The Complete Pond Builder by Helen Nash is a really good book as are the others she has written.

Here is a link that might be useful: Helen Nash pond books

Gardenwheels.

There a few ponders here who have more formal gardens. Hopefully they will share. One in particular I love - it has an overflowing urn in the middle.

Please take pictures of the progress and post them. We LOVE pictures of the ponds.

Good luck
Anne

Make it BIGGER than you think you want it! I think all of us had wished that we started bigger than we did.

Determining priorities will be a factor, a pond can have very specific configuration and materials for different uses, you might consider koi, waterlilies, lotus, wildlife each needing different approaches.

A trip to your local library might yield an armfull of books which cover the options.

A website like flickr.com has a useful keyword index, searching the terms pond, water garden, waterlily, lotus, koi would bring up an interesting array of photo's of what a pond can do