Well, let's be fair. Every single bride-to-be (yes! That's me! Look Ma, no hands!) must have the odd wobble as it comes up to The Big Day. Now, this does not mean I have wobbles about the marriage itself, not in the slightest. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Wonderful Man and I will be blissfully, stupidly, unimaginably, ridiculously, wonderfully, incredibly and amazingly happy for the rest of both of our lives.
But.
And there is a but.
Weddings, while enormous fun to organise, are complicated blighters.
Being sans Mum, I have enlisted the help of trusted friends, Mum-substitutes (yes, you know who you are) and Everyone Else On The Planet Who Has Ever Got Married and ploughed the depths of their brains for any hints, tips and advice. And am still doing so.
I think we're actually doing rather well. For I have a secret weapon. I have The Spreadsheet. Wonderful Man shudders every time I drag this behemoth out but it is my lifeline - it's as long as I am tall (nearly) and packed with all sorts of different columns, rows, reminders and other bits.....and all nicely colour coded. Ish. It is certainly helping me enormously. And is now helping my wedding planner enormously.
Wedding Planner, I hear you say? Wedding PLANNER???
Okay, okay, I confess. I have a Wedding Planner. And she is so utterly wonderful that I might actually end up marrying her. She whisked my spreadsheet away from me and has been sending concise, detailed little e mails on all subjects from the lighting (who knew?), whether I want avalanche roses or Akito roses (avalanche, since you ask. Bigger, and blousier) and who will be drinking the NON-alcoholic wine at the wedding. She is supremely organised, and very good at calming fluttering brides. And she is Wonderful Man's present to me after I had a, shall we say, minor meltdown and sobbed that I was convinced that I would naff up the whole day and I couldn't get married with my pants showing.
Pants showing?
'fraid so. For I have started having Wedding Dreams. Not the lovely super dreams where you're drifting down the aisle in a sea of Amanda Wakeley, holding a sweetly scented bouquet, make up perfect and everything in place, no.
My first dream actually started beautifully. I drifted happily down the stairs of the venue, ready to take Pa's arm and head up the aisle, all dressed up and with my girls in their emerald green silk behind me. All was perfect. Until Pa said "umm, where are the guests?" and I remembered I had forgotten to send the invitations. Cue us borrowing every mobile phone in the place and ringing friends to scream at them to get to Buckinghamshire FAST, we were getting married in fifteen minutes with the registrar tapping her watch and saying "I've got another wedding you know, and that couple are ORGANISED."
Needless to say I woke up in a muck sweat after that one. But it gets worse.
I dreamed that Hedsor House, our venue, had burned down and was being rebuilt so when I walked into the glorious main hall, supposedly bedecked with flowers and with a string quartet playing, it was a building site with a damp concrete floor, rain pouring in the skylight (which had lost its glass) and instead of chairs the guests were all perching on those oil barrels filled with concrete that they stick signs in. GAAAAAAH!
I saved the best for last though.
In I drift, serene on my father's arm, floating up the aisle. But on the end of each row of chairs, instead of crisp, white flowers, there are bouquets of barbed wire. And those bouquets catch on my dress, pulling me back and snagging me so I'm having to struggle up the aisle, until finally and inevitably they pull the back of my dress off and I have to stand at the front and get married with a huge hole in the back of my dress and my pants showing.
And they don't go with the colour scheme.
I am sure that there will be plenty more to come (and I promise to report on them!) but for now a selection of my greatest fears to entertain my dear readers.
But one thing's for sure. I'm getting up that aisle and marrying my Wonderful Man. And it will be WONDERFUL. Pants or no pants.
Pip pip.
