About

"Keene’s site offers almost-engaged girlfriends, brides-to-be, and new wives something like what Sassy magazine, in its early-’90s heyday, offered pre-teen girls terrified by Seventeen: a space where messy reality is normalized and confronted. Most of the site is devoted to real-world wedding stories, with budget advice and how-to’s included ... But the most striking posts delve into complicated and touchy issues like coping with toxic family relationships, planning second weddings, dealing with infertility—all things that are routinely airbrushed out of the glossier wedding media." —Tablet Mag

So you're new here! Welcome! Now, you probably want the whole story...

APW started in 2008 when Meg Keene came home crying one too many days in a row in the early stages of planning her wedding. Her husband suggested she start a blog and call it a practical wedding. Not in a dogmatic way, but in a "The-wedding-media-you-are-reading-is-crazy" way. Fast-forward four years, and APW has taken on a life of its own. It's about balancing feminism with weddings and married life; it's about wrestling with the cultural dialogue surrounding weddings and marriages; it's about figuring out how to be a bride and a wife on your own terms. These days, it's run by Meg and an awesome staff, and there is a book to go with it. (Yes, if you're wedding planning, you need the book. It's not just the website in print, it's wedding sanity.)

If you're newly engaged, or otherwise planning a wedding, you can get APW's best wedding planning tips right here.

If you're newly married, or just happily married and hanging out here, you can get APW's best posts and thoughts on married life over here.

We're so glad you've joined us. Now go! Get reading! And leave us a comment already!

Photo: Leah and Mark