I'm sure that you'll agree with me, that there are some things here it's really difficult to buy online. Take The Dress, for example, unless you absolutely have to, you're not going to buy your wedding dress online. You're going to want to go out and try on different dresses to find the one that's perfect for you in terms of style and fit. However, as a starting place the web can be a great help as you can showcase lots of different designers within a short space of time, look at straight styles, curvy shapes, flounces and embroidery and get a feel for prices. You can also, when you find a designer you like, find out where your nearest stockist is so, you can really plan your expedition and have a much better idea of what you're looking for before you start.

This may well apply to most aspects of your wedding, depending on how busy you are and how easy it is for you to get to the shops. Whatever you decide about buying on or offline you can certainly gather a huge amount of information here which will make the overall decision process much, much easier. You can also visit all these websites at any time of day or night, which will hopefully save you hours of time later on.

There are a couple of other essentials for weddings that are also quite difficult to buy online. Your florist and your cake maker will want to work with you to match your overall style from your dress and colour scheme to the size of the occasion. Having said that, there are just a few really good florists and wedding cake designers who will despatch nationwide if you need them to and you’ll find them listed below.

When it comes to shoes and accessories, jewellery, stationery and gifts there are lots of websites to browse through and you can order just about everything online. For pampering hair and beauty products and accessories and for lingerie, you need to go to the Health and Beauty and Lingerie sections in this guide, where you’ll find an enormous amount of choice. Most of the lingerie retailers have a special section for Weddings and excellent range of sizes.

To make life easier from the start, I suggest investing in a wedding planner/file. You'll find two of the best in these sites: www.confetti.co.uk and www.theweddingfile.com. Buy one of those first and everything else will become much simpler to organise.