Are you finding planning your wedding is getting on top of you and creating frustration, stress, or overwhelm?
Would you like a plan of action to get your life back?
Congratulations on your engagement! This is such a wonderful time and the first thing that you should be doing now is enjoying the feeling of being engaged and the excitement of what is ahead of you both.
Planning a wedding can be the most exhilarating, but at the same time overwhelming experience that you will come across in your life. This is because it’s so important to everyone involved and so you heavily invest into it emotionally. The added stress of wanting things to be perfect, not knowing where to start, or if things go wrong, can tip you over the edge into the bubbling mass of the stress volcano.
With careful attention and recognition of how you’re feeling you can eradicate any negative emotions throughout your entire wedding planning journey, leaving you calm and feeling at peace.
Everyone is different in what they find calming and you may have some ideas of what works for you. The following are a few ideas to give you additional inspiration and help you to avoid that volcano and arrive at your wedding day totally chilled and ready to have some fun. I hope that you find them useful, happy reading!
1. Have a plan
Everybody loves a good plan and when you break something up into smaller chunks it gives you the feeling of being more in control and makes it easier to work towards your wedding day goals, one step at a time.
Within that plan break down each chunk into even smaller parts until you end up with a detailed ‘to-do’ list for each category of your wedding. This is a positive thing to do as ‘ticking’ off things as you complete them gives you a strong feeling of accomplishment. In your to-do list, you need to establish what are your priorities and deal with those first.
If your heart is set on a particular supplier or venue, then you must get these booked as soon as possible as you may be left feeling disappointed if they’re not available on your chosen date.
Your plan should start as early as you can, so that you can do a little bit at a time, ensuring that you don’t feel overwhelmed at any point. Once you have listed all that needs doing put them in deadline order, this gives you a timeline of what needs to be done and you literally only need to be thinking about the next step. Taking each part of your planning one step at a time reduces that weighty feeling of thinking about everything that must be done before you can walk down the aisle.
2. Budget
This can be a really hard thing to put an exact figure on, however, if at the beginning you work out a realistic budget then this will make your life so much easier. Part of your priorities in the ‘to-do’ stage should also include priorities on what to spend your money on. If you don’t, your budget could quickly grow legs and escalate beyond control. You should never go into serious debt for your wedding or go way over your original budget. Regular monitoring of your budget as you go along will ensure that you don’t get any nasty surprises.
What if you don’t know what things cost? This is always difficult to answer as the more that you want and the more extravagant, the more things will cost. To get you started you can do some research online and contact suppliers to get a rough idea of those costs. I would advise you to have an idea in mind of what you want to your total spend to be and having spoken with your suppliers, plan for that accordingly. It’s okay to have an emergency pot of money, say 5-10% for slight budget creep, however spending £50,000, when your budget was £25,000 is not what you want.
3. Help
Planning your wedding can feel lonely at times, and that is why bridal groups on social media are so popular as you can speak with people who can relate to what you’re feeling. If you start to feel overwhelmed get some help or some advice before it gets any worse. This can be from a professional or from a trusted friend. Don’t feel like you must do it all on your own. Even if you are okay with doing all the planning sometimes you just need someone to talk to and bounce ideas off.
If you are truly stuck with anything then you must seek help sooner rather than later. Very rarely does an issue just sort itself out, or the answer comes to you. Something that could be a simple thing for an expert to solve for you, may bring you stress, and life is too short for that and your wedding journey should be a wonderful experience from the day that you get engaged, not just for the day of your actual wedding.
4. Have some ‘Me’ time
It’s important for you to take a break from wedding planning and life in general, you need to find ways to help you relax. Try a nice hot bath and pamper yourself, go for a massage, get your hair done, climb a mountain, go for a bike ride, or swim 100 lengths.
It doesn’t matter what it is if it’s something that you love doing and keeps your brain from thinking too much. Plan these in your diary as a regular occurrence. Psychologically this is pleasing to the brain as it gives you something to look forward to.
Being able to switch off gives your mind and body a break from the thinking and planning and you’ll feel much better for it and more able to handle any niggling problems that come your way.
5. Date nights
What is this getting married thing all about anyway? It’s about two people who are madly in love and are wanting to make a commitment to each other in front of their friends and family.
Stresses can get in the way of that and you must protect you both from those negative feelings.
At least once every month, preferably more, having a date night should be a time when you are both not allowed to talk about anything regarding the wedding and just connect as two people enjoying each other’s company – remembering why you are getting married. Preferably do something fun together, something that you both love.
