Bride Blogger Amanda: To-Do Lists and Schedules

I’m a pretty organized person and don’t generally fly by the seat of my pants too often, especially when it comes to big events. I have the next week off, and while it’s a vacation from work, it certainly won’t be a vacation from wedding planning. I’m going to take the opportunity to make up an extensive schedule of the day’s activities so I have a better idea in my mind of how things will run from hair and make-up to pictures to ceremony to more pictures to reception and on through the evening. This way, I’ll be able to better anticipate all the little details during the day before and day of the wedding – for example, who’s picking up the bridesmaids that don’t have cars from the hotel? What time should the cake be cut? Who’s in charge of flowers? How long do we have for pictures before and after the ceremony? Who do we need to be ready for pictures before and after the ceremony? When can the musicians get together to rehearse?
And that’s not the half of it.

Not all people need or even want the play-by-play of the day, but for me, I know it will give me far less anxiety to have most of it planned out in my head and visually on some sort of schedule so I can see how all things coincide – for instance, while I’m getting my hair done, somebody else is going to be decorating tables, and while the wedding party is together taking pictures after the ceremony, the reception will be starting, etc. I’d like to have a tentative schedule down far enough in advance that I can anticipate potential issues and let everyone who’s helping us out know where they need to be and when.

My fiancé and I also need to talk about which songs we would like played (or those we prefer not to be played) at our reception and get that information prepared for the DJ. We also need to come up with a tentative program for the ceremony; we have our songs and readings picked out already – we just need to put it all together!

With several years of event planning experience under my belt, I’m smart enough to know that not everything is going to go as planned. And that doesn’t mean we won’t have a wedding that turned out better than we could have ever imagined. It just means we need to do everything we can to make sure things go well so we can relax and have fun the day of and let go of the things we can’t control.

And really, even if, for some inexplicable and highly unanticipated reason, the day turns out to be a bit of a disaster, it doesn’t matter because I’m marrying the man of my dreams! It’s not just about the day; it’s about the marriage.

Happy planning!
-Amanda