By the time this post is live, we will be 1 week away from the big day. As I’m sure you can imagine, the last few weeks have been just a little bit hectic and I still do have rather a lot left to do – I can hear my mother’s voice in my head saying “typical Lauren” right now. Whilst trying to think of what to write in my last pre-wedding post I struggled to come up with something specific and useful to write about that could shed some light on what it is like to be a bride at the final stages of prep, but nothing was jumping out at me as interesting.
I felt that writing a post about the last minute tasks that I have to complete may actually add to my sleepless nights, but could potentially help focus me and force me to get those things done… so here is a small insight into my mind when I am lying awake at night thinking of all the things I need to do (please note that this was written over 2 weeks before the wedding day so I still have a little bit of time):
- Sew up the chuppah canopy
- Write the final signs and table names
- Hammer the signs onto posts
- Finish table plan
- Sort out the children’s activities and packs
- Make the table runners
- Buy last few thank you gifts
- Get outfit steamed
- Final beauty prep – final hair appointment, nails etc.
- Write the place cards
- Final meeting with wedding venue staff
- Arrange transport for all signs, wine and props that we are providing
- Write up our Ketubah (nicely!)
- Write vows
- Get married legally
- Delegate some of the above!
That looks and sounds like a scary list – very luckily I am not working the next few weeks so can achieve everything on this list (I hope!). But there is one significant thing that I have left off and should be at the top of everyone’s final prep list and that I really shouldn’t delegate:
- Remember the reasons why I am marrying John.
This may seem obvious, but it is clear to me at this stage, that it can be easy to forget why you are getting married and get caught up in the more stressful elements and find yourself arguing with everyone around you… I guess it doesn’t help when you have a sudden leak from your boiler and the engineers don’t turn up when they promised (they picked the wrong person at the wrong time to mess with!)
I think I had anticipated this (not the leak, but that I would get stressed!) and that John, being the closest person would feel the brunt of it. So about a year ago I started hatching a silly plan to give John a card each 30th day of the month to mark one month closer to the wedding. I spent a lot of time choosing the perfect cards to help me tell John just the way I feel about him. They ranged from the silly to the sentimental and then filled the cards with goofy or loving messages, sometimes hand drawn pictures or at times I added in a quote that I had found and thought represented us well.
At first John was always surprised at receiving his cards, then he started to twig at what I was doing – I did take it a step further (John would probably say a step too far) and in the final month countdown I have been handing over cards every day. This is probably because I found so many cards in the Not On The High Street sale that I liked and then had too many for the months left!
I have really enjoyed writing and giving John the cards and even at the end of a terribly stressful day when we are both frustrated with each other for one reason or another, we have a moment of breaking the tension when we laugh at how silly I am at giving over another card and John can see exactly how I feel about him. The wedding day is a celebration of our love for each other and those around us and I think it is important that this flows through the wedding planning. As I said it can be a stressful time, but together you should be able to calm and dispel the stress by looking after each other and helping the other focus on why you are actually having a wedding.
Over the summer I went to a wedding of a close friend without John (who was at his stag party instead). It was probably the only night we had been apart in over a year and I had poor phone signal and couldn’t see the pictures and messages that were being sent to me by John and his brothers. Despite having the best time at such a lovely wedding with my closest friends, I was missing John a little bit. It got to the point of the night when I was writing a message to the new Mr & Mrs in their guest book and it asked for us to give some advice. I was a little stumped and didn’t know what advice I was qualified to give them. So I thought about what John and I do well and said something along the lines of – make each other laugh, even after you have made each other cry. This is something that I make a concerted effort with and am quite persistent with, even if I am the one crying (FYI John doesn’t cry, he gets stubborn!).
So my final words before my own wedding are to make sure you make each other laugh when you have made each other cry and keep the love flowing through the stressful ‘wedmin’ moments.
Lauren will be marrying John in just six days time(!) on 30th October 2016 at Stoke Place , Buckinghamshire.
Photography by Krishanthi will be photographing their wedding.
You can follow Lauren on Instagram and Twitter .
You can read all Lauren’s wedding planning posts so far here .
Images from top: Not On The High Street :: Received from Lauren :: She Wears Burgundy :: Owl Graphic by Lauren :: Received from Lauren
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