Round numbers like 100, 50 etc. get too much publicity if you ask me. Instead, today let us celebrate the fact that there are now just 34 days to go until the wedding.

That’s actually quite a scarily low number. OK, so we’re a lot more prepared than we were a month – or perhaps 34 days – ago, but it still sounds like rather a short amount of time in which to ensure everything comes together nicely for the big day.

As the event approaches and we slot in ideas to give our lovely guests more fun and excitement, we keep having to bite our virtual lips on this dlog, so as not to spoil any of the surprises we’ve lined up for your delectation on the day. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that it may appear to our readers that we’re actually even less actively arranging things now than when this site first launched, but rest assured that this is very far from the truth!

So, what is there that I can tell you about? Well, for a start my suit is now back in the capable hands of its creators, either for an alteration or for a re-make, to give rather more breathing space for my unfortunate stomach. The General Manager whom we saw yesterday was very sympathetic and helpful, but most importantly very reassuring and insistent that the newly sized suit would definitely be ready in plenty of time for the wedding. Fortunately I’d seen the possibility of sending the suit away coming, so had made sure to buy a shirt to go with it during this past week while I still had the suit to compare with it.

I’ve also started thinking about my Bridegroom’s Speech, with the help of some useful resources. Some web sites have some helpful pointers, and Edith, what with being a librarian and all, has got some appropriate books out of the library to give me advice. The one we were looking at last night was, by and large, pretty awful. I think you know you’re in trouble when a book starts quoting Bob Monkhouse for advice on comedy.

One thing the book suggested was looking back through history on the date of your wedding, to see what happened then, as a good way to keep your guests’ interest. I therefore visited the BBC’s On This Day web site for 3 September, and I’m afraid I’m not sure it was such a good idea. You see, it seems we have picked a rather macabre date for our happy day.

One year prior to our wedding day, more than 200 people were killed when the Beslan school siege in Russia came to an horrific end. Not pleasant, but if we go back a bit further to 1998 we find a further 229 untimely deaths in a large plane crash near Nova Scotia. So that’s human and mechanical causes, but how about a natural disaster? In 1984, 14 years before the plane came down, ‘the worst storm in living memory’ hit the Philippines, killing over 1,300. A death toll approaching 2,000 on our wedding pre-anniversaries would be quite sad enough, but as a final straw it also seems that 3 September 1939 was the day on which World War II began, setting the scene for the deaths of 55-57 million people. All things considered, I don’t think I’ll be adopting the ‘on this day’ approach to my speech after all.

On another matter entirely, would anyone be particularly devastated if we supplied little pots of bubbles to be used in place of confetti? We believe that confetti is not allowed in the zoo because of the risk of it getting into the animals’ enclosures, but just wondered whether anyone would be upset by not being able to chuck paper at us? Any thoughts?

In a further change of topic (I must work on this ‘linking things together’ business before my speech; Bob Monkhouse and friends would not be impressed), we’ve more or less sorted out the table plans now, with basically two different table plans depending on whether our current ‘don’t know’s can make it or not. To allow time to prepare our printed plans and so forth this means we’re going to have to set some kind of deadline for letting us know one way or another before too long, so watch out for that. Ooh, that’s something I can put in the newsletter next week, perhaps – hurrah, it won’t be a blank page!

Finally, a quick teaser for the Top Secret plans for our guests’ enjoyment at the reception, which are coming along nicely: let’s just say don’t forget your animal astuteness and mammalian mastery… :)