Aaaannyyway. Back to the point of this post, ably introduced with the immortal words of the Spice Girls - planning too early. Is there such a thing?
One of the problems of having an engagement that is more than twice the length of a Blue Whale's gestation period* is that you are faced with two options. 1) You spend the first chunk of that time just 'enjoying being engaged' until you reach the Average Engagement Threshold (in the UK, this is about 18 months); or 2) you decide that actually you are now about to single-handedly plan the biggest event you will probably ever plan in your life, and maybe you should make the most of your very large window so that you don't get stressed closer to the time.
Well, if you are like me and have been with your boyfriend for 7 years and lived together for 4 years, being engaged is very similar to not being engaged. In fact, I would personally go as far as to say that the two states of being are nigh-on identical. So I decided to follow the latter course of action, and Maximise My Time. Whilst academically I know that a wedding can be planned to everyone's satisfaction in a fairly short length of time, Don't Tell The Bride has frequently shown that such a course of action can reduce even grown men to tears.
And I am, despite all evidence to the contrary, a planner. I like knowing things are sorted, and having a buffer of time to fix things should anything go wrong, as well as plenty of time to mull over things at my leisure without feeling pressured by time constraints. So I began to gather my tools.
I also bought one of those silly planning books, you know the kind, like a giant filofax with flowers on. It wasn't super helpful in terms of planning, because it was a) too big to carry around with me, and b) silly to believe that I'd taken time out from researching on the internet to then write things down by hand in my book. Also the timeline was again based on having a maximum 18-month engagement. It did however have lots of handy pockets, which I have been stuffing all my receipts in, and it has some squared pages for doing table plans, which may well be useful later.
But the comment I keep hearing from family, and even Jon, is that they're worried we won't have enough to do next year. That by doing things early we miss out on the fun.
I'm not quite sure why what I'm doing right now only qualifies as 'fun' if it is done with fewer than 12 months to the wedding and not now, but I've never planned a wedding before, what do I know? But, we are now under 14 months from the wedding, and as we approach the 12 month mark I'm starting to get more anxious about just Getting Stuff Done. Things that aren't done are things that are still left to panic about, things that could potentially be more difficult to sort out than expected.
To prove to certain interested parties - mainly my Mother - that I wasn't rushing things, and was instead being Organised, as there were things that couldn't actually be done until closer to the wedding, I made a month-by-month plan of things to do in the next year. And it was all going okay until we hit August, and then things started getting busy. Really busy. So I started shunting things around a bit and basically from next April we're going to need to get a lot of things done month-by-month. We have a bit of a break in June, but otherwise it's busy. But apparently having lots of busy things to do made people feel better that I wasn't depriving Future!Me of some exciting planning funtimes, which is totally worth giving Present!Me anxiety flashes because there are things that need doing but I'm powerless to do them. It's like constantly knowing there was something REALLY IMPORTANT that you had to do, but you know you've forgotten to do it and can't work out what it was. That's what it's like.
But now, what I'm seeing is a GIANT to-do list, with things on it that I can get done now, like right now, with no major issues, and that would be things off my list. And I'm chomping at the bit to do them, because honestly I learnt my lesson after doing my first all-nighter at University. Leaving things to the last minute DOES suck, it IS much better to get things done early if you can.
And also once I have ticked things off, I can feel suitably smug and pleased with myself, the warm glow of having accomplished something productive, and then focus on my other interests until it fades and the whole vicious cycle starts again.
*Alternatives for measuring the length of my engagment:
- 1.89 Rhinos or Camels
- 89.5 domestic Cats (based on a 4-kitten litter size)
- 1.66 Sperm Whales
- 1.83 Giraffes
- 7.2 Tigers.
- 1 and 3/4 Orcas
- 1 Elephant that's about a month overdue.
- 2/3 of a Black Alpine Salamander, depending how far up the hill it lives
- 59% of a Frilled Shark (but a whole spiny dogfish shark!)
I don't know why I like to measure things by animal gestation periods, but I find it very fascinating.
How long an engagement did you have? Were you a planner or did you wait it out? Tips and tricks?
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