Your wedding week checklist: what to confirm, pack, and hand off

The final seven days are not the time to make new decisions. They are the time to confirm the decisions you have already made, gather what you need into a few clearly labelled places, and pass responsibility to people who can carry it while you get married. A good wedding week checklist does exactly those three things, and it works whether you are planning a register office ceremony for twelve, a multi-day Hindu wedding with mehndi and sangeet, or a village celebration where half the guests fly in from abroad.

A day-by-day wedding week checklist

Treat these as windows rather than deadlines. If your celebrations span several days, count back from the first event, not the ceremony.

• Seven to five days out: confirm. Final numbers, supplier arrival times, outstanding payments, and legal paperwork.
• Four to three days out: pack. Outfits, rings, documents, ceremony items, and an emergency kit, each in its own labelled bag or box.
• Two days to one day out: hand off. Brief the people running the day, deliver items to the venue, and send guests one clear final message.
• The day itself: carry almost nothing. If the first three windows went well, you need your outfit, your vows if you are reading them, and very little else.

Confirm: numbers, times, money, and paperwork

Start with your final guest count. Most caterers and venues ask for a firm number some days before the event; check your contracts for the exact cut-off, which may already have passed. Reconcile RSVPs one last time against seating, dietary needs, and children's meals. If you organised your guest list by household, you can see at a glance who is coming and who has not answered. Contact the last few non-responders directly rather than guessing.

Then send each supplier a short written message confirming:

• the date, address, and access point, such as a loading entrance, gate code, or parking restriction
• their arrival and finish times
• the name and phone number of the person they should ask for on the day
• what is still owed, how it will be paid, and who will hand it over

Writing it down gives everyone the same version. A florist who expects to set up at ten and a venue that opens at noon is a problem you want to discover on Monday, not Saturday.

Paperwork deserves its own check, because requirements genuinely differ. In France, the civil ceremony at the town hall is the legal marriage, and a religious ceremony traditionally follows it rather than replacing it. In many parts of the United States, couples obtain a licence beforehand and the officiant returns it afterwards. In England and Wales, notice must be given well before the wedding, so the final week is about having documents and witnesses ready rather than starting anything new. Faiths can add their own requirements: a ketubah for a Jewish wedding, parish certificates for a Catholic one, or a nikah contract naming witnesses and the mahr. Ask your registrar, officiant, or religious leader exactly which original documents, identification, and witnesses they need to see on the day, and decide who will bring them. If you are marrying abroad, confirm whether anything needs a certified translation or apostille, and do not assume photocopies will be accepted.

Pack: one bag per purpose

Pack by purpose, not by person. Separate, labelled bags stop the rings from travelling in the same tote as the guest book that goes to the venue on Thursday.

Getting-ready bag. Outfits with every accessory, shoes already worn in, jewellery, grooming or makeup kit, and a steamer if your venue lacks one. If you are changing outfits, as is common at South Asian, Nigerian, Vietnamese, and Chinese weddings among many others, pack each look as a complete set with its shoes and jewellery.

Ceremony box. Rings, vow cards, marriage documents, and whatever ritual items your tradition calls for. That might be a tea set and red envelopes for a Chinese tea ceremony, a wrapped glass for breaking, kola nuts, flower garlands, or a lasso and arras for a Mexican or Filipino ceremony. List every item and tick each one off as it goes in.

Venue box. Place cards, signage, guest book and pens, favours, card box, table numbers, and any decorations you are supplying. Label it with the venue name and the name of whoever is delivering it.

Emergency kit. Safety pins, needle and thread in your outfit colours, plasters, pain relief, personal medication, stain remover, a charger, tissues, snacks, and water. It stays with whoever will be nearest to you all day.

If you are leaving for a trip afterwards, pack that bag now too, with passports and travel documents, so it is not competing for attention later.

Hand off: give each job one owner

The most useful thing you can do in the last two days is stop being the person everyone asks. Choose one point of contact for suppliers, whether a coordinator, a sibling, or a friend who stays calm under pressure, and make sure every supplier has that number instead of yours.

Write a one-page run sheet and share it with that person, your officiant, the venue, and the photographer. Include times, locations, supplier contacts, the formal photo list with names, and the order of speeches. Then assign named owners to specific jobs: who carries the rings, who hands over final payments, who collects gifts and borrowed items at the end of the night, who looks after an elderly grandparent or a guest with mobility needs.

Families often hold firm views about roles. In some households it matters that an elder leads a blessing or that a particular relative escorts you; in others, nobody minds. Settle those roles now and tell the people involved directly, so no one discovers on the day that they were expected to do something.

Tell guests once, clearly

Send one final message a few days out and update your wedding website at the same moment so the two match. Cover start times and whether to arrive early, the address with a map link, parking or transport, dress code, footwear or weather advice for outdoor venues, and a day-of contact number that is not yours. For guests travelling internationally, note the local time zone and any customs worth knowing. The late stages of a realistic wedding website timeline map neatly onto this week.

After that, resist a stream of small updates. One clear message is easier to find than five partial ones.

The night before

Charge your phone, set out your getting-ready bag, and give the ceremony box to whoever is responsible for it. Eat a proper meal. If something still is not done, ask whether it truly matters; most things that slip in the final week are invisible to guests.

The point of a wedding week checklist is not perfection. It is making sure the people helping you know what to do, so you can be present for the day you have planned.