On her wedding day the bride is the center person: the hair, the dress, the bouquet, the wedding cake... everything has to be perfect. However, another person who is almost as important as the bride - at least when it comes to making everything happens behind the scenes - is the best friend. The best friend is the person who works tirelessly to make sure things go as planned, and is also the one who does damage-control when things go wrong.
In Dream Day Wedding, that best friend is you. Your pal Jenny's big day is fast approaching, and you've been put in charge of planning her wedding and making sure it goes off without a hitch. This is easier said than done, because as anyone who's gone through a wedding knows, nothing ever goes quite according to plan, and little issues pop up as sure as bread out of a toaster.
Your main task is to visit various shops, such as the florist, bakery, salon, jeweler and dress maker, and pick up a list of key items that Jenny needs before time runs out and the stores close for the day. Each shop is filled with random objects with the key items cleverly hidden among the clutter, so it will take a keen eye to locate everything on the list.
Dream Day Wedding scores major points for its presentation, which takes the wedding theme and runs with it in a few different unique ways. For example, progress through the game is recorded in the format of a wedding scrapbook full of photos and mementos, with each turn of the page revealing a new challenge. The Hints system comes in the form of a Cupid who reveals the location of an item by shooting an arrow at it. The soundtrack is a pleasant mixture of well-known classical tunes from the likes of Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi.
As well as looking for the items on Jenny's list, there are also special bluebirds to collect that will give Jenny a better anniversary depending on how many of them you can find. After all the items in a given day have been found, you have the opportunity to play one of two bonus games. The first, Perfect Match, is a game of memory where you have to turn over cards and match together the two that have the same wedding-themed picture. For each successfully completed Perfect Match game you'll earn an item for Jenny and her beau to take on their honeymoon.
Just when you think you've figured out all there is to know about Dream Day Wedding, the game throws out a bit of drama to spice things up and see how well you can perform under pressure. Every so often a major wedding crisis will occur - the kind that can cause a bridal meltdown if you don't act quickly. In these special stages, you're called to a specific store where a disaster of catastrophic proportions has taken place. For example, the florist calls to say that the bridal bouquet has been destroyed by a rogue swarm of ladybugs and it's up to find a new set of items so that you can pick out a new bouquet.
These Wedding Crisis scenarios are always hilarious, and feature a completely redrawn version of the shop that depicts the disaster in progress - the florist's shop, for example, will be overrun with mutant-looking yellow and red ladybugs happily munching on what remains of Jenny's lovely bouquet.
The best part is the ability to create the story as you go along - and if you're curious about what would have happened if you'd chosen a different path, you can always replay the game again and find out - you'll be given different lists of items to find so the experience will never be the same twice.
For similar games, try Dream Day Honeymoon, Dream Day Wedding 2 - Married in Manhattan, Dream Day - First Home and Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas
