Check The List For A Perfect Wedding

First Thoughts You are engaged. Best wishes to you and your fiance for all the happiness in the world--now and for always! Now that the exciting and sometimes hectic fun of planning your wedding is before you, Check List is here to help with every aspect of this thrilling and often overwhelming endeavor. If your engagement has not already been announced, please refer to p. 17 for a full guide to various ways to make that announcement, notify newspapers and attend to other preliminaries. If these activities have been taken care of, then on to the main event--your wedding. Wedding plans equal lists, and lists equal efficiency. This checklist has been compiled just for you, giving you the perfect formula for your perfect wedding--correct, complete and in chronological order. Just follow the items of instruction one by one as they are listed, referring to the appropriate chapters in the book for information. When you have taken care of each item, check it off. If an item does not fit your plan, cross it off and forget it. When you have considered and attended to all the items, you will have achieved your perfect wedding with a minimum of confusion. While this checklist is addressed to happy brides-to-be the world over, it is designed equally for the grooms, the mothers and any involved family members and friends. You will see where some sections seem to be directed to the bride and others to the mother. These are for the most part interchangeable; the most important aspect is to get the item completed and checked off when it needs to be! My own role was that of mother of the bride, and I found that while the bride blissfully floated along on her personal cloud, many of the more earthly tasks fell to me. We have all attended many weddings, but we tend to overlook the details. This is as it should be. The machinery behind a carefully planned wedding is never evident, but it is always there. How many mothers of a bride-to-be have awakened in the middle of the night startled by unanswered questions? "How do I cope with Ted's mother and his stepmother?" "What number can I give the caterer when so many guests still haven't responded?" "What is Sue supposed to do with seven salad bowls?" Having found the answers to these and every other question that needed answering, I noted them. I saved my checklist at the request of many friends who sensed that the serenity and beauty of our daughter's wedding could have been achieved only through meticulous planning. From my notes, followed by deep personal research, came the original edition of Check List for a Perfect Wedding. It is my good fortune--and yours, too, I hope--that Doubleday approved the periodic revisions and updating that have taken place over the years. Continual research, questions from friends and strangers, and my question-and-answer columns have kept me in touch with a variety of problems and situations from diverse sources. Now on the way to two million copies, we celebrate with yet another newly revised, updated and expanded edition. Brides and their mothers will know that by the wedding day it is too late to change plans, remedy mistakes or add forgotten details. Rely on this new book with confidence, and know that all will be done, and done well. There are those rare people who thrive under last-minute pressure. They have the physical and emotional makeup that lets them work under that kind of tension, and miraculously, some get by. If you are like that, Bravo! and I hope your luck continues. Most of us learn to expect the unexpected, however, and that we must provide time for it. This leeway time is essential in planning a wedding and reception, when so many separate, isolated details must meld at zero hour--the wedding day. How often do I hear, "Can you believe it? I've called four of the best photographers, and they'veFollett, Barbara Lee is the author of 'Check The List For A Perfect Wedding ', published 2003 under ISBN 9780767912334 and ISBN 0767912330.