the to do list

Well, here's a rum thing. No matter how much time you have to organise a wedding, you simply cannot do some things further than a few weeks away. For some things, you simply need to know who is coming, when they are coming, and where they will stay. And of course, at this point, a deadline focuses the mind and you remember all the things you said you would do over the past few months - but forgot to.

And that is how, having been engaged for 15 months and with a wedding in 11 weeks (Holy. Crap.) I find that we have a to-do list that we've had to put onto Google Docs, break down into weekly targets and start ticking the hell off.

Every single day I remember something else we need to do. I then make a note on my phone and transfer it into the magic computing cloud as often as I can. Recent additions include:

• Cushions for small children??? Will they reach the table?
• Buy Port? Somerset Pomona? Does venue have the little glasses?
• Blister plaster for slightly deformed toe (yeah, just the one toe is weird)
• take IRON
• Sparklers?????
• Can J's brother connect amp outdoors using car batteries? Test his theory!
  
• Find out the name of M's baby (J's friend) - boy or girl? Age in months? (* my mum is frantically making gift bags for all the children - she texts me daily on the progress and to request info like this. She needs this project after making 90+ metres of fully hemmed bunting, almost completing a handmade shawl for me and brewing 48 jars of jam/chutney. I should say, I merely asked if she could help with some bunting and some help with chutney. She has really run with it...)
• List of songs for DJ to avoid in disco
• shoes for dress number one - BUY
  

This is just SOME additions. There is a whole list which is untouched, into which these items must slot, which I am not even going into on here. Things like finding out the location of every single person who is staying at a hotel in order that we can inform the minibus company. And working out how we will transport family to the register office in the morning. Information sheets. Order of services (servii?). Table plans. Place cards. Buy confetti (first confirming the precise confetti requirements of the venue which are strict as it's an organic farm - very understandable, you can't toss the usual stuff where the sheep might eat it). The usual.

It's OK. I'm still calm. But there is a sense of having been lulled into a slight sense of security with the long engagement which means that actually having to do shit, and with a non-negotiable and now shockingly short time frame, comes as something of a surprise.