What Do Brides Really Want?

                             A wise voice on what weddings are meant to be

     The new book, The Bride’s Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself, shows why Cornelia Powell has been known as “the bride’s sage” for over twenty-five years. While others focus on the trappings of the wedding, Cornelia focuses on the intimacy of the bride’s rite-of-passage. She brings her wise, soothing voice—unique to the wedding industry—to what will become an essential gift book for brides of all ages and a pleasure for every woman who loves matters of the heart.  

     For this book, Cornelia tweaked the meaning of the familiar and beloved folkloric bridal rhyme “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence for your shoe” into a feminine language of self-discovery. With this more introspective twist, she then created a collection of “RitualWise Bridal Notes” that will rewrite how brides prepare for their wedding. These fifty “Bridal Notes” combine Cornelia’s storytelling magic with bridal folklore, goddess legends, deep-breathing ease, costume history, and fairy godmother-like intuitive wisdom. Every bride-to-be now gets to discover the depth of her own heart and experience wedding planning as a rite-of-passage of deepening relationship.

     This entertaining yet introspective and reassuring guidebook also provides a “Wisdom Journal” section with quotes of “borrowed” wisdom from women’s voices, along with space for a bride to jot down her own insights and inspirations. The invitation to “look inside to find yourself” is always present throughout the book as the reader finds herself immersed in the heritage of women's loving support and encouragement.

     Cornelia Powell first made headlines in the world of weddings with her innovative and nationally recognized bridal art-to-wear store in Atlanta in the 1980s and 90s. Continuing as the spokesperson for “conscious weddings,” Cornelia later brought the same intimacy and awareness to a world audience in her online magazine, Weddings of Grace.  And her elegant new blog, Letters to a Bride, delivers “Dear Bride-to-Be” messages of ease and reassurance to a woman’s life at a time when she can use lots of both!

     Phyllis Hoffman, publisher of Victoria magazine, states, “Cornelia Powell has captured the true spirit of weddings in her writings and in her advice to brides. She mixes to perfection tradition, wisdom and style.”  As a bridal historian and wedding entrepreneur, Cornelia draws the best from the past and creates a “modern mythology” for today’s bride, not only in this new book, her online magazine, articles and blogs, but also as a sought after public speaker.

     Being a bride—the time of planning her wedding as well as preparing for her marriage—is not a woman's only rite-of-passage, but it is the opportunity for one of her most intimate experiences if she allows herself the heart-pleasures of journeying inward. In The Bride’s Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself, Cornelia maps out this womanly pathway of beauty and self-discovery.

     Cornelia's Best-selling book is available now on Amazon.com!

Book Cover & Interior Design by Phuong Nguyen of Creative Crop.

Book Cover Photograph by Julie Mikos.