As a Las Vegas Wedding Planner, I know that the best part of any engagement is knowing that you’ll be spending the rest of your life with the one you love. But a close second is the rock! Suddenly, you find yourself pointing to things with your left hand, making sure that your nails are always freshly manicured, and strategically positioning your hand in any photo taken of you.

I love engagement rings. And in my years of helping grooms “pop the question,” I’ve seen some gorgeous rocks. Here’s my lightning-fast guide to engagement rings – an engagement ring cheat sheet. Ladies, pass this along to your man! (Just make sure that he doesn’t know it’s coming from you!

Carat: The mass of the diamond. One carat weighs 200 milligrams. Simply: the higher the carat, the bigger the diamond. (And the better it shows up in pictures!)

Color: Most often, you’ll see “white” diamonds. There are different colors of diamonds, but those get pretty rare and expensive. In talking about your general “white” diamonds, color isn’t necessarily a good thing. If you want a stone that’s got that showtstopping brilliance and sparkle, look for something as colorless as possible. A diamond’s color is classified by a letter. The closer to the beginning of the alphabet – the more “colorless” the diamond is. D-F are rare and expensive and N-R are going to show up as “yellowish”, when you show off your ring.

About this time of year, everyone starts getting on the bandwagon about what’s going to be the 2013 wedding trends for the coming season. December has more engagements than any other month of the year, so there are more women subscribing to wedding magazines, checking out blogs, and following designers on Twitter to stay ahead of the curve. For the discerning bride, it’s important stay current with the hottest trends, but to also have a beautiful day that you won’t be embarrassed of when you look at the pictures of the style of your wedding in 25 years. It’s a balancing act – staying current vs. looking timeless.

I talked to many of my friends and the premier designers in the US and I have done a lot of research into what’s coming next for the 2013 season, so that you don’t have to jump from blog to blog to twitter to magazine… Here’s what some of my colleagues are saying!

Industry picks for the upcoming season

As a Las Vegas Wedding Planner, brides tell me all the time that they don’t want their wedding to look like everyone else’s. Many budget wedding planners, hotel services, or DIY brides fall into the trap of a cookie-cutter look for their wedding, especially with the increasingly-popular “garden,” “beach,” or “shabby chic” wedding themes. That’s why the discerning bride chooses a real Las Vegas Luxury Wedding Planner – to make sure that your wedding day is a one-of-a-kind affair with your personal touches and your own fingerprints.

If there’s anything that the catwalk has shown us this year, it’s that color is a big part of the trends for 2013. This is true not just for centerpieces, floral bouquets, and invitations, but also for the one thing that you may not have considered be anything but white – your wedding gown!

According to the color experts at Pantone, “This season’s color palette emphasizes [the] need for balance, while at the same time allowing for individuality, self-expression and excitement.” They’ve released their 2013 color trend report, based on what they see designers doing in the wedding space and what is “en vogue” this season.

Here’s your 2013 wedding color preview:

Do it right: Don’t go crazy. Pick two hues of color and stay with them. There’s not a lot worse than having a guest mistake your reception for a carnival. If your decorations and table settings are multi-colored, create a pulled-together look by using single-color floral arrangements and centerpieces.

I love the balance between bright and light, strong and reserved, loud and soft. I’ve created some inspiration boards based on some of my designs and the designs that I’ve seen that show phenomenal use of color, you can see them on my Pinterest!