Like you I am always on the hunt for great planning tools and wedding websites. In all honesty, I have to say that I don’t check out every new wedding-centric site that pops up. Most of them are just lame excuses for sucking advertising dollars off wedding vendors. They have a list of vendors, a few out of date articles on planning and little else.

Today I ran across one that is worth its pixels and is about to get even better. Wedding Wire is a relative newcomer to the game; launched in June of 2007 it has just been scarfed up by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Wedding Wire was created by a team of entrepreneurs including 2 founding members of Blackboard. This is not some lame site put together by a former bride to be or a former magazine ad sales person. These creators have some serious internet chops. As proof, take a look at how functional the tools they have created for brides are. In addition to wedding websites, budget tools and timeline planners they also have the coolest drag and drop seating chart tool.

The galleries look to be fairly large and are searchable by color as well as item. So if you search “purple” you will get everything, bouquets, décor, invitation, favors or anything else in purple. The events page is searchable by zipcode and event type. If you are looking for all the upcoming bridal or trunk shows in your area this is the place to look. The communities look a little thin still but I’m sure that will come with time.

With the additional resources available to them now that MSLO owns 40% of the company you can bet that the content will be just as top notch. If you love Martha Stewart Weddings, then this is definitely the wedding planning website for you.

This one really has me excited.

Is anyone else out there a fan of the wedding planning group on Live Journal? Well I am. This has to be the nicest most helpful bunch of brides on the net, none of the snarky juvenile garbage that you find in some of the other wedding communities. If you have ventured into the communities at the Knot.com then you know what I mean.

You can follow them as they plan their weddings right along with you. The comments are almost always both amazingly helpful and supportive. You may only post or add comments if you are a member of the community. It’s open to all and you can join here.

The tag cloud for this group is huge; I mean there must be over a thousand* tags in it. It runs nearly the entire length of the first page of the archive. So if you can’t find something close to what you are wanting to know you must be looking for something really off the wall. I didn’t find a search feature though. If you know where there is one, let me know. *Ok so I’m a geek. I just ran a word count on the tag cloud and it’s only 996.

There are even links to other more specific communities like Bridal Weight Loss Support and Wedding Makeup.

Whether you are a bride or a wedding professional this is a must read. Just keep it nice.

As you can imagine, anytime anyone releases a new website for brides I get pinged. Most of them are just more of the same, but I got a real WOW in my inbox this morning.

Clio pinged me about the new site she is a part of, Muse. Right now Muse has three parts: Budget tool, Task manager and Idea folder. I’m not a big fan of budget tools but the other two just blew me away!

On the Task manager you have 3 pages, Do Now, Do Later and Done. Each is divided into the standard categories like ceremony, beauty photography, etc. It couldn’t be easier to add and delete tasks or move them from list to list. It all stays organized and neat. Love it. No more making lists, losing them and having to recreate them. I wish it was available for my grocery lists.

The idea folder is just as easy to use. You can ‘Capture an idea’ again in the standard categories and then keep it front and center or move it to the back burner to revisit later.

Clio tells me that they have even more tools in the works as the site keeps growing. If they are any where as cool and useful as what they have now Muse may quickly become the hottest planning site on the web.

Thanks Clio for ‘getting it’.