The fortnight before: what actually needs doing

The final fortnight is when a plan either lands or comes apart. Most of what people do in it is anxious rather than useful, while two or three genuinely critical tasks get left to the last days.

This is the order that works.

Fourteen days out: confirm every supplier

Call, do not email. For each: confirm the date, the arrival time, the address, the contact number for the day, and what they need on arrival. Ask whether anything has changed at their end.

This is where you discover the band has you down for 7pm when the run sheet says 6, or that the florist has a different delivery address. Fourteen days is enough time to fix both. Three days is not.

Twelve days out: send the run sheet and the bump-in

One document to everybody, with their own line highlighted. Ask each supplier to confirm their section is correct. The confirmations are the point — that is how you find the disagreements while they are still cheap.

Ten days out: final numbers

Give the caterer the number, with dietary requirements listed by name and table. Chase the last RSVPs by phone before this, not after.

Seven days out: the seating plan

Build it once, with final numbers. Print it, and print the place cards. Send the table plan to the venue and the stylist.

Five days out: the day-of pack

One box, one list. Rings, vows, licence, cards, gifts, signage, place cards, cake knife, spare stockings, chargers, painkillers, a phone battery pack. Put one named person in charge of the box who is not getting married.

Three days out: the handover

The single most skipped task. Sit down with whoever is running the day and walk them through the run sheet, the supplier list with numbers, the payments still outstanding, and the decisions they are authorised to make without asking you.

If nobody is doing this job, you are doing it, and you will be doing it in your wedding clothes.

Two days out: pay everyone you can

Final balances, supplier tips, anything due on the day. Cash in labelled envelopes, handed to the one named person. Nobody should be doing bank transfers on the morning.

The day before: stop

Everything that is not done is either not important or is somebody else's now. The last useful thing you can do is hand it over and go to bed early.