Bridal Magazines Feel Squeeze

This photo taken Nov. 17, 2009 shows Millie Martini Bratten, editor of Brides magazine, posing for a picture in her office in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

(AP)

Soon after her husband-to-be popped the question, Carolyn Zimatore found herself with time on her hands in an airport. She was irresistibly drawn to the rack of thick, glossy magazines depicting wedding fashions, floral arrangements and advice for the big day ahead.

"My flight was delayed, and it is one of those things you do in the period when you're engaged," said the 27-year-old New Yorker. "It was a rite of passage."

However, Zimatore, who was wed in June, found that while the magazines she bought and received as gifts were "fun to look at," she got most of her wedding information over the next year at online sites, from message boards and by attending other people's nuptials.

"Most of my ideas came from going to other weddings and seeing what I liked and didn't like," she said.

Like other print media, bride-focused magazines are battling for the attention of savvy consumers at the same time that the recession is further eroding advertising bases.

Besides proliferating online wedding sites, there is a growing number of regional or local print magazines that list vendors and planning resources, said an expert on magazines.

"We really are slicing the pie more ways," said Samir Husni, director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi.

The Publishers Information Bureau's tracking of ad pages found that wedding planning magazines had steep declines for the first three quarters of this year, with ad pages for some titles, such as Elegant Bride, falling more than 30 percent over 2008 numbers. Elegant Bride and Modern Bride were among four money-losing titles that Conde Nast Publications announced in October it was closing, and Time Inc. announced Nov. 24 the closing of Instyle Weddings after the next issue, which hits stands Dec. 25.

Erica Kerr, 26, of New York, said she made little use of the wedding magazines, including Modern Bride, that she received as gifts before her October wedding. "I felt like they were very stereotypical, and I'm not that person," she said. She found that friends who were married or preparing to get married were her best resources, as well as Web sites such as a locally focused site for Long Island weddings.