The Knot: If you love shopping malls for their color, bustle and possibility, you'll love The Knot. However, if shopping malls give you a headache and make you want to hide under the bed, this site is not for you. From the moment you hit The Knot's opening page, you'll be deluged by information, polls, contests, free gifts, FAQ's, stories ? and on and on1x It's a site where you can sit down with a cup of tea at 8 p.m. and find yourself still there at two in the morning, clicking away with your mouth hanging open and your eyes rolling back into their sockets. Still, it's possible to take a targeted approach: If you can't handle all the possibilities, go straight to The Knot's "Planning Tools" section, which is the best of its kind that I've seen. Once there, you can avail yourself of a wedding checklist, a guest list manager and "big day budgeter," not to mention a wedding photographers network, diamond finder and invitation finder.

The Wedding Channel: Another mega-site, offering enough information to make you jump for joy or faint from panic. The good news is that by scrolling under a "Featured Content" heading, you can skip straight to a very specific topic --"stationery," for example ? without being bombarded by unrelated content. In addition, the Wedding Channel recently launched "A Bride's Diary," in which a bride-to-be chronicles the ups and downs of planning her fall 2000 wedding. This feature might help to make you feel a little less alone; you can even e-mail her if you feel like comparing notes1x Other nice touches include a "Weddings of the Century" photo essay with gorgeous photos of the weddings of Princess Grace, Jackie O. and other equally romantic figures. If the pictures don't make you misty-eyed, try looking at the price comparisons provided for weddings in 1899 vs. weddings in 1999. A hundred years ago, a bride could expect to pay 50? for a lace veil; these days $150 is considered a bargain. Surely that's enough to make you cry1x

Ultimate Wedding: A full-service site featuring online discussions, newsletters, polls, contests and more. One good reason to visit the site is that you can sign up to receive free wedding planning software from WedServ.com. But an even bigger enticement is the Ultimate Wedding's song library, which suggests appropriate music for each moment of the big day, from the processional to the reception, with audio clips to help you choose. My favorite ideas? ZZ Top's "Legs" for the garter toss and "How Sweet It Is" by James Taylor for the cake cutting.

Wedding Bells: Based on the newsstand magazine of the same name, this site offers a well-organized "Help for?" section that includes advice not only for brides, grooms, parents and the other usual suspects, but also for sometimes-forgotten types, like those getting married for the second time. Along with contests, polls, and local vendor lists the site offers a weekly e-mail newsletter, and for a limited time, free copies of Wedding Bells magazine.

Bride's: This site isn't as fun or comprehensive as the newsstand magazine, but if you're interested in learning about honeymoon travel, Bride's is the one. In addition, the "Love Connection" links department offers information about Bride's events near you as well as opportunities to enter contests and sign up for free gifts.

Modern Bride: Modern Bride does fashion better than just about any other bridal magazine or site. Along with luscious photographs and helpful hints for picking a flattering gown, the site provides a personalized "bridal showroom," a place to post the dresses you're eyeing so that your friends can tell you what they think. In Modern Bride's gift section, alongside the usual big-name brand items, there are offerings from less obvious sources, such as The San Francisco Symphony and Seattle's Asian Art Museum.

Wedding Links Galore: A truly mammoth library of wedding-related vendor links. Here you'll find, among other treasures, a figurine of a cow in a wedding dress to top your cake, a helicopter pilot who will land you on the roof of your reception site and a set of rubber stamps for making wedding invitations on the cheap. One of the site's most useful features is its legal section, which offers links to information and assistance about name changes, marriage licenses, etc. Wedding Links Galore divides its vendors by type, not by region, so don't get too excited about the ice-sculptor who will make you a giant pig to celebrate your wedding to a hog farmer until you find out where the business is based.

Honeymoons.com: Most sites feature some honeymoon planning and destination information ? but Honeymoons.com will tell you what to pack for the Caribbean and how much you should expect to pay your taxi driver per mile in Mexico. This site also provides rates and phone numbers for a number of hotels. If you're just fantasizing, stick with the travel features on other sites; when you're ready to plan, come here.

Finally, it is with some hesitation that I mention Wedding Shenanigans Home Page, which provides a neat and thorough listing of ways for guests, members of the wedding party and others to insure that they will never be invited anywhere again. For example, the best man is advised to steal the groom's shoes before the ceremony and write 'HE' on the sole of the left shoe, and 'LP' on the sole of the right. When the groom kneels and the bottoms of his shoes are revealed, they will, of course, spell out, "HELP."