As exciting as it is to be getting married, planning a wedding can get stressful fast. Short of hiring a wedding planner, what can you do to keep your planning from feeling like a full-time job? Here are some key tips to keep in mind so that you can enjoy the planning process and avoid getting overwhelmed!
- Set Weekly Goals and Daily Goals: Breaking down big tasks into smaller ones makes them more manageable and less intimidating. So, look at all your biggest projects (e.g., sending out invitations, decorating the reception, planning the honeymoon, etc.) and break them down into sub-goals that you can tackle one step at a time. Rather than trying to address all the invitations in one weekend, for example, make it a goal to address 10 a day, right when you get home from work. Rather than booking your honeymoon flights, hotel, rental car and activities all in one night, give yourself a week to look into each step. When you make your tasks doable, you build momentum checking one small goal off at a time.
- Delegate to Trusted Friends and Family: If you try to do everything on your own, you will wear yourself out. Instead, ask your friends and family for help. That’s why you have a maid of honor! Find items on your to-do list that you can delegate to these loved ones that you trust. Maybe your maid of honor can assemble the wedding favors or handle communicating with the bridal party about dresses. Maybe one of your bridesmaids can pick up the flowers on the day of the wedding or oversee the snacks for the bridal party before the ceremony, when you’re all getting ready. Most brides are surprised to find that their loved ones truly do want to help — so don’t be afraid to ask! Moving tasks off your own to-do list means reducing overall stress.
- Take Breaks: When you’re planning a wedding, it’s all too easy to get tunnel vision. Pretty soon all you think about are flowers and caterers and seating charts. The problem is that this sort of laser focus quickly leads to burnout. So give yourself breaks! Get away with your fiancé for an afternoon and don’t do anything wedding-related. Plan a fun lunch out with your girlfriends, and don’t discuss the wedding at all. Keep going to your yoga class or visiting the gym. These reprieves from wedding planning are crucial to keeping your mind calm and unstressed!
- Establish Boundaries: Part of what makes wedding planning stressful is when brides try to please everybody. It’s normal for parents and siblings and other relatives to have strong expectations for how your wedding should go, but remember that you cannot meet all of them. Set boundaries from the start that remind you to be true to yourself and to who you and your fiancé are as a couple. This way, you remove a lot of the pressure notorious for making wedding plans hard.
- Involve the Groom: Don’t forget you’re not the only one getting married, and your groom may have insight and opinions, too. In fact, he may be willing to get involved in aspects of the wedding that interest him, whether that means designing the invitations or choosing the caterer or picking the style and type of cake. When the two of you work together on tasks, you gain the benefit of a partner who takes part of the burden off you.
The thing to remember with wedding planning is that it is just a season, and eventually it will be over. So don’t let it get the best of you! Take the tips in this post to heart, and reduce the stressfulness of this busy, beautiful time.
