Wedding Planning Checklist: The Countdown

• Set a final budget for your wedding and agree to stick to it.
• Take time out to check that your future spouse is happy with all the arrangements.
• Aim to enjoy the preparations and spend some quality time with people you love.
• However well organized you are, if you and your partner want to feel Relaxed enough to enjoy the wedding; you're going to have to depend on your support team. Instead of assuming you'll do everything yourself and picking key people at random, sit down together and make a list. Write down what you are going to need help with: before the wedding, during the wedding and after the wedding.
• Agree on the key roles, your best man, your bridesmaids, your parents and even your ushers and divide up the jobs between them.
• Where you have a choice (with the best man and the bridesmaids, but obviously not the mothers!) decide who would be best suited to carry out the tasks on the list.
• Next talk to your chosen team, one at a time, to see whether they are up for the responsibilities you've got in mind.
• When you have them all lined up, call a team meeting. Inviting them to dinner or lunch is a nice way of doing it but make sure that you agree on a firm plan of action before you get too relaxed. Once you've done this, it's a good idea to agree to meet monthly or every six weeks right through to the wedding.
• During the week leading up to the wedding, make sure that you have at least one evening with your partner, just the two of you, where you can quietly talk through the wedding arrangements and think about the future.
• Make sure that you have both tried on your wedding outfits. If you are the bride, remember to leave out one item for luck.
• Allow some pampering time just before the wedding to make sure you are rested and looking your best.
• And last, but not least, have some breakfast before the wedding breakfast. Champagne on an empty stomach is going to slow you down and this will be the longest (and shortest) day of your life.