6. Be positive
Now, no one expects you to be 100% positive all the time, that’s just not going to happen and would be a bit weird with everything going on. Saying that, if you try to enjoy the journey at each-and-every step that will help you to maintain a positive outlook. There are techniques that can improve your mindsets like yoga, breathing exercises, and meditation which will help you to feel lighter and more confident.
7. Deal with worries
If you have anything that is preying on your mind talk about them as they crop up. Don’t hope that they will magically go away as they often won’t, they just fester and become worse. To stop a small problem becoming a major issue, can just be a simple thing if acted upon straight away. Assess what your fears and concerns are, and work through them one by one. Question what is driving the worry and is it something that you can do something about and if not, then who can?
8. Your health
Throughout life one of the most important things that you must do is look after your health. Without a healthy body and mind, your life will suffer. With so much going on whilst planning a wedding it can be easy to neglect yourself and that is going to lead to problems. If you want to lose weight for your wedding, carrying out a controlled weight loss program is one thing, however, it’s crucial for you to eat well.
You must also try and do some regular exercise and get enough sleep. If you are looking after yourself physically and avoiding any unhealthy habits, this will give you the strength to overcome any stress and deal with problems as they arise.
The Mental Health Foundation states that ‘Physical activity has a huge potential to enhance our wellbeing. Even a short burst of 10 minutes of brisk walking increases our mental alertness, energy, and mood. Participation in regular physical activity can increase our self-esteem and can reduce stress and anxiety. Exercise has been proven to help with producing a more positive attitude.’
9. Be around nature
Spending time in green space or bringing nature into your everyday life can benefit both your mental and physical wellbeing.
For example, doing things like growing food or flowers, exercising outdoors, or being around animals can have lots of positive effects. Being in or around nature reduces anger, fear, and stress and increases pleasant feelings. Exposure to nature not only makes you feel better emotionally, but it also contributes to your physical wellbeing reducing blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and the production of stress hormones.
Other benefits include helping you to take time out and feel more relaxed, improving your self-confidence and esteem, making you more active, and possibly helping you to make new connections with people that you meet.
10. Be accepting
With all the best plans in the world, there still may be things that you cannot change. Worrying about this is not going to improve the situation and instead will just make you anxious, which will ultimately affect the quality of your sleep.
Instead, form a plan as to how you are going to manage the problem. For example, you have friends that you love to bits, however when they meet they always end up fighting. You want both at the wedding, but you obviously don’t want a scene. A solution is to first speak separately with them both, explain that you want them both there and would appreciate that they are on their best behaviour. Then, on the day, have the bridal party on alert to keep them apart if it seems like they may clash.
Another one is, as this is the UK are you worried that it will rain on your day and spoil everything? Have a backup wet weather plan ready to go. If given enough thought every single one of your concerns can be addressed and managed.
11. Get help from a planner
If you’ve tried everything and you’re still feeling that it’s too much, or if you just don’t want to spend hours and hours planning your wedding, then a planner will be able to help you. A planner is a wedding professional who will lead you through the steps of planning your big day and help you to see things that you might not have even thought about. They deal with the logistics and will save you hours of time by using their knowledge, research skills and chasing your suppliers as needed.
A planner does not just plan though, they also organise, negotiate, monitor, and provide accountability for you and your suppliers. Any issues that come up along the way are immediately dealt with by them and this leaves you both feeling supported and at ease ready to enjoy your day. They are there to support you in every way that you need them to.
On your day they are there ensuring that your wedding runs smoothly and that everyone is where they should be, that your guests are enjoying themselves and that you both have the most fabulous day ever.
12. Your special day
Whether you use a planner or not it is imperative that you have a timeline for the day and you have a trusted someone (not you or your partner) ensuring that things are running to that plan. All guests and suppliers need to know exactly where and what they should be doing at any given time during your day.
Your trusted someone must be able to deal with anything if it goes wrong and gets things back on track. All done without you even being aware that there was a problem. Issues on a wedding day are on a need-to-know basis and as the wedding couple, you definitely do not need to know.
Well, that’s me done for this one. I hope that you got some ideas to play around with. Remember you’re not alone, don’t let any worries build and take over. Ensure that you have quality time outside of planning and always, always ask for help if you feel that you need it.
If you’re feeling lost or overwhelmed and you’re looking for some guidance, then contact me to book your free consultation.
During this time, we can determine how I can help you, and make your life easier. I’m here to turn things around and get you enjoying planning your wedding again.
Bye for now,
Tracy
XxX
