On Wedding Planning, Part 3 :: The To-Do Lists

When I left Vermont two weeks before the wedding the skies were blue and clear, the sun was shining intensely through the still frigid air. The grass was still brown. The trees were still bare. There were no tulips or daffodils shooting through the barely snow-free earth.

It wasn't until I blew through Columbus that I started noticing green grass and leafy underbrush. By the time Cincinnati materialized before my eyes not only was there green grass and leafy underbrush, but hints of green on the trees as well! The pear trees and magnolia blossoms were peaking out of tiny leafy surrounds. The air was fresh with new life. There were tulips and daffodils and pansies and it was WARM. I knew that by the time the wedding rolled around Spring would be developing nicely - exactly as I had envisioned it.

I had two weeks to get everything prepared, and I thought that seemed completely reasonable. I planned on getting everything done the first week, so that the week before the wedding I could just relax and do whatever I wanted. (Get a manicure, go out to dinner with friends, practice my hairdo, get a massage, do absolutely nothing...I had very high ambitions.)

I called Mom when I was a block or two away from her house and she met me in the parking lot. She helped me carry all my stuff in, gave me a glass of wine and started snapping pictures to document the bride's arrival on facebook. She had it all planned out. (I could tell she'd been waiting for this moment all day.) We ate a quick dinner and headed off for our first task: a dress fitting with Lana.

While I was driving home I had called Lana to confirm our appointment for that night. She said that she had to tell me something about the dress. This wasn't going to be an almost final fitting as we had expected, but she had a new practice dress for me to try on. She hadn't been comfortable with the plan we came up with in New York. She kept trying and trying but it just didn't look right, so she'd been researching 30s dresses and styles, and she didn't think our plan really went with the look we were going for at all, so she had a new practice dress to make sure I liked the new changes. (She had shown it to Anne, who loved it and said of course I was going to like it, but she just needed to make sure.) Based on the way she described it, I was sure it was going to be even prettier than I had imagined before, and I was so excited to see it (and I felt terrible for causing such angst and stress).
She said she was just about to cut my veil before I called. "Oh! I had been thinking about that, and I'm not sure if I want it finger-tip-length anymore," I said, "you never see short veils in the 30s, they were always long, so I wasn't sure if that would go with the 30s thing either." She laughed. "Joanna, you don't know how close I was to cutting that veil when you called." She had the scissors in her hands and put them down to get a different pair when the phone rang. We decided that Grandma was looking out for me. (Thank you Grandma!)

When Mom and I got to Lana's she had the dress pinned together on a mannequin so we could see exactly how it would look. It was so beautiful! Mom and I oohed and aahed over it, and then I tried on a practice dress. We put the veil on to decide whether to cut it or not. We had originally been planning to cut the veil finger-tip-length because the back of the dress was so pretty and we didn't want to cover it up. But since the veil netting was so thin, we didn't think it would make that much of a difference and decided to wait and see. We could always cut it later, but we couldn't un-cut it.

When we got home Mom's organizational skills kicked in, and we started a master to-do list. The plan was to write down everything we needed to accomplish, and then divvy it up every day into smaller to do lists. We wrote down EVERYTHING. We needed to make the chuppah. In order to do that I needed to pickup the supplies we had left at Seth's Dad's house, we needed to buy flower pots, we needed to fill those flower pots with concrete, we needed to figure out how to attach the lace to the poles, we needed to buy flowers to cover the concrete in the flower pots, we needed to put it all together to make sure it worked, and we needed to figure out how to get it to the Highland Country Club. We put every step on the to do list.

We also needed to get the seating chart printed up. I had to talk to Paul about where to have it printed, I had to finish the vintage-train-station-departure-board image so that it could be printed, then we had to take it to be printed. Then we had to pick it up.
All on the to do list.

Half way between Vermont and Kentucky I had discovered that I forgot the amazing vintage travel posters that we had printed to put at each table. I decided it didn't need to be professionally done, they were only 8x10 after all, and Paul could help me print and cut them. (Since he's a professional.) I also had to figure out how to put them on the table and get some kind of frame or stand to put them in.
All on the to do list.

My dress for the rehearsal dinner didn't fit quite right, and Mom was going to fix it for me. To do list.
I needed to get shoes for the wedding. To do list.
We had scheduled our next dress fitting with Lana. To do list.
Even the fun things I planned to do AFTER the to do lists were finished went on the to do lists. We may have gone a little overboard.

