Wedding planning is the greatest opportunity for list-making that I have ever come across in my entire life. And I’m one of those people who makes lists. Who seeks out chances to dig out my Sharpies and cover post-it notes, 3×5 cards and blank pieces of paper with long-reaching collections of to-do items, just waiting for the moment when I can highlight them, cross them off entirely, or put a check mark in that neat little box I’ve drawn.

I’ve even been known to place projects on lists so that I can cross them off immediately, just for the pure momentum of it. There’s just something so satisfying about a job completed.

However, I hear that’s a bit strange.

But wedding planning is list-making at its finest. When I first got engaged I was immediately directed to several wedding websites where I could find the all-important “wedding checklist” that everyone talked about as the very first step in planning a wedding.

This, of course, made perfect sense to me because the only thing I knew about planning a wedding was that I would get to buy a ridiculously pretty dress and have a dance party with all my favorite people.

Boy, oh boy, is it a little more involved.

We, tempters of fate that we are, decided to give ourselves an aforementioned deadline of five months to plan our wedding, as well as building in that week of “enjoying” being engaged before we allowed ourselves to think about the planning process.

And so, when I registered for use of one particular online checklist, I had nearly 50 overdue items. To put it lightly, I was mildly overwhelmed. I deleted my account for that particular website, swallowed my panic and turn to the closest magazine for a little perspective.

Unfortunately, that checklist started the planning process a year before “I do.” I double-checked the calendar on my wall, made sure that I’d really actually only given myself less than half of what appeared to be the recommended time frame, and opened a carton of ice cream. Except that I’m lactose-intolerant so it was actually vanilla-flavored “rice cream.”

Once my fiancé talked me off that particular ledge, it occurred to me that not all checklists are created equal, and that maybe there was something out there that could be a little bit more suited to both my own taste and accelerated timeline. Not to be too incredibly biased, but mywedding.com’s checklist calmed me down considerably—as well as providing checklists within checklists, there was enough organizational bliss to break through even my ice cream induced sugar coma.

So, after a little bit of studying what seemed to be the basics and acknowledging that my idea of a checklist really does involve markers and crossing off items with my own two hands, I decided to take what I’d learned and run with it. Which means that my checklist now inhabits several pages of a three-ring binder (broken down into several basic categories a la a certain website)…and may or may not be color-coordinated. Plus, now that I have it in a tangible, carry-with-me-everywhere format, I can look back at it when I start to feel the least bit stressed about the planning process and review each and every line with a check mark next to it and breathe a deep sigh of relief.

I’m moving forward, I’m progressing, I’m turning into a veritable wedding-planning machine. And I’ve discovered a story with a moral: all tasks, even organizing the most important party of your life, are best met with boxes that can be manageably checked off. Even if that means that the first one is, “eat body weight in ice cream”.

Editor’s note: For all of you brides who prefer to organize your to dos online, be sure to check out our new Checklist tool. It’s completely customizable and will never, ever show you 50 overdue items.