You may kiss the guide

You’ve met your match, your finger is blingin’, your friends and family are all giddy, and your mind is about to enter a realm that is exciting, overwhelming, and a form of temporary insanity: wedding planning.

Like every year around this time, RN&R is here to help. This guide shows you a great place to start your planning process, provides inspiration as to venue—Burning Man, anyone?—gives you tips and ideas for the big day itself, and lets you hear firsthand from newlywed and RN&R arts editor Brad Bynum about his own wedding.

We’re happy to see that the trend these days is for weddings that are a bit more low-key, homegrown, and (perhaps deceptively) simple. It may be a reflection of the times: We draw our family and friends close, and we do it our way. Brides and grooms are opting for warmth over flash, and mixing tradition (old family photos, homemade jam, mismatched china) with the new (iPod playlists, tattooed brides, personal wedding blogs). However you choose to approach your wedding, we wish you long, happy marriages, which are, after all, the point of this very special day.