This practical companion to The Knot Complete Guide to Weddings in the Real World acts as a stand-alone guide to the nuts and bolts of planning a wedding. The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner is where the bride and groom can record wedding ideas, create budget guidelines, check items off their to-do list, generate the guest list, store contact information for their wedding vendors, and get tips and advice on the best way to plan their big day.

Chapter by chapter, the planner walks the bridal couple through each major step: for example, choosing the reception site, picking a photographer, and deciding on a menu. Author Carley Roney and the editors of The Knot Web site have talked with both wedding professionals and hundreds of thousands of brides and grooms, and have a good idea of the necessary ingredients for a successful wedding. Most helpful and thorough are each chapter's "Questions to Ask" checklists and the "Knot Knowledge" tips, which include money-saving ideas. The book also contains a gift log, a budget tracker, and a wedding-day phone contacts sheet.

How could a site like the Knot put out a book this bad?

I bought this book the day after I got engaged, and the sentimental value the book has is really all that it has to offer. I don't understand how a website so complete like "The Knot" could manage to put out a book like this.

The information inside the book is vague and in reality, mostly meaningless. Take the "Invitations" section, for example. The chapter is 7 pages long, and out of those 7 pages, 5 1/2 of them are worksheets. Advice on how to word the invitations? This is what the book has to say: "Spend some time familiarizing yourself with all of the (frighteningly) specific wording conventions and addressing rules - if only to understand what others will expect. (We don't go into minute detail here.)" That last part isn't an understatement, since there are no pages that contain sample layouts of invites or suggested wording or phrasing for invitations. How can a wedding planner consider itself complete if it doesn't even offer one suggestion for wedding invitation phrasing?

I wish I had gone through this book better before buying it, since all this book has to offer is mediocre lists and worksheets, which, again, you could get better versions of if you went to "The Knot" website. I also have to say that the information inside is surprisingly inaccurate with some questionable etiquette outlines. If you are planning a wedding that is anything other than the conventional wedding, like a destination wedding, you'll find this book next to useless since it doesn't spend any time discussing how to arrange destination, theme, or double weddings. Another thing this book doesn't have that all books of this nature should is a back index... So there is no fast way to look up specific information.

When it comes to this book, pass. Save the $16 and just get all the info off their website. I give this book 2 stars for the quantity of worksheets it has (even though they are highly basic), and because I'm sure that everybody will find a couple of items of interest in the book, but that's about it.

Same info as their website for free

The Knot also has the sad habit of condoning "rituals" that are and should continue to be socially unacceptable, such as family-hosted showers, money dances and Bridezilla behavior. Read Miss Manners or go to etiquettehell.com if you really want to know what to do - or not.

Do KNOT bother

I suppose the book is straight forward, and such.

It has a clean "style" to it-- probably because it contains NO useful information inside.

I only bought this book because I am really impressed with theknot.com, so I assumed they'd have a fabulous book too. WRONG.Skip this book.