In short, it’s the best magazine I ever found.

I came across this magazine called Bridestory in my search for wedding / bridal magazines. Yes, I admit I have a soft spot for bridal magazines. They’re so romantic and heartwarming (and very usable, you know you know). I must say, this particular magazine… is the most top tier magazine I ever bought. Granted, it’s not that many compared to the hardcore collectors around here, but I’ve had my own fair share. This magazine is so good, in fact, I’d like to tell you about it in this short review!

I’ll separate this review in several parts :
– Print quality
– Thickness / paper quality
– The cover
– The smell
– The content

Print Quality
The print quality of this magazine is, simply put, second to none. I’m comparing it against the more “mainstream” magazines I have, mostly (2010s) Marie Claire, Elle, Cleo, and other name brand stuff that I’m sure you’re familiar with. And they’re not even close I swear to you. This magazine is extremely glossy. In fact, it’s so glossy it’s actually reflective!
The colours pop up so much, the pictures and the text is pinpoint sharp, and the ink is so thick, I can actually feel the “ridges” and “unevenness” of the surface when running my fingers over the pages. Like, pictures with lots of black shades actually feel “sticky” or “textured” (in a good way). It’s ridiculous. The mainstream magazines I mentioned just look muted and washed out compared to this magazine. I understand bridal magazines have to look good because they’re showcasing products, but even comparing it to other bridal magazines that I have (like youandyour wedding, herworld Brides, and a couple others) this magazine stands out.
And this magazine I have is almost a decade old. Imagine when it was still new. Imagine how contrasty the picture would be.

Seriously, I never knew it’s possible to have something printed to look this good.

Thickness / Paper Quality
Oh wow, where do I start. This magazine is over 500 pages thick. The numbered pages only go up to 480, but I’m sure there’s over 40 extra non numbered pages in it. It’s one hell of a thick book.
But the paper quality… is ridiculously good.
Look, I lurked this site long enough to have learned that recent mainsream magazines have had horrible paper quality, but this is… something else. It’s the most high quality paper in a magazine I ever came across, doesn’t matter what the magazine is (I have a couple old Elle from the early 2000s, and this Bridestory paper is thicker).
I have no way to measure it, but I can honestly say each page is at least twice or even 3 times thicker than other magazines. It’s NOT cheap. Each leaf of pages makes a resounding “thud” sound when flipped instead of the… whatever crinkly noise other magazines make. Okay, that’s a hyperbole, but I can’t stress this enough. The paper simply exudes quality like no other. It feels so exotic and lovely to the touch.
In addition, some pages are printed on an even thicker paper. I don’t know what they’re called, but they’re similar to the paper used to print photograph. Very difficult to fold, that’s the first time I found anything like this in a magazine.
When closed, it’s rather difficult to bend due to how thick the magazine is. I tried to stack a couple of other magazines to match the page count of this one, and those stack of magazines could be bent way easier than this Bridestory.
This magazine is really heavy. I have a 400 pages thick textbook with HVS paper, and that thing is so light compared to the magazine despite having similar number of pages. The magazine feels more like a tome than a magazine. Just imagine how exciting it is to hold a magazine this heavy.

The combination of super glossy pages and ridiculously high quality pages makes this magazine a real catch!

The cover
Alright, the cover is subjective. Just check out the picture I uploaded above (please tell if it doesn’t appear for some reason). I find it cute and lovely, if a bit pedestrian, but others might have a different opinion. Still, tell me what do you think of the cover. Is it good? Meh? Not your thing?
Let’s talk about the paper used for the cover. It’s thick, I guess it’s similar to those covers used for paperback books. Which is a great upgrade from the usual thin paper covers that many magazines come with these days. It’s kind of matte and textured though, not glossy. I like how it feels to the touch, because it’s rather textured, but each to their own. I think it’s waterproof.
The back cover is just an ad for their website, so no full page ads like in most other magazines. Nothing interesting, honestly.

The smell
There is no smell. I assume there should be one when it was new, but this magazine is quite old. It smells like… old book. There are some sections inside about perfumes so I guess it did have some kind of a scent when it was still fresh off the printing press. No points here.

The content
It’s a bridal magazine, so it’s full of wedding stuff! Wedding dresses, brides, make up, flower arrangements, cute cakes, articles…. All in brilliant picture quality! My mouth waters just at the thought. This is something that is very subjective, but to me, the content is so lovely and endearing. So many pages of models wearing elegant dresses and various make up products. Even the flowers look incredible. There’s enough content in this magazines for me to “enjoy” for a long time.

The bad
Nothing is perfect, so a few negatives :
– The magazine is thick, yes, hundreds of pages. But between those pages, there are hundreds of pages that are nothing but lists of vendors, advertisements, addresses, phone numbers, websites, vouchers, and the likes. You know, nothing but wall of texts. They’re mostly useless to me. And a few of the articles… they’re just paragraphs of texts with few images scattered about. Again, merely deadweight.
There are still lots of other pages with lovely pictures, but I feel like those text heavy sections are just waste of spaces.
I don’t know, maybe you can use those pages as padding or to clean up, or whatever you use uninteresting pages you don’t care about in a magazine for.

– It’s a wedding magazine, and I understand wedding is not for everyone. YMMV and all that.
If you don’t like anything related to wedding, well, this magazine isn’t for you. But even if you strip out or ignore the wedding stuff and focus on the brides showing wonderful dresses… there’s still a lot to like, IMO. Lovely models are lovely models, doesn’t matter the setting, no?
I mean, I’m sure I’m not the only one to buy “Good Housekeeping” magazines and ignore all the housekeeping stuff, and skip to the fashion related pages… It’s doable.

– It’s ridiculously difficult to find, and insanely expensive for what it’s worth. It’s not in print anymore. I have a feeling maybe it costs too much to print magazines this good and it sent the company under. It feels more like a collector book than a mass market product.

And so, there you have it, my short review of this Bridestory magazine. I’m sure I’ll look for more in the future.. What do you think?

Okay, unrelated :
It’s clear this site is dying. I found two subreddits recently (r/magazinefethish and r/newspaperfetish) that might be a good alternative to this dying site. I wonder if there’s anyone here who knows those subs.