Your wedding checklist.

The four ordering mistakes

Almost every overwhelmed wedding plan fails on sequence, not on time. These four come up most often.

1. Hunting for a venue before the guest count exists

The venue decides how many people fit. Book first and write the list afterwards, and you either uninvite people or go venue hunting again. Both are unpleasant. Write the rough guest list first, then look.

2. Planning decoration before the venue is fixed

A barn, a registry office room and a castle garden take completely different decor. Pinterest boards before the booking are inspiration, not planning. Anything you buy beforehand has roughly a fifty percent chance of not fitting.

3. Sending invitations before the running order roughly exists

The invitation carries a time and a place. Send it before ceremony, drinks reception and dinner are timed against each other, and you will be correcting it by message later. That reads as chaotic and generates questions.

4. Enquiring everywhere at once

Approaching five photographers, four caterers and three bands in parallel feels efficient and produces an inbox nobody can sort. Ask three per trade, decide, move on.

What does not belong on the checklist

Most wedding checklists online run to 200 items and create more pressure than order. A good list only contains what triggers a decision or a deadline. You can cut:

• Anything that happens on the day itself. That belongs in a running order, not the planning list. Otherwise "exchange rings" sits between "pay catering deposit".
• Tasks without a deadline. "Think about the honeymoon" migrates from week to week and only produces guilt. Either give it a date or delete it.
• Tasks that belong to someone else. Whatever your witnesses take on belongs on their list. You only need to know somebody is doing it.

If you have less than six months

Marrying at short notice is perfectly doable, but it needs a different order. The rule: first everything that can be fully booked, then everything you can do any time.

What realistically falls away at short notice: Saturday dates at popular venues, made-to-measure dresses, in-demand photographers in high season. Being flexible on the weekday makes up for most of it.

The final week

The last seven days are not about planning any more, they are about handover. These are the points most often forgotten:

• Give the final headcount to catering and venue, the deadline is usually 7 to 10 days out
• Hand a phone list of every supplier to someone who is not you
• Put rings, ID documents and paperwork in one place, and tell somebody where
• Prepare final payments and tips in labelled envelopes
• Send the running order to witnesses, photographer, DJ and venue
• Pack an emergency bag: needle and thread, plasters, painkiller, lint roller, power bank
• Keep the day after free. Even if it feels unnecessary right now.

And then: start nothing new. Whatever is still undecided in the final week, you either decide in five minutes or not at all.

Who does what?

A checklist only helps when every task has a name against it. Otherwise everything ends up with whoever looks first. The split below works well, but treat it as a suggestion.

The last point matters most. When somebody turns up on the wedding day with a question, that question should not land with you. Name a person, give them the phone list and the running order, and tell every supplier beforehand.

Print the checklist or keep it digital?

Both have their place, and most couples end up using both.

On paper works well if you keep the list somewhere fixed, look at it together and enjoy ticking things off. The downside: it is only as current as the last printout, and if the date moves, every deadline on it is wrong.

Digital works well if the two of you work from different devices and want deadlines to recalculate themselves. The downside: it is easier to forget to look.

The list above does both. It runs in your browser, works out due dates from your wedding date, and "Save as PDF" prints a paper version with your date in the header at any time. Your ticks stay stored in this browser, with no account needed.