Last Minute Details
. . . forget-me-nots
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So You Think You'll Remember It ALL . . .

The last few days before your wedding will be the most stressful. You have worked for so long to make everything just perfect and now you're down to the wire. Hopefully you have been using a wedding planner and can refer to your notes. Incidentally, your wedding planner can be as simple as a loose leaf binder or spiral notebook or as sophisticated as you would like. This is the time to leave as little as possible to memory and to refer those items you have been writing down, since you began planning your wedding. In addition to your wedding planner, these few days are when a wedding consultant or coordinator really earns his or her money. These professionals make it their business to remember the last-minute items which tie the whole wedding package together, neatly. If you have hired an event planner, make use of their expertise! If a wedding consultant is not in your budget, then these few memory joggers may prove helpful.

1. Create your own personal last minute timetable. Give a copy to a member of your wedding party or another close friend or relative. Ask that person to keep the bridal party, et al, on schedule, with friendly reminders and time checks.

2. Make logistic arrangements for your apartment or house. Arrange for someone to water plants, check on the cat and stock your refrigerator with necessities, so you don't come home and immediately have to go out food shopping. Give your travel itinerary to a close friend or relative, along with emergency contact phone numbers and, in turn, remember to take such numbers with you on your honeymoon. If you're traveling abroad, remember your passport, immunization records. If you wear glasses, a copy of your prescription may well save the day, as might scripts of important medications.

3. Give the caterer your final head count, adults and children counted separately. Give the caterer your finalized table arrangements and the table cards you or a calligrapher has written.

4. Write the checks for final payments to the caterer and whatever vendors are still owed monies which you have agreed to pay on or before your wedding day. Make certain that you know whether you will be paying with a personal check, a certified check, cash or a money order. Different contracts read differently depending on the particular professional's needs. Pay whatever checks you can before your actual wedding day and for those checks that will need to be distributed on your wedding day proper, find a close friend or relative and ask him or her to cover for you.

5. Assemble a "Bride's Emergency Kit." Have it brought to wherever the bride and her attendants will be dressing, so it will be easily and readily accessible to whoever might need it (moms, bride, or maids).

6. Do a clothing check before your wedding day. Make sure that you have figured out and noted all the logistics. Just to mention a few . . .
A. How or with what your veil will stay in place?
B. Do the bride's mother, maid/matron of honor, or another friend know how to bustle your gown. This is a task that looks simple, but quite often is not. A gown that drags around after the bride is cumbersome and unattractive. Review the procedure with whomever will be helping you.

7. Check to see that you have a list of Important Phone Numbers which include all your wedding professionals (with alternate numbers, if possible), including the number at your catering hall and limousine service. It's a bonus to have at least one member of your bridal party carrying a cell phone for "just in cases."

8. Determine, in advance, where you, your attendants and the moms will be getting ready. Find out from the banquet manager if there is a "bridal room" or other room, away from guests, to leave your makeup, travel clothes, luggage and any other items which need to be at hand and secured. Restrooms are not a preferable choice because they lack privacy and usually are tight. Talk to the caterer about security for the room while the party is going on.

9. You probably think you won't be to eat a bite, but even brides get hungry after, as most due, skipping early-in-the-day meals. More than one bride has fainted from lack of food or dehydration. Talk to your caterer in advance of the wedding date and ask him or her to arrange for a plate of light fare to be brought to the "bridal room." Something to drink, preferably non-alcoholic and caffeine free is even more important than food. At the same time, you might want to come to an agreement about leftover food and ask your caterer if he or she can prepare some traveling food for you to take with you as you leave for your honeymoon.

10. Decide what you're going to do with your table centerpieces. You have several choices. You may "do nothing" and most of the centerpieces will be taken by guests. You can instruct the Master of Ceremonies to make an announcement about who "should" take the centerpieces. You can arrange for your floral designer to remove the centerpieces when the party of almost done and have the flowers taken apart and wrapped in small bouquet which are given to guests as they leave the reception. Should you choose none of the above, arrange for a friend or relative to bring the flowers to a local nursing home, hospital, or other such facility.

11. Make arrangements for someone to deposit the checks and cash you receive as gifts. Make certain you have an open bank account and check to see how checks need to be endorsed in order to deposited with no difficulties. A rubber stamp with your account number will really speed up the process of endorsement.

12. The likelihood is that you will be leaving before all your guests have departed. Make arrangement to have someone around until the last guest leaves, so no one gets stranded. That "last person" might also be the one who returns the tuxedo(s) to the rental shop, or to your home, along with the bridal gown, bouquet and any other valuables.

With your big day finally just around the corner, all the careful planning and organizing that you have done will finally show itself to have been worth your efforts. Now you can relax and have a wonderful wedding day!
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