Who Doesn't Love A Spreadsheet?

If there's one thing everyone can agree on when it comes to weddings, it's that they need to be planned with almost military precision. There are countless websites that will help you do it or cute binders with designated sections if you prefer to be analogue.

Me? I like a good spreadsheet. Colour coding, formulas, all coming together to make planning a glorious breeze.

Within a couple of days of The Proposal, I had spreadsheets set up to help plan my way through the maze and delirium that is wedding fever. It can be so easy to be distracted by the minutiae that you can lose sight of the main things that need to be sorted.

When I told people that there were spreadsheets involved and that I was actually quite excited about them, there was some laughter and incredulity that anyone could be excited about spreadsheets. THEY'RE SPREADSHEETS ABOUT MY WEDDING! Of course I'm excited about them.

I'm not sure I understand how people can manage such a huge project with potentially huge amounts of money involved without some form of organisation. True, I may be edging to the extreme end of super organisation but it pays to treat it like any other project you'd manage at work or if you were getting a new kitchen or something. There is nothing romantic about planning and project management.

So what do I have spreadsheets for? Well, there's a Guest List one with tabs dividing guests into family, mutual friends, Ray's friends and my friends then sub divided into ceremony and reception only guests. All colour coded of course. This means that I can easily see when numbers reach "Really? We're not THAT popular" levels and adjust accordingly. Which sadly does mean striking people off the list. I'm not enjoying that part at all.

Then there's the Mastersheet. This contains everything. Venues, photographers, caterers, invitation designers, decorations, extras that I probably haven't even thought of yet. There's a cover sheet with a rough budget in to gauge costs as we go - already useful for making me check my expectations as the numbers seem ever crazier - with actual costs going in as they're confirmed. The rest of the sheets cover people we've contacted, when we're visited them in the case of venues, pros, cons, costs etc. Again, this has been really useful to help me track who I've contacted and who has or hasn't got back to me.

So, that's how I'm managing my organisation. How did/are you doing yours? Are you as spreadsheet crazy as me or are you a genius who can get by with scribbling things on the backs of envelopes?

The Proposal

There's some things that you don't expect in life and for me, marriage was one of them. When you're with someone who you know you're going to grow old with then there's an expectation that marriage will happen. For us, that expectation belonged to other people. It can get a bit wearying having people ask again and again when we'd be getting married, not believing that Ray was quite adamant that he wanted no part of it and that he was happy as we were.

I can't lie, I'd have liked marriage but it wasn't essential to my happiness and security in our relationship. And so, there we were. Living in sin as the Daily Mail would have it.

Until The Proposal.

If ever anything was more unexpected, I've yet to hear of it. The only details I need to share are that it perfectly captured us as a couple and yes, I cried. After I'd laughed it off as some kind of joke of course.

But it wasn't a joke and so now I find myself planning The Unexpected Wedding. There'll be spreadsheets and dresses and panic and stresses but a lot of love and a lot of excitement.