Some other items from our master list:
"Rings - going to who when - J"
"Find easels at work - J"
"Take Seth's clothes to Mitchell's - J" (for dry cleaning)
"Brooks Brothers - J"  (Seth needed a new shirt, Paul's suit needed to be picked up, the ring bearer needed pants.)
"Buy wrapping paper and gift bags - J"
"Wrap presents - J"
"Print Clear Labels - J"
"Make place cards - J & C"
"Buy brown green & blue jute - C" (these were going to be attached to the luggage-tag style place cards, letting the servers know whether someone should receive prime rib (brown), vegetarian (green), or a kids meal (blue).)
"Fish or Chicken - FISH!" (what to have at the rehearsal dinner?)
"Look at ceremony"
"Email Bill about Ceremony - J"
"Tell M & D to sit in front - J" (Melissa and Dustin, parent's of the ring bearer and flower girl)
"Greeter at HCC - assign. Tommy? Ben & Felicity? - J"
"Get Sarah a gift. - J" (Sarah was the flower girl)
"One Gold Necklace - C"
"wedding bracelet - J"
"buy shoes - C"
"Jo's shoes"
"Elizabeth's poem- J" (I believe this meant that I needed to find a nice book for Elizabeth to hold while she was reading, so that she didn't just have a piece of paper in her hand.)
"Intentions?"
"Talk to Paul about sound"
"Programs - elephant - person assigned"
"print programs"
"change playlist" (I had noticed some glaring errors on my trip home.)
"umbrellas?"

Every morning Mom and I sat in bed drinking coffee and making a new to do list for the day. (Actually, to be more realistic, I lay in bed falling asleep with a mug of coffee balanced on my chest while Mom sat in bed drinking coffee and making to do lists - and asking me if I was falling asleep and spilling my coffee.) Every night we sat in bed with tea or popcorn and checked off the things that we had accomplished. The things we hadn't accomplished rolled over onto the next day's list. Mom's list was always longer than mine and was always finished by the end of the day, while all my tasks seemed to roll over for an eternity. My to do list was growing instead of shrinking.

Items from Monday's list (April 4):
Carol
get shoes
buy flower pots
get stain, stain chuppah caps
laminate music
Paul - talk to kinkos
buy hair products
umbrellas?
make place cards
find mirrors (mom wanted to have mirrors set up for everyone to use while they were getting ready on the day of the wedding)
find jewelry
haircuts for Jo and Paul
Joanna
buy wrapping paper and gift bags
make reception schedule
buy Sarah's gift
ask Paul about ideas (?)
start to sketch program
brooks brothers
wrap presents

The week went by agonizingly slow, and surprisingly fast at the same time. Before I knew it Saturday had arrived, the point at which I thought I'd have everything accomplished, and the to do list wasn't even close to being finished. (Saturday's list includes "Brooks Brothers," "Make Chuppah and fix it," and "gift bags." Two of these things are obviously rolled over all the way from Monday...) It seemed like Mom and I went shopping every single day. (Mom also still had things on her to do list. She still needed shoes and a necklace. So there.) Even though I clearly remember reaching the half way point and the to do list not being finished, I still managed to have a relaxing second week. I think instead of rolling over items on my list, Mom rolled them over onto her list and took care of everything. (Thanks Mom!)

We got the chuppah up on Sunday, but something wasn't quite right about the way the fabric was hanging. We needed much more weight in the bases and had to add more and more concrete. Mom did that the next morning while I was at work.
Items on Monday's to do list (April 11)
Carol
Fix chuppah pots
pick up poster
think about blue dress
practice hair
grocery
fix mirrors
email musicians
email Julie
necklace
Joanna
wrap presents
sketch program
finish intentions
pick up sushi
write reception schedule for Jake
bracelet
change playlist
glass for Seth to break
bag for glass for Seth to break
place card redos

(notice any repeats?)

Kelly and Julie came over in order to accomplish "practice hair" on Mom's list and I picked up sushi on the way home for dinner. For some reason, even though we had great fun, the hair-doing was a total flop and no one's hair would hold curl. Mom got stressed. What if it didn't hold on Saturday either?! Why wasn't it curling! It was a crazy thing to behold, Mom had a curling iron in Kelly's hair, and when it came out the hair fell back down again as though nothing had happened. Totally mind boggling! Julie and Kelly graciously decided that Mom should not have to stress about their hair on the day of her daughter's wedding and ended up having it done elsewhere. Now all she had to worry about was my hair, which also required curls.

