Wedding Planning Anxiety
Weddings mark the beginning of some of the most beautiful chapters of our lives. But, the underlying efforts and the preparations of a wedding can get extremely stressful. Whether you are arranging an intimate wedding ceremony with only a handful of distinguished guests and close friends or throwing a full-scale wedding party with 500 guests, the preparations are going to be a taxing exercise. The modern weddings and the logistics they involve can be pretty complicated and difficult to plan. However, even a small celebration can be equally challenging to accomplish. And, until the time the last guest on the wedding day remains, one thing that remains constant is the anxiety.
Anxiety is your constant companion from the time you know that it’s time to tie the knot and you decide on the date. There are many reasons for you to get anxious as soon as you know it’s about time to get married. And, if you feel you are getting too anxious and it isn’t letting you sleep, it is time to take a step back and find out your wedding triggers. You will need to determine what is making you anxious so you can take appropriate and healthy steps to help yourself cope up with the anxiety.
Some of the common triggers and reasons to get anxious during the wedding planning phase involves relationship worries, family issues, money, traditions, thinking about how life would change after the wedding, being skeptical about the future, etc. A wedding is a massive event in your life and considering how it is going to change your life, it is perfectly normal to be anxious about it. You will worry about a lot of things that involve preparations for the wedding day which you want to be perfect, your personal fears and apprehensions, and a lot of said and unsaid fears that you never knew existed.
If you are feeling anxious, you must take it seriously and make sure you are taking preventive steps to manage things. To make it easier for you, we are listing some of the tried and tested ways of dealing with your wedding planning anxiety.
Be Aware of Your Finances & Estimates
Your finances can be the biggest reason for your anxiety when you are planning your wedding. Even the smallest wedding celebrations can be very expensive no matter how well you had planned the entire event. If you are scared about the fact that you may not have enough resources to pull it off and are spending sleepless nights worrying about it, it’s time to sit down and chalk out your finances. No matter who is chipping in for the big day (you, your partner, your parents, ect.) it’s time to plan out the expenses on paper. You do not need to get into the detailed itemization and costing of every little thing, but you should jot down your macro line items, allocations and limits to those items. Having these realistic figures and estimates in your mind will help you curb that fear and anxiety of not having enough when you already know the figures and estimates.
Use one of these wedding planners and/or organizers to write everything down.
Make Use of Technology and Modern Apps
During the wedding planning phase, you are constantly on a think-tank mode. You want to make sure that your wedding, no matter at what scale you are planning, is perfect. An idea can occur to you anytime and it is important that you are able to jot it down before it disappears due to the many other things that you are thinking about. We recommended you make use of an organizational app that will help you jot down all your ideas in one place and let you access them whenever you need to. This will, in fact, save you the anxiety of not having a plan or things not written down. Whether you are planning your wedding yourself or are hiring a wedding planner, it gets easier for you to share your thoughts seamlessly with your wedding planner. Apps like Trello, Evernote, and The Knot can help you with task of proper organization.
Delegate Responsibility and Do Not Micromanage
Often when it is your wedding you would like to ensure everything is up to the mark. You know you cannot do everything alone and so you delegate work and projects to your friends and family. But, deep within your sub conscience, you still feel like overseeing and supervising how they are handling the task you have delegated. This is one of the major triggers of anxiety. You need to accept things in this world are not always perfect. If you have delegated a task to a friend or someone in the family, let them handle it. Know that they have your back. Things will flush out and be fine come the big day. Avoid micromanaging and constantly poking people you delegate tasks to. No one likes to be told what needs to be done. Trust them, do check with them occasionally, and everything will just be fine.
Walk Away From Negativity and Remain Positive
No matter what time and season of your life you get married, you will have to deal with a lot of conflicts. These conflicts might be with your family members, your extended family, your friends, your past relationships, etc. When you are planning your wedding, you will have a lot of disagreements with people on a lot of things. For instance, your parents might be keen on inviting some seen-once-in-a-decade kind of relatives and you refuse to let them in. There might be people whom your parents and relatives may not agree to invite, but you want to have them witness your big day. And there might be absolutely insane arguments with an ex-partner or near and dear one that can simply make you see red. But, it is important for you not to lose sight. Remain positive, draw your boundaries around people who are influencing you negatively and go ahead with your plan and ideas. Don’t let negativity wane your spirits and your enthusiasm in any way. Agree to things you think are agreeable and disagree respectfully and politely. It’s your wedding after all, do what works best for you and do it in style!
Talk to Your Partner
You said “YES” a reason. One of those reasons is this individual you more than anyone else. So, if you are anxious, talk to your partner. Discuss why you are anxious and maybe it will help both of you combat a lot of your common anxieties. Speak from your heart and talk about everything that is bothering you and not letting you sleep at night. This will ensure that you both can share your burdens with each other. Maybe if you are falling short of money somewhere, your partner can pitch in. Or maybe if he has a better DIY plan or option regarding decor, you can flush out different ideas and execute tasks together. This can create possibilities where you are sharing the burdens of your wedding anxiety and are also building an environment of mutual trust where you are helping each other right from the start.
Why not try some DIY wedding products from Amazon:
Set Some Time Out to Relax
Amidst all of your efforts of wedding planning, you might get really tired. There will be days where you go to bed thinking of the wedding and if you manage to get some sleep, you’ll wake up thinking about it again. That’s overthinking and overthinking of any sort is harmful to your mind and body. Your overall goal is to have a wedding to create a beautiful life together. There is no point in thinking too much about it. Things always have a way of working out after all. So, stop and take a break. Hit the gym. Go for a walk or a long run. Sit down in a quiet place and meditate. All these things can help you calm your senses and nerves so you can refocus and get ready for the big day.
Seek Professional Advice and Help
Almost all anxiety is a result of overthinking. Wedding anxiety is purely due to thinking too much about wedding planning. Even after doing everything we talked about your anxiety still exists, it might be time to seek professional help including a doctor or a therapist. Many will shy away from this as they would risk feeling incompetent in handling anxiety. But, if you do get expert help from a therapist, you’ll learn coping strategies to deal with your anxiety. Counseling will not only help you deal with your wedding anxiety, but also prepare you to handle wedded life. Go for some counseling if your anxiety fails to relent.
Conclusion
A wedding is one of the most important life events in anyone’s life. It is much beyond those happy pictures and tags on social media. It is natural to be anxious and worried about the big day. With conscious effort, you can deal with your anxiety. Follow these tried and tested ways of handling your wedding anxiety, enjoy the preparations for your big day and create memories along the way that last forever.
