was awarded compensation for a wedding transportation no-show for his son’s nuptials.

Meanwhile, brides are being targeted by con artists in Australia and the British government moved to strengthen marriage by making pre-nuptial agreements binding and reducing the rights of cohabitating couples.

In wedding financial news, while the economy is apparently good for the wedding industry in North Carolina, a stock market watch site is questioning whether the wedding industry is good for the economy. The combination of fewer brides and more wedding vendors is driving the need to diversify and innovate to survive. Some wedding chapels are experiencing a drop in business and brides are responding to economic pressures by cutting wedding costs and taking on wedding debt.

In Arizona, delayed unemployment checks ruined one couple’s wedding plans. In the United Kingdom, the Ecclesiastical Insurance Company offered peace of mind to engaged couples strapped for cash and concerned about a wedding cancellation with a new wedding insurance policy.

The saga of rogue wedding photographers continued as a couple in New Jersey finally received their wedding photos after a two year battle. Not as fortunate, nearly 300 newlywed brides and grooms gathered in a Staten Island, NY hotel with hopes that their runaway bankrupt photographer or, more importantly, their missing pictures and videos had been located.

In offbeat wedding news, the internationally popular Second Life virtual world further imitated real life when the couple who married after meeting in the game planned to divorce after the husband was caught committing cyber adultery. In the U.S., Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested Jie Hua Zhou on charges that she arranged over 100 fake marriages for $20,000 to $50,000 each to help non-citizens bypass immigration laws.

On a happier note, a wedding ring thought lost forever off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii was found and returned to the gleeful newlywed husband and a wedding planning class at the University of South Carolina put their academic studies to practical use by planning a free wedding for a pair of their classmates.