Wedding planning can be stressful and with so much to do in the run up to your day you might find yourself getting overwhelmed. Perhaps you’ve been planning this day for years, or you have had to change the date or change the wedding plans due to the coronavirus. If you are stressed, then you could find yourself getting ill or getting into unnecessary arguments with family members, which will only make the stress worse. As a mindful wedding coach, I help assist brides-to-be to manage their wedding planning in a calm, stress-free way, using mindfulness techniques and practical wedding planning knowledge. So here are a few suggestions for keeping the stress to a minimum:
- About one month before your wedding day create a wedding day timetable and get yourself organised. Run through your entire day and create a timetable of who needs to be where and when and what time things are happening. By mapping out the entire day you will know that you have everything organised. Make sure everyone in the wedding party and the suppliers have a copy. Having everything written down like this will loosen the load on your mind and an uncluttered mind is a calm mind.
- Contact your suppliers. Check-in with them all to make sure they have everything they need to make sure your day goes smoothly. You don’t want to be bothered by any surprises on the day if they suddenly announce a requirement you didn’t know about or request information they should have got from you a week or two before the wedding day.
Real Wedding – This happened at a wedding in a marquee, where the couple had not informed the caterer who was eating which choice of main course. The caterer only had the number of each dish. The caterer then announced on the day, while SERVING, that they needed this information. If they had informed me of this when I spoke to them a week before the wedding day, to check they had everything they needed, I could have requested this information from the couple. But it was too late by serving time. So this is one unexpected surprise you don’t want. I recommend writing on the back of the place cards if guests have chosen dishes or have a dietary requirement. Guests will have forgotten what they ordered and it makes it easier for the waiting staff.
- Delegate. If you have a wedding day coordinator, let them take over from here to deal with the logistics and suppliers. Or delegate tasks to members of the wedding party that you know are reliable, to give yourself less to think about. It may be your day but you don’t need to do it all.
- Once you have this done, take a complete break from wedding planning and do something different. Go to the cinema, go bowling or do something with your partner that is not wedding related. A change is as good as a rest.
- Listen to affirmations or meditations that will help you feel relaxed and confident about your wedding. Affirmations are ‘I am’ statements, so say to yourself things like ‘I am calm and relaxed, I am confident for a successful wedding day, I am so happy to be marrying the love of my life’. If you would like to know more about affirmations you can watch the video I made here:
- Mindfulness will play a big part in keeping you focussed on the present moment and spend less time caught up in thoughts that make you nervous and anxious. So try to reduce the time you have to worry unnecessarily. Focus on any task you are doing. It’s the act on conscious awareness of what we are doing in each moment that helps us be present and not get caught up in thoughts about the past or the future that we can do nothing about.
So, to summarise, the main thing to remember is that being organised and getting everything written down and delegating to others will help you feel calmer. Doing something non-wedding related will give your brain a rest so you feel more refreshed to continue the planning. Being in the present moment and getting away from the thoughts in your head will help reduce wedding day worries.
If you would like to find out more about Mindful Wedding Planning then please come and join me in my Facebook group: Mindful Wedding Community. A calming space to talk all things wedding and mindfulness, as wedding planning doesn’t have to be stressful.
