Getting married is one of the top sources of life stress. Not only are you fundamentally changing your identity, from “me” to part of “we”. But it’s been proven that needing to make more decisions than our cognitive load can bear leads to feelings of overwhelm. Planning a wedding is nothing but decision making. Even if you start the process as a mellow and easy-going person, by the end of it, you’ve been transformed into Bridezilla. While there’s no way to eliminate all the decisions, I can help you eliminate wedding overwhelm with these tips.
Make a Schedule
The first and most important thing you can do is to make a schedule. Once you have a timeline, with all of the tasks that need to be done at each point in the timeline, you’ll feel more in control. Feeling in control of the wedding chaos will help to eliminate wedding overwhelm.
You can get wedding planning schedules in a number of places. Wedding-themed magazines, such as The Knot and Simple Weddings, often offer tear-out planning booklets. If you’re tech-savvy, you can buy wedding planning software. And if you’re traditional, you can buy wedding planning books and binders.
Once you have a schedule, incorporate it into your regular life-planning schedule. Determine what needs to happen this week, next week, this month, next month, etc. Then balance the priorities with other events and deadlines. If the wedding schedule says you need to do a certain task 2 months out from the wedding, but you have a huge project due at work then, schedule the wedding task 3 months out.
Set Priorities
Part of the source of wedding overwhelm is the belief that everything about the wedding has to be perfect. Accept now that it won’t be — nothing in this world is ever perfect. Instead, figure out what is the most import thing to go right, the second most important, etc. Load those parts of the wedding with backup plans, contingencies, and emergency workarounds. Having a fall-back plan already in place will eliminate the need for making decisions when you’re already stressed out. Eliminating decision making will help to eliminate wedding overwhelm.
Remember your priorities when things go wrong. For my wedding, I wanted white and blue flowers. I didn’t really care what flowers, or in what design. After a lengthy 3-hour consultation with the florist, we settled on beautiful white orchids surrounding pale blue hydrangeas. Two days before the wedding, she called to say her supplier was unable to deliver the hydrangeas, and no other suppliers had blue ones in stock. This could have been a crisis leading to stress and overwhelm. Instead, I remembered that I’d originally only wanted “white and blue”, and gave her permission to substitute anything she thought would work. She used a different variety of orchid with a pale blue tint, mixed with the white orchids, that was gorgeous. And I stayed calm.
Set a Budget
If you bought wedding planning software or a planning book/binder, it probably included budget information. According to Fortune, the average cost of a wedding in the United States in 2016 was over $35,000. However, by the nature of averages, for every six-figure extravaganza, there are multiple weddings in the four-figures. One televised Kardashian wedding offsets dozens of more modest ceremonies. Determine your budget, in line with your priorities, and then stick to it. Add plenty of wiggle room — assuming a 15% overrun in every category means you won’t break the bank. And if you spend less, you’ll have more money to splurge on indulgences like spa treatments and gourmet meals on your honeymoon.
There are plenty of places to conserve money without looking cheap. For example, rather than spending thousands of dollars on an extravagant cake, you can have a faux cake made of plaster and decorated by your florist. The happy couple poses with the faux cake for pictures. Then it is taken away, and plated slices of a sheet cake are brought out. Most guests will never realize that they aren’t eating the pretty cake they saw earlier.
Instead of buying the impressive, expensive options for wedding favors, opt for less expensive, more meaningful favors. Since my husband and I are both authors, we gave our guests books and personalized bookmarks that could be planted to grow flowers. We echoed that theme by hand-crafting Jordan almond holders in the shape of flowers. Then we included the legend of the five almonds in the personalized menus (shaped like open, antique books) at each place. It took a little more time, but was far more memorable, and much less expensive than buying silver or crystal gifts for each attendee.
Delegate
Your maid of honor is your right hand during this process. Offload as much as you can onto her. For my wedding, my maid of honor was responsible for visiting the 3rd largest library book sale in the United States. She hand-selected hardback books that met the criteria of being interesting subjects, visually attractive, in like-new condition, and having no plot lines involving divorce, unhappy marriages, or death of a spouse. We created table centerpieces for the reception that featured books I thought the guests seated at those tables would enjoy, mixed with flowers and candles.
For destination weddings, the maid of honor is often responsible for all of the travel arrangements. Crafty maids of honor can help to lower the cost of the wedding by creating centerpieces, decorations, or gifts for the guests. And, of course, the groom can be given many tasks to do, as well.
The single biggest way to eliminate wedding overwhelm by delegating, however, is to hire a wedding planner. Especially if your wedding is being held someplace other than where you live, an on-site wedding planner is a necessity. They will know all of the best photographers, DJs or bands, florists, and other services you will need. Plus, they’ve worked dozens if not hundreds of weddings. They know all the little tricks for fixing things that go wrong at the last minute, and carry an emergency kit filled with everything from aspirin to Hollywood tape and safety pins.
Other Ways to Eliminate Wedding Overwhelm
Have a limited time, cash bar. Not only will this cost far less than an open bar, but your guests will drink less as well. That lowers the risk of an alcohol-fueled altercation later in the evening, which in turn lowers the likelihood of a stressful situation for you.
Don’t try to diet to fit into a too-tight dress. The lack of food and lack of oxygen (since your lungs won’t be able to expand fully) will impair your decision making making it easier to become overwhelmed. Instead, get a dress that fits you perfectly, and flatters your current shape. If you do manage to lose a little weight, it can always be taken in. And you won’t stress over meeting the arbitrary weight loss goal you set for yourself.
Start writing thank you notes as soon as you start receiving gifts. Limiting the size of the task at any given time will help to eliminate wedding overwhelm. If you prefer, you can save all the written notes and mail them out together after the wedding. Or, you can mail them as you write them. Another way to make the task of thank you note writing less overwhelming is to buy a book of sample thank you notes. Then you only have to copy or modify existing notes, rather than come up with something new to say each time.
Finally, leave the wedding reception early. Your guests can continue to party without you. It’s better that you leave the reception before exhaustion starts making you stupid. Any decisions that come up after you leave can be handled by your maid of honor or your wedding planner. And you can get started on enjoying your honeymoon.
