Laura Weatherly had a ball planning this 2007 wedding, held at the Mellon Auditorium in DC and featured in The Washingtonian's January 2008 issue. Photo courtesy of Denis Reggie.

Excited for Thursday yet? I am—I get to meet Laura Weatherly, local wedding planner and author of Stop! Don’t Plan a Wedding Without This Book, when she comes to The Washingtonian’s office to field any and every question you have about planning your big day.

Laura started her company, Engaging Affairs, in 1996. In addition to doing about ten weddings a year, she finds time to speak at wedding conferences nationwide, has taught a wedding-planning course at George Washington University, and is developing a series of seminars for people who want to become wedding planners.

So send in your questions now, because Laura is great at cracking the toughest wedding puzzles: She does, after all, write an award-winning mystery series about a DC wedding planner. (Find it under her pen name, Laura Durham.)

Laura will be here from 11 AM to noon on Thursday, when you can read along and ask questions live. As with Carol Marino’s lovely chat last week, the transcript will be posted afterward. And after this, Bridal Party still has two more Thursday chats before January is through—details to come.

If there's a topic you'd like to see featured in a future online chat (flowers? cakes? dresses?), e-mail me at mconrad@washingtonian.com.

To read the latest Bridal Party blog posts, click here.