Sandra looked at the clock and wished the ground would just open and swallow her up. It was already 7.30am! Nothing had gone right after her phone call to the happy bride-to-be last Saturday. Jo was giving Sandra the chance to show that she could be a wedding planner as well as a corporate event manager and oh, how she would regret it. Sandra assumed that her work experience would be an advantage. Never did she expect there would be so many details to take care of for a wedding. First, there was a problem with the cake. Then, among other millions of things, the bridal gown needed additional beading… oh dear! She had almost forgotten, she hadn’t bought those beads yet!

She should have seen it coming. Weddings were not corporate events. They came with higher expectations and must proceed without a hitch. In other words, the pressure was intense. She swore to herself that she would be more prepared next time. What next time? She must be dreaming. Who in her right mid would want to employ her as the wedding planner after this? Even if by some miracle she managed to pull off this wedding, she was not even sure that she had the mettle to go through the same process again.

Nevertheless, there was no escape this time. The wedding date was set. Sandra proposed a range of wedding themes to the bridal couple and they had set their hearts on having a Christmas wedding. Unfortunately, they failed to consider the consequences of such an arrangement. Churches and popular venues were already booked solid for the festive season. In the end, they had to resign to the family’s backyard to hold the matrimony as well as the bridal shower.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. Everything else started to fall apart from then on. Because the wedding was going to be held on Christmas, most of the craft shops did not have enough supplies. Having to vie with everybody else who was buying gifts for the festive season, it was nearly impossible for her to get everything she needed for the big day. As a result, Sandra found herself spending the whole week searching high and low, rushing in and out of shops, and carrying everything from organza lace to satin ribbons. Belatedly, she chided herself for trying to be Martha Stewart. Why hadn’t she thought of letting the experts deal with the decorations instead?

Fortunately, there was an online craft retailer who had the rest of the wedding supplies she needed so desperately, ending her hunt. For now. Next she just had to place some phone calls to the bride’s relatives and friends and see if they could come over to her house to help with the wedding favours. She was in for another heart attack. With the festive season coming up, none of them could lend her a hand because they were preoccupied with their own holiday preparations. It took more than a dozen cups of calming herbal tea to convince herself that things would turn out fine. After many frantic phone calls, she managed to gather a mixed group of eager helpers. But because they were inexperienced, Sandra found herself besieged by yards of wrappers and ribbons scattered around her living room the next morning. She had purchased the wrong material and now about a hundred or more potpourri pouches and their contents were lying on the floor.

Still, nothing a little extra time could not fix. Unfortunately for Sandra, that was exactly what she was running short of as she still had about a million other pressing concerns to see to. Jo’s mother had called the night before, expressing great dissatisfaction with the design that the couple had chosen for the cake. Never mind that Sandra had to call up at least four different confectioners before finding one who was skilled enough to pull off the unique Christmas log cum wedding cake design. Never mind that she had to comb through the various designs of wedding cake toppers that were still in stock this time of the year and which best suited the concept. Now, she was smack in the middle of a PR crisis involving a cake and one very unhappy mother-of-the-bride!

And all this was before the bride herself called, a crying bundle of wrecked nerves in need of soothing. Apparently, there had been some sort of mix-up at the gown rental shop and the designated set of bridal accessories that came with the gown opted for, had been misplaced. A new set had been ordered but would only be available a day after the wedding! She would have to squeeze in an emergency accessories-shopping trip somehow and pray real hard that they would be able to locate that exceptional pair of bridal hair clips that Jo had her heart set on.

Indeed, the day could not have started off better than Sandra had wished. It was 7.45am in the morning.