On Tuesday I was scheduled to go out for a celebratory dinner with Julie and Kelly. I must have been anxious to get everything off of my plate and relax at diner, because on the way home I stopped and bought flowers for the chuppah pots (something we had put off because it rained all weekend and I was lazy). Then I went to the Village (local thrift store) and bought a glass for Seth to stomp on. I had forgotten whether or not they accepted credit cards and it didn't occur to me that they might not til I got there. I counted up all the change in my car and it amounted to about $2.00. I went in, hopeful that I could find something for $2.00 that Seth could break. I perused their dinnerware section and found lots of possibilities. I was trying to figure out which glass had the thinnest walls and would be the easiest to break. I finally decided on one, and it was only 60c! It felt like a great accomplishment after buying buying buying all week long. When I got home I put the flowers out back, and put the chuppah back together. It was perfect! I placed the glass on the bag that mom had made for it on the kitchen table. I left notes all over the house showing mom the things I had accomplished that day. I left the chuppah standing perfectly in the living room, with a note taped to one of the poles mentioning that it was perfect. I left a note taped to the window to LOOK! at the flowers on the table outside. I wrapped the presents. I sketched out a tiny tiny program (picture 1/4 of a normally sized piece of paper folded in half with tiny writing on it) and left it on the table by the glass.

(Later I discovered that the glass said it was made in West Germany, and I wondered for a second whether it would be terrible to destroy such a piece of history.)

It was SO much fun relaxing for an evening with Kelly and Julie over dinner! It was just the right way to start unwinding from the dreaded to do lists. After dinner we decided that even though it was a partying kind of evening, we were all perfectly content to go back to Mom's house and talk (in peace and quiet, which you don't get in public places). We sat under the recently perfected chuppah and polished off a bottle of wine that we had started the day before. We called Anne, our missing comrade, because we needed clarification on a detail of our family oriented discussion and we usually assume Anne knows all the family details that we don't. We ensured that none of us would sleep that night by telling each other about scary things we had heard about or experienced. It was great fun.

Wednesday, back to reality. Wednesday's to do list is a little more bearable since I got so much done on Tuesday.
Carol
Flowers front. (Mom wanted to put nice flowers in pots out front in so that her house looked great on Saturday.)
plant flowers (Now that the chuppah is weighted properly we can plant the flowers in its pots.)
finish blue dress
mirror out of basement
music in binder
fix finger cymbals
clean house
hard head hairspray
mow grass
pickup dress from cleaners
Joanna
Print posters
print programs
Ask Ben & Felicity
Finish intentions
place card labels

We got everything done Wednesday and went over to Lana's for my final dress fitting. Anne was there and had baked a practice cake. After we declared the dress perfect, we had perfect cake to top it all off! Anne gave me the rest of it to take home. In a totally uncharacteristic moment I decided it wasn't a good idea to consume an entire cake 2 days before my wedding, so on Thursday I brought it into work. Dad and I had cake for lunch, and then I shared the rest with co-workers (who said it was the best carrot cake ever, Anne!) Thursday evening Anne, Kelly, Julie, Mom and I all went out and got manicures. Seth was flying in that evening, and I was going to pick him up from the airport! I was excited to finally see him again!

When we got out of the nail salon I had a message from Seth that he was stuck in Detroit and wasn't going to be in until Friday morning. Thursday night I did not sleep. Seth called me around 6 to say that his flight was on time and he should arrive around 8:30. I picked him up and we went over to Lana's. Lana had graciously agreed to alter Seth's grandfather's suit coat for him, as it was slightly to wide for him. It is his favorite, and he wanted to wear it to the rehearsal dinner. She had it all cut out apart and just needed him to try it on and sew it back up. Then I brought Seth to his Dad's house where Hannah and Raffi were already waiting for us.

Mom and I had all the place cards wrapped together in tables, stacked in the order that they should be placed out so that people were sitting next to the proper people. My last task from the to do list was to check these. Hannah helped me and we got it done in no time. The middle of the day passed very calmly. It was delightful. Then we all realized we had errands to run, and set about running them. I wanted to get champagne for Saturday, needed to pick up my dress and Seth's jacket from Lana, and Hannah needed a few things too. Seth and Raffi either had something to do or concocted something to do. We all set off, Hannah and I together and Raffi and Seth together. The afternoon was a whirlwind of rain, errands, and Cincinnati traffic. When I finally got back to Mom's to get ready for the rehearsal dinner she was waiting, exasperated that she wouldn't have enough time to do my hair.

At this point my attitude was "if it's not done, it ain't gettin' done." I knew that anything I had forgotten to do probably wouldn't matter even remotely in the scheme of things, so Mom and I set about getting ready for the partying to start!