Magazine Review: Hochzeitsplaner

Finally the promised review of the first German magazine I bought. Here's the cover:


The first impression is pretty good. I like the fact that the table of contents is right at the very start of the magazine. It's in German, which is fine because I do read German, but I have treated it more as a picture gallery than read the articles. Most of the "articles" are just advertising different wedding services like dresses, make-up or jewelry. One interesting thing is that it's the first magazine that I've come across that had specific articles and clothing examples targeted for the groom. At least 6 separate articles which actually equals only around 10 pages or so, but that's 5% of the magazine and I haven't seen anything in other magazines. Of course, some of the outfits are truly atrocious and I can't imagine any man wearing them anywhere, never mind to his wedding. I mean, would you marry someone wearing this?
No, I thought not.

But not everything is so strange looking, there are lots of nice dresses, some flower ideas, some hairstyling ideas, some ideas for sayings and prayers for the ceremony. Plus an actual wedding planner, with a checklist of things to do at a certain number of months.

And, as a nice comparison, many of the ads do show the price of the dress advertised or at least the model number! This was my main complaint with In Style magazine. Glad to see the Germans are more pratical in this regard.

The thing I probably appreciate the most is that it is Germany-based, so the suppliers they list are far more likely to be useful to me/us than any of the the North American or British magazines.

The thing I liked the least was the fact that although the issue is billed as their winter/spring issue for 2005, all the bridal fairs they list fell within January or the early part of February. Doesn't do you much good if you go to buy the magazine now, does it? And you can't tell me they didn't know these things before they went to press. However, I will accept it if someone tells me that there aren't any bridal fairs in Germany in spring 2005. Until that happens though, I'll be a bit miffed.