After all those months of organisation and preparation for your perfect day, all you want is for it to run smoothly. Does the painstaking preparation and attention to detail pay off? Well that really does depend on you. Many brides head for a nervous breakdown making sure that every minute detail is correct, sometimes doing things that any self respecting woman wouldn’t.

Remember that this day is about you and your future husband and although your guests are important; you must make sure you don’t neglect yourselves. When an obscene amount of money is spent and you have that many people in one place, it’s inevitable that some things will go awry.

From the onset you must accept that things will go wrong and you will have the odd little hiccup; but that is not your problem. The best way to avoid stress when you should in fact be enjoying yourself is to delegate to your most trusted people and have them deal with it. After all you are the bride and if you feel the need to throw an almighty diva tantrum, then this is the day when you’re allowed to. Do be careful though; you don’t want your friends remembering you as the bride from hell when reminiscing in years to come.

When you’ve spent months, years even envisaging an elegant ensemble fusing traditional influences with western ideas for your guests to admire, and your vision quickly turns to a traditional village scene, (which is great if you’re going for the ironic postmodern wedding ;-) what unfolds is aunty dragging the empty seat besides her only to stretch out her legs, exposing her varicose veins and stretching her talons in the direction of your unsuspecting non Asian friends. In the words of Commandant Lassard, “smile and wave” passing it off as a normal occurrence.

So what do you do when you know your guests will characteristically turn up late, disrupting the ceremony and generally be a nuisance? It’s easy enough to say, don’t invite them, but we know this will cause outrage and if you don’t want to be blanked and excluded from family get-togethers for the rest of your life, then you need to come up with a failsafe plan. You may want to make sure that there is someone on standby in case, or when this happens, so that they can swiftly usher the latecomers into the spare seats.  Alternatively, if you want to sever ties and cut away that dead wood, then this could just be your chance!

You will also probably suffer from mild paralysis from smiling all day. The soles of your feet will ache and your head will probably be sore. Relax, enjoy and let everyone else do all the work. The important bit is over and now you should be ready to party. No one wants to see a highly-strung bride constantly feeling the need to check that you’re ok. You need to conserve your energy for your long awaited wedding night by getting your money’s worth after having spent a ludicrous amount on expensive lingerie.

So the flowers were delivered to the hotel instead of the venue and uncle’s dancing was every bit as horrendous as you’d feared. If you forget about the uninvited guests and the technical hitch with the sound system and get a chance to reflect why you’re truly doing this and look at the man sitting next to you, hopefully everything else will pale into insignificance. You’ll have that ring on your finger and the man of your dreams, what more could you want? Remember this and you’ll have a fantastic day.