The first point about Cosmo Bride was that it was a spin off of it's big sister Cosmopolitan. Spin-Offs rarely do as well as the originals. ('Joey' vs 'Friends' - need I say more?) Whilst the content of the spin-off is no better or worse than any of the originals, by simply being a spin-off, they give off the impression of recycling old stuff; of not producing anything original.
Bridal magazines also have to complete with celeb magazines, such Hello! and OK! which go into such depth about celebrity weddings. They reveal almost as much detail as a wedding magazine would. Some mags even mention costs! It's hard for brides to be to dodge the lure of celebrity style.
But perhaps the biggest threat to the printed word comes from the internet. Wedding blog Love My Dress publishes up to an article a day. The content is always fresh, relevent and full of photos. Magazines are published monthly, sometimes bi-monthly, and the material is out of date as soon as it hits the stands.
So what can wedding mags offer that nobody else can? Well, the staff are pros. They are stylists, they are florists, they're professionals; they've often got hands-on experience of the wedding industry. Magazines are the papers you pull apart to put together your mood board. Paper does not fail when there is a power cut! A magazine will never run out of battery.
So thank you Miranda Eason (pictured left, above) for looking after Cosmo Bride so well. You've perhaps been outpaced by technology. However, the good news is Miranda is also editor of You and Your Wedding magazine. A magazine may have gone under, but the industry is not dead yet!
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