Wooing the Bride > Bridal magazine blossoms to record size

The wedding industry, burgeoning with the revival of traditional and expensive nuptials, has finally done it — early this year, it gave birth to the largest magazine ever published in the United States, a bouncing, 3-pound, 11-ounce issue of Bride’s magazine.

At 1,032 pages, the February/March issue of Bride’s is thicker than the Bangor and Ellsworth phonebooks combined. Features like “Makeup Update: Less is More” and “How to Stay Madly in Love” are sprinkled among more than a thousand pictures of wedding dresses, touting every cut and color imaginable.

At Conde Nast’s New York publishing empire, journalists and salespeople are glowing with pride over their 1,032-page achievement. Bride’s editor-in-chief Barbara Tober said last week that the milestone (or, by weight, millstone) issue is only the beginning.

“I do think the 1,032 pages is a record to be repeated. I feel that we create a climate that is irresistable to brides and grooms,” Tober said. “Everyone who gets married reads Bride’s.”

They read it? All 1,032 pages?

“They have two months to do it,” Tober explained. “People really read the magazine from start to finish.”

A Bangor bride-to-be admitted that she had gone through the magazine five times already, and immediately turned to the page with a picture of her wedding dress to prove it. She had also demanded that her fiance read an article explaining how to be a good husband.

One of Bar Harbor’s betrothed said that she is not really planning a traditional wedding, so she only read the February/March Bride’s once; she added that her fiance did not read it at all, but did offer either a grunt or a “No!” to every dress she showed him.

Magazines Inc., a Bangor-based distributor, delivered more than 600 copies of the mammoth Bride’s to 90 grocery stores, drug stores and bookstores in central and eastern Maine.

Ralph Foss, president of Magazines Inc., said that wedding magazines get fatter this time of year. “The reason that one is so thick is that they are still trying to get the June brides,” Foss said.

Foss said that his delivery force has little trouble with the bulk of bridal bliss, but stores can only put two or three copies of the record issue out at a time. “It’s difficult to display because it takes up so much space on the racks. Most of the racks are designed for thinner magazines,” he said.

Bulging racks and ragged brides will get a break this week, however, when the April/May issue of Bride’s hits the street with a softer thud — only 736 pages.