Wedding Planning + Procrastination = Major Mess

Everyone knows that procrastinating is bad, however most people do it. Who prefers to fix a leaking shower when your favorite sitcom comes up on TV? The shower can wait until tomorrow, but once the episode is gone, you need to wait for reruns, which God knows when.

For weddings, however, being one of the most stressful event any couple would plan together, procrastination might lead to fights, and sometimes canceled weddings!

Lesson 1: Even if you are a procrastinator, force yourself not to be when planning your wedding.


I own a wedding retailer store, which most of the customers often do their shopping at the last minute. They would order and email if we can send them immediately because their wedding is next week. The thing is, we love to work with you, but we hate to see you being stressful wondering whether the goods would arrive on time, not to mention having to pay more for rush and express shipment fees, which aren't cheap.


If you're just buying a new pair of shoes and they don't come on time, you'd be fine because you won't need them immediately. But imagine if you order 300 boxes of wedding favors at the last minute and they could not come in time for your wedding. What would you going to do? This happened to an actual bride. I don't know what she ended up doing, but during our last conversation, she mentioned going to Michael's, the art & craft store, to see what she can get as wedding favors.

It's also good practice to allow enough time so when disasters happen, you have enough time to make arrangements. One customer once ordered a wedding cake topper and apparently the packaging was ripped and one of the bride's hand was cracked as a result. While this kind of incident is rare because we always package them safely, it is not impossible to happen. Turns out that the topper was a best seller and we were out of stock of it until one month later. Fortunately the bride told us not to worry.. her wedding was not until 3 months away. We were able to send her a replacement and it arrive on time for her wedding.

Lesson 2: While choosing bridal party, choose people who are responsible and will make your day easier, not more stressful.

Now what if the people who are helping you are the ones who are major procrastinators? One friend told me a story about her MIL, who were given the tasks to handle the bridesmaid dresses and work out the wedding songs with the band. She didn't do either tasks until 10 days before the wedding! Imagine the bride's shock when she found out that not only the bridesmaid dresses been picked, but none of the bridesmaids had been fitted as well. In fact, none of the 4 bridemaid had ever been to a dress shop.

The bride had to rush the bridesmaids to a dress shop who had 2 piece dress - a top that allows tightening on the back so that it fits most girls, and a skirt that can be shortened with a pin for emergency.

As for the songs, her MIL insisted that she picked the processional song, which was chosen only one day before the wedding.

Lesson 3: Check, check and recheck


Review your to-do list carefully every few weeks. Don't depend on what people say, especially if they're flakey. Don't make the same mistake like one bride who had her sister in law as her maid of honor. She trusted her SIL to dress shop herself, only to find out that SIL was also wearing white on her wedding. It was too late to change but this clueless girl didn't have any spare gown anyway. Apparently this maid of honor didn't know the top rule of wedding no-no: Don't wear white to a wedding, especially if you are an important bridal party!


Do research, inform people and hope for the best!

Ms. Pang is a writer for www.AbsoluteWeddingStore.com