Timeline schimeline

Any place you go to learn about weddings and wedding planning, you will find that there are helpful timelines to help the clueless (I mean most people, I assume, have never done this before). Each month or so, they give you a whole bunch of checklists of what to do. See what the website theknot tells me to do:

4/18/2008 - 5/18/2008
THIS MONTHS TO DOS

		Choose a color scheme, if you so desire, taking into account the decor of the rooms/areas you have reserved for your ceremony and reception.
		Start investigating any ethnic customs or cultural traditions you might want to incorporate into your ceremony or reception.
		Start auditioning reception bands or DJs.

Here is another one from the magazine Real Simple Weddings:
It is nice to have. The only problem we are having is that our schedules don't exactly mesh with these timelines. We travel apart and often, so scheduling is critical to our sanity. Put wedding planning on top of all that and you have a mess. Here how one of our conversations go:

Me: So how long do we have together before one of us leaves?
Him: Ummm 1.5 weeks, then I go to Costa Rica for 4 weeks and then I am back for 3 weeks and then go to Brazil for 3 weeks.
Me: And when you are in Costa Rica, I am in Belize for 4 weeks and then I am back for a week and then I go to Brazil for 2 weeks.
Him: So how long do we have together this summer - only 1 week?
Me: Yep - I guess we gotta go register then.

So for pretty much everything on those checklists we have to do quite far in advance. Otherwise, one of us (most likely me), has to make an executive decision. I am not too pleased about getting behind on these checklists, but it looks like it is going to happen, since there is no way I am auditioning DJs from CA. I only hope we start investigating traditions by May 15th:-)