With only 6 weeks to go (and counting!) it is full steam ahead with our wedding plans now! As you know, Simon and I both work at Jacaranda and being fully immersed in our busiest season, we’ve had very little time to spend on our own wedding plans. However, now that the wedding date is fast approaching I think it’s time we cracked on and ticked off a few more things on our ever-growing list and take a look at the difference between what we “want” compared to what we actually “need.”
I guess all of us brides and grooms planning for a wedding will probably go through the same process in the months leading up to the big day. We start with a list of items with the most important at the top and try to budget for all these items (bearing in mind none of us have probably ever done this before and are literally plucking estimates out of thin air). So we begin to have something that looks like this:
- Venue
- Church/registrar
- Caterers
- Invitations
- Wedding dress
- Flowers
- Photographer
- Band
- Bridesmaids’ dresses
- Groom’s outfit
- Booze
You then spend the next month or two Googling venues, arranging viewings and spending weekends driving around the countryside to find ‘the one’. You get your perfect setting, book the church or registrar and tackle the catering side of things, getting quotes left, right and centre. Lastly, you spend a day putting pen to paper and addressing your Save The Date cards (which is shockingly time consuming when you haven’t put pen to paper since you were at school).
So that’s the venue, ceremony, caterers and invites all ticked off – all the things that you “need” in order to get married. But actually, there are a few more items on that list, so then you…
Try on a never ending array of dresses (fun, but surprisingly exhausting) before finding the perfect number; drive yourself slightly mad sourcing flowers, a photographer, band and of course, the all important booze shop. Then there’s a shopping trip with the bridesmaids, as well as the groom having a manly moment deciding on the suit before finishing with yet another day addressing all the invitations and getting them in the post.
So you get all of that done within the first 6 months of your wedding planning and you end up feeling very smug about what you have achieved, put your feet up and have a rest on the wedding front for a few months.
What may then happen is that you reach the point that Simon and I got to about 4 weeks ago when all hell breaks loose. It suddenly dawns on you that whilst you have what you think is all you need to pull off a successful wedding celebration, you then realise you still have to think about:
- Rings
- Writing your vows
- Sending out evening invitations
- Writing the groom’s speech
- Chasing up RSVPs to confirm guest numbers
- Finalise the menu, seating plan & floor plan
- Favours
- Stationery – place names, table names, seating plan
- Decide on the first dance song
- Bride’s accessories – shoes, jewellery and what to do about hair and makeup?!
I am pleased to say that with nearly 6 weeks to go, Simon and I have managed to tick off most of the things listed above. However, we are still spending every spare hour finding more & more things to do. We’re now looking at the other list, that one that doesn’t technically come under needs but could easily be titled “Not a necessity, but really, really, REALLY want” list.
I’ll let you know how we’re getting on with that in my next diary entry!