Every wedding checklist tells you when to book the florist. Nobody publishes the operational countdown: when the guest list freezes, when the caterer contractually needs final counts, when driver manifests reach the hotels. This is that checklist — the one we wished existed at our own 200-guest, 45-nationality wedding.
The T-minus countdown from 12 months to the last shuttle: the RSVP questions you can only ask once, the guest-list freeze, the caterer's 72-hour final-count clause, the manifest handoff to hotel front desks, and the day-of no-show sweep — with the ones that hurt marked in red.