the should haves

How naive I was to think I'd be immune from this. The 'should haves' have started and coming at the same time as a couple of other things, it's been a rather stressful week.

In a week when my tiny baby nephew was taken very ill indeed (as in - on a ventilator in intensive care ill - but he's ok now, almost ready to come home) I ended up getting the 'should haves' from people about the provision of savoury snackfoods at the wedding.

W. T. F.

To provide some background: by last weekend, it was clear that my little nephew was improving, about to come off the ventilator. We couldn't visit (200 miles away and visitors not really allowed - especially as I had a cold), but didn't fancy going out much - we were exhausted from work and the stress. So we finally, finally took a proper look at the budget. We also went for our cake tasting. And we worked out a plan for the day.

At this point, we realised that:

1. We were due to go over budget
2. We would be feeding people afternoon tea a mere two hours before dinner and then two hours later, cheese and cake. There would be too much food.
3. The cake would be amazing. We'd hate for it to be not really eaten at 10 o'clock at night when people were already stuffed and drinking and didn't really want it.

The new plan emerged: instead of afternoon tea, we'd serve the wedding cake in the afternoon with a glass of prosecco and that would tide people over until dinner. Trouble is we've already paid for part of the food, including the afternoon tea. Would it be too late to change plans?

Thankfully it wasn't officially too late to change. Though the lady at the wedding venue - who is amazing, btw - started the should haves first. Clearly losing several hundred pounds isn't good for her, but it's essential for us.

She told us we would need to tell our guests IN ADVANCE that they would not be eating until the evening. Our guests are arriving at about 1.30 - when I have arrived at weddings at that time, I certainly have not expected lunch and dinner. And they WOULD be eating - a great hunk of cake!

And then she said that people would expect a sweet option alongside the cheese later that night. Now since when did people expect anything of the sort? I've been to weddings. People aren't all that hungry in the evening most of the time unless they ate lunch or an early dinner at 4 or something. Anyway, we can justify an extra 20 portions of cake if we don't have afternoon tea - there will be leftovers. But also - people will be eating a huge meal with pudding. They might not want any cheese or cake at all.

And my mum, bless her, then did it too, suggesting that people may not want sweet things in the afternoon and we should have a savoury option. Which has resulted in us relenting and agreeing to have some bowls of crisps, nuts and maybe olives too, or some small savoury bits. But I really don't want people stuffed for dinner.

And then on top of everything, the friend doing our ceremony went AWOL. Well, not totally - we knew he was alive as he'd been on Facebook, but he didn't answer our calls or return our texts. We started to panic, thinking this was a repeat of the photographer situation - where he'd realised he couldn't do the ceremony but didn't know how to tell us. I spent yesterday morning with a knot in my stomach trying to think of what else we could do, or who else could do it, and getting really upset as it was so out of character for him.

Then, thank god, he emailed to say that he'd been moving flat at short notice and he'd had a deadline and it had all just come at once. And that he was really sorry, and that of course he'd still love to do the ceremony. PHEW.