A Day in the Life of a First-time Wedding Planner

A Day in the Life of a First-time Wedding Planner. The digital clock showed 7:30am and Sandra was officially freaking out. She had offered to take charge of the planning but so many things had gotten out of hand since that fateful Saturday when she first called the happy bride-to-be. Now Jo was going to hate her. And all because Sandra had seriously underestimated the amount of effort it took to plan a wedding. With all her experience in corporate event management, she had thought that pulling off a wedding would be a piece of cake. But now the cake was going to be her undoing. That, and a whole list of other details as long as the bride’s train…the train! Oh shoot! She had forgotten about the additional beading!

Her performance so far was so disastrous that Sandra was pretty sure there would be no more second chance for her. She should have realized that corporate events and "weddings" were two distinctly different functions. Weddings came with a whole lot more expectations and pressure than she had bargain for. She was quite certain after this no sensible bride would ever dare to risk their wedding plans with her. Anyway, Sandra did not think she would have the vigour to go through this bundle of stress all over again.

No matter how grave the situation was, Sandra had to press on. The wedding theme was already decided after poring through various suggestions with Jo and her fiancé. A Christmas wedding it was. What they had not taken in account was how their decision would further complicate things for Sandra. Belatedly, she found out that most churches and popular places were fully booked. The couple was left with no choice but to have a garden "wedding" and reception at the family’s yard.

Which still would not have proven too much to handle if only the other details did not fall apart. Things like the craft shops running short on supplies for one. Due to it being peak wedding gift-giving season, it had become next to impossible to find enough of everything they needed to put the "wedding" together. As such, Sandra was left running from shop to shop the entire week, trying to gather as many supplies as possible from each one. Somewhere between an armload of organza ribbons and a trunk load of tulle, it dawned upon her that it might have been easier to leave things to the experts instead of trying to play Martha Stewart.

Luckily, she found an online trader who was able to deliver her the rest of the supplies that she could not get. She counted her blessings. Next on the list of thing-to-do was to gather enough helping hands to put together the wedding favours. But, with the Christmas around the corner, almost every family member and close friend of the bride was extremely tied up with their own holiday plans. Sandra was near hysterical and downed dozens cups of herbal tea to soothe herself before placing more frantic phone calls. At long last, an inexperienced but willing group of volunteers appeared at her doorstep to offer assistance. However, early the next morning, Sandra was confronted with yards of wrappers, ribbons and more than a hundred potpourri pouches strewn everywhere across her living room. She had made a mistake with the choice of material and now all the contents were spilling out.

It would not be such a problem if Sandra had more time. Sadly, this was not the case. There were millions of other things screaming for her attention. Just the night before, Jo’s mother phoned. After all the hassle Sandra went through, she had the nerve to tell her now that the wedding cake design the bridal couple had chosen was unsatisfactory. It was actually such a unique design that Sandra had to call up more than three different confectioners to find one who was able to do the Christmas log cum wedding cake. She had even pored over the various designs of cake toppers and chosen one that would suit the wedding concept as well as be available at this time of the year. Now, she suddenly found herself caught in the middle of a tight spot between a cake and a very hard-to-please mother-of-the-bride.

Soon after, the bride herself called. Jo was sobbing uncontrollably as she tried to explain to Sandra what catastrophe had happened. Only when she finally calmed down was Sandra able to understand that the gown rental shop had misplaced the designated set of bridal accessories that came with the gown Jo had selected. A new set was on the way but would not arrive in time for the wedding! No matter what, Sandra had to make an emergency shopping trip today and hope against hope that she would be able to find the extraordinary pair of bridal hair clips that Jo loved so much.
by Mellisa Cruz