Hello all! I'm writing today as a bride to be, entering the final countdown until the wedding. It's OK... I started singing the song in my head, too! I thought, having organised so much already, that it would be plain sailing, but I keep WOWing myself with things I've forgotten, that need to be sorted STAT.
After a very productive week of Wedmin - do you see what I did there?! - I wanted to share my plan of action - including some stuff I've already done! After all, it's an excuse to make a list, tick things off, and feel weirdly smug about all the things we're going to achieve.
| Watch your savings disappear into the abyss
Read: pay all suppliers to the deadlines (I had a handy spreadsheet where I wrote the supplier - service - deposit paid - remainder amt - deadline date) but have paid for most things this week so it's done and dusted.
| Have a final meeting with the venue
Discuss the itinerary of the day and any changeover that needs to happen (for example, we're getting married in the same place, so we have 3 set ups: one for the ceremony, one for the wedding breakfast, and one for the evening). It's extra AF but I've drawn out a rough floor plan of the 3 set ups and I've emailed it to all suppliers for ease.
| Hand over a list of suppliers to the venue/ ushers/ each other.
If you have lots of suppliers turning up throughout the day, it's handy for your venue to know who to expect and at what times. (If giving your venue a list, make sure you double check the "set up" times, as often suppliers will need to turn up earlier than your booking start time). If your ushers need a job, they can also get the list to make sure that everything will tick over over the course of the day.
| Logistics of DIY elements
You may have sourced suppliers for every last thing, or have a wedding planner... But I have a feeling you wouldn't be reading this if you did! DIY elements are on the up due to both the huge cost of weddings and couples wanting to put their own personal stamps all over their big day. If, like me, you have a trade that you can embed into the day, of course you're going to do that - but it's worth organising how those items will get to the wedding, after all, you don't want to be worrying about delivering (in my case) large wooden wedding signs, but rather, how many croissants can you smash at breakfast and still fit into your dress/ suit. For me, this looks like dropping off the items the day before, or in the event of the venue getting booked last minute, Jamie doing a mad dash with everything on the morning of the wedding. I'll also be giving him a bag with some sandles in, because there is absolutely 0% chance my heels will last past the first dance.
| Gifts
I appreciate weddings are expensive, I am by no means shitting money and it has taken us a very long time to save up for our dream day, BUT, even I can recognise that as chilled as I like to think I am, in the last few days alone I've set up several group chats and sent the longest emails known to man. I'm stressing... and my bridal party and lovely boyfriend have got the brunt of it. I want to do something little and cute, to say thank you for everything. This is really common! So if you're thinking of gifting your loved ones, it's not too early to get it sorted!
| Getting personal
I'm at the point now where all the main things are sorted, so I'm looking for elements of the wedding I can get people involved in. For me, this has looked like: asking our mums to be our witnesses, asking readers to do readings, and finally, organising the plans on the night before and morning of the wedding. After our engagement party, I wrote a blog about how anxious I was about spending sufficient time with all our wonderful friends and family, this is what prompted us to have a much smaller wedding than originally planned, yet I still find myself panicking about not seeing everyone (particularly friends flying from oversees) so with that in mind, the night before the wedding, I'll head out for food with my closest friends and end up back at the hotel. The morning of the wedding, all of us who are getting hair and make up done can have breakfast together in the room rather than heading down, and the morning after the wedding, family and the bridal party can meet once again for breakfast.
| Dress fittings
Most bridal boutiques do the last fitting 2-3 weeks before the wedding. I'm now booked in for mine, and I'm sure that no one will forget such a big thing... but important all the less to make a note of it.
What you might not think of, however, is your undies! Make sure you take your shoes and underwear to the fitting so that any alterations are as accurate as they can be.
| One final spruce
Are you planning on getting beauty treatments? It's worth checking with your MUA/ Hair stylist how far in advance they would recommend getting them done. Do double check, but mine (the wonderful Josephine Way MUA) has recommended upper lip a week before the wedding, due to open pores and increased chance of spots, whereas brows can be done a couple of days before. I also need to start moisturising... I've booked in for wedding nails and a pedicure, too! With the amazing Dorta. All of these bits will take place before the guests arrive, I'm looking forward to a few hours of zen before the final nerves and adrenaline kick in!
| Cards and gifts
Not that that's what weddings are about at all, but ultimately people will bring you cards, and you don't want to be worrying about collecting everything up at the end of the night. We've asked mum to take care of this! Worth allocating the job to someone that peaks at a couple of gins and is quite sensible... (She'll hate the first part of that sentence, but we totally brought it back with the second)!
And in a nutshell, that's it!
What I should have perhaps mentioned, is that I still need to make all of our wedding stationery and signage! But I'm full of so many ideas at the moment I just can't decide what design to go for. If you want to be the first to see, I tend to upload current projects onto my Instagram stories, so keep an eye out over the next few weeks for some exciting snaps!
Faye
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