For OMs - How much time do we need beforehand?

I thought you were asking me how much time you needed to leave to wee beforehand!

Get as much done as you can the week before so you can deal with the last minute things in the days before.

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Haha, an unfortunate typo!

What type of last minute things did you have to do?

I think it is different for everyone depending on where it is/what you are doing etc. I personally am hyper organised, we got married on the Sunday, and I just took off the Thursday and Friday beforehand from work. All we had left to do at that point was make up the favours, pick up the suits and take everything to the venue. Just leave yourself plenty of time so nothing is rushed, the last thing you want is to be running around right up to the day.

I think that should be enough time, but as the others said - it does depend on what you have to do!

We also got hitched quite a way from where we live and I had the week before the wedding off as I was making the cake and putting together all the wedding favours (jam and three different types of chocolate all made in advance) and bits for the photo table, favour table etc... so needed more time at home than based near the venue. We only set off on the Thursday before the wedding on the Saturday.

One crucial piece of advice is to start making lists, piles and labelling boxes as soon as possible and as soon as you think of something you will need either put it in a pile or box or at least on a list!

We got married back at my parents home which was 220 miles from where we'd just moved to.

We were both lucky enough to be able to go down to my parents 7days before the wedding, i'd say we could have done it in 2/3 id we'd have been up for flat out days.

This is the checklist we used to make sure everything was done - no matter how big or small:

Tuesday's To do checklist

Suits to be picked up between 2:30 and 4:00pm.

Wednesday's To do checklist

OH's Banns certificate to be taken to the rehearsal

Music to be taken to church to test

Order of services to be taken down to church
Mothers bags to be taken to florists for flower to be added
Wrong orders taken back to suit shop

Final confirmation calls/meeting with:

* Car company - Mine and Jack's & Evening

* Hairdresser

* First night hotel bookings to be confirmed / terms to be checked

* Suit hire company

* Florist

* Photographer

* Videographer

* Cake maker

* Reception venue

Day before's to do list

Give florist OHs room number for hotel

OH shoes/cufflinks/full dinner suit to be at reception venue

Pick up the wedding dress & veil

Money for evening taxi, singer, and OH limo withdrawn

Leave money behind the bar in the Reception venue

Finalise lunch choices with catered for bridal pre wedding lunch and buy the food

Set up the venue

Good hair wash

Get overnight bag to hotel

Get nails done
Pick up any corrections to suits
Book taxi’s for OHs family

Hotel checklist

OH uniform to be checked and taken to hotel

Do we want food waiting in the hotel from room service?

Make sure OHs nieces FG outfit is in SIL hotel including:

Dress and sash

Shoes

Cardigans

Tights and socks

Flowers

Gifts for OH family to go to the hotel rooms

Pageboys outfit to be checked:

Suit (waistcoat, jacket, trousers, shirt)

Socks

Shoes

Men's shirts to be ironed / hung

Rings to be taken from the safe and to the hotel

Make sure best man has OH pressie

Moms - night before

Confirm when bridesmaids will be arriving in the morning

Toiletries to be laid out for use in spare room

Bridesmaids dresses/wraps to be pressed

Champagne in the fridge

Wine glasses and charms laid out

Make sure dress tags removed, and is hanging in the lounge

Make up to be laid out ready for us (if required)

Get dress for wedding morning out and ironed

Lay out the mirrors for getting ready

Corset lace instructions

Charge video camera

Make sure the FGs Tiara's are at Moms where hairdresser is

Get out veil and Tiara for hair dresser

Lay out underwear, handbag, garter, shoes

Lay out old, new, borrowed blue

Put on jewellery the night before

Put engagement ring on the wrong hand

Make sure camera has batteries

Label up honeymoon luggage tags with name/address etc

I went away for three weeks a month before our wedding so most things were done before hand. In the week before the wedding I did all the pampering stuff, wrote name places, boxed things up for the venue and did some last minute alterations to OH's waistcoats. Basically I would do as much as possible before you get there as it's so much easier that way. I had no worries about the wedding whilst I was away as I had done everything I needed to. I echo the others - write lists!

I thought I was organised but it was quite rushed in the end. I had the Thurs and Fri off before our wedding on the Saturday.

I had to collect my dress and take it to be steamed, collect the bridesmaid dresses, buy a couple of gifts for people, order honeymoon currency, paint my nails, make sure I was in for the suits being delivered (ordered from online company)...the day before the wedding was spent going back and forth from the hotel to my dress shop as they gave me the wrong dress (hopefully wont happen to you!).

Leave as little as possible and two days will be more than enough time. x

I could only take the Friday off before our wedding, and it was pretty hectic. We planned as much as we could in advance but still stayed up late every night that week sorting things out, and didn't go to bed till 3am on Thursday. We then left London for Oxford about 11am. Friday was very stressful (especially as I got stuck in traffic all across South London!) but we did manage to get everything done.

LM - that's great - just what i was looking for!

I'm pretty organised too so will more than likely have most things done in advance, but I suppose the main things seem to be sorting out favours, dropping things off at the venue and sorting dress/suits which we should be able to do before we leave home

Our last minute things included:

Final dress fitting and collection

Collection of suits

Finalising of table plan

Tying of orders of service

Making bloody hessian pouches for them!

Baking our 'midnight feasts', packaging them

Various beauty treatments/hair cuts etc

Loading of cars

Transport

Packing for pseudo-moon