iVillage - Planning in Peace

You won't mind what goes wrong

2008-05-05T13:27:41Z

Here's a little secret that can help take away some of your wedding stress: on the wedding day, you'll notice the things that go wrong (like someone arrives under-dressed for the formality, or the flowergirl pitches the fit you worried about) but it won't throw you. SO much great stuff will be occurring all around you, so many compliments from your guests, seeing the details of your cake for the first time, seeing your guests dancing and having fun, that the problems you fretted over won't make a dent in your happiness.

Even if your outdoor wedding gets rained out and you have to move indoors, you'll find -- as most brides and grooms do -- that the Plan B brings about very special elements that often turn out better than what you planned.

I know these insights won't take away all of your stress right now, but just be open to the idea that what will go wrong won't have any power to wreck your day.

Our wedding stress

2008-05-02T13:34:10Z

It's true -- even as a wedding expert with tons of experience in planning and an arsenal of de-stressing tips, I couldn't help but worry about some elements of our wedding day [which was gorgeous, on a beautiful spring day in April]. Even when I was pulled together, I was getting worried calls from family and friends, and my groom had his moments of "Let's just elope!" I did as well. On some days, all I wanted was just to BE married to Joe and skip all the chaos that no one -- no one -- can ever fully eliminate. There are just too many facets to a wedding to ensure a completely stress-free wedding planning experience. The best you can do is handle the stress as it occurs, use the tips here in my blog to help yourself and others through the season of chaos, and remember to enjoy.

Which we did.

But I can report that I worried about some things for nothing. The things I worried about never came to pass, and the things we didn't think to worry about did happen (a crasher, missed photo opportunities, the kids stealing all the tabletop cameras and snapping 300 photos of themselves -- which actually turned out to be a good thing...we have lots of pix to share with their parents!). We can laugh off the snafus, and we laughed them off during the wedding day too, because we weren't going to let anything or anyone steal our joy. That's the best wedding gift you can get: your own ability to experience every moment of happiness on your own wedding day.

Just shrug off what goes wrong, grab your new spouse, and get out on the dance floor. The day goes by so quickly...

When the wedding = parental guilt trip

2008-04-26T13:17:10Z

Boy, they really know how to work you, don't they? In my many years as a wedding expert, I've comforted brides whose parents have attempted to guilt them into having the wedding *the parents* want, and not what the bride and groom want. And the tactics can be spine-chilling. One of the worst is when parents say, "Well, you never know how long I'll be alive" or "I might not be here next year." It happens more often than you might expect. When parents show their dark side and zing you with a scary guilt trip, how are you supposed to handle that?

I have some steps for you here...

1. You HAVE to do a little self-assessment to see where your parents have programmed you, which fears they successfully hit. Where else in the past have they guilt-tripped you successfully?

2. Now, you have to journal out how those guilt trips felt to you then, what you did about it, and how long you regretted giving in (could it be that you STILL regret it?). Write out all of the ways these guilt trips have hurt you. I know, it seems disloyal to parents to write about their trickery, but hey...if they're going to manipulate you like this, your faults in writing down your feelings pale in comparison.

3. You have to create new scripts for yourself. The words come before the confidence you'll eventually feel when you get some practice at defusing their threats. When Mom says, 'Hey, I might not be here next year,' it would be far better to laugh and say, "Wow, I just saw that same line delivered by the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding." If you call her on the fact that such a line has been used as 'ridiculous' in a comedy, that could drain the danger from it. Or, say, "I wish you wouldn't say such things."

4. Call your parent on the guilt trip. Just say, "Please don't try to push me into what you want by saying such things. We agreed to (x) when we first started talking about the wedding, and that's what we'd like to do."

Part 2 on Wedding Guilt Trips coming soon.

One thing at a time

2008-04-24T13:11:18Z

You can spin yourself out of control if you look ahead to all of the tasks on your list, try to multi-task the way you've always been able to with great efficiency [newsflash: your multi-tasking skills are going to be challenged right now!], and think about too many things at once.

So keep an organized To Do list, and while it might help you in the early stages to jump ahead and get some of the later tasks done right now, overall you should limit your focus to just one or two Need to Do items right now. Especially if your wedding is weeks or days away. Stay in this moment, do what's essential now, and know that you can handle every tasks when each one's time comes. You'll feel less pressured, more organized and confident, and you won't push your groom and your bridal party to jump all over the map with you.

Just breathe and take it all one little step at a time. Are you looking ahead at too many things right now? Share your story in the Comments, especially if you try this OTAAT (one thing at a time) process and feel a big difference.

File it for after the wedding

2008-04-22T13:05:27Z

When your wedding day gets closer, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the vast amounts of To-Dos related to the wedding AND all of the work stuff, bills and other business of your regular life. Now here's a little secret that has just done wonders for my own wedding preparations...I created an AFTER THE WEDDING file, a cute little pink folder where I've stashed the e-mail printouts for assignments due in May, invoices and bills, correspondence I have to get to...all of the craziness that I'm going to have to handle when I get home from the honeymoon.

I started to feel a little pressured with all of the papers on my desk, wondering 'How am I going to keep track of all of this?' and just placing each paper in the folder gets them out of my eyeline, safely stored away in an organized file, and off of my current To Do list. I don't have to worry about these things at all right now! The effect was immediate -- there is truth to 'out of sight, out of mind!' So create this new folder for yourself, and you'll feel so much better. You can return to planning in peace!

Tell your friends what you need

2008-04-20T14:26:00Z

Here's a mistake a lot of brides make: they want everyone to think they're handling everything just great. They slap on a smile, gush about how fabulously everything is going, how happy they are, and it's all about what they want other people to think. It's OKAY to admit that the wedding has you stressed-out -- it happens to everyone, and none of your friends are buying your super-chipper performance anyway.

So here's how you can return to Planning in Peace: send your friends an e-mail saying, "Hey, I'd love it if you'd send me a little e-mail with something funny, tell me what's happening in your world, and distract me from the moments of stress that pop up now and then. Overall, we're doing great, but I do have my moments. You always make me smile, and I love your stories, so keep 'em coming!" That's a great level of honesty, and it's a great gift to allow your friends to lift you.

You've asked for what you need, and no true friend is going to have a problem with that! Just be sure to add on, "but please, no chain letters right now! I'm too superstitious! ;)"

Worrying about the weather

2008-04-10T13:48:56Z

You can't control the weather, of course, but many brides and grooms find themselves compulsively checking the Weather.com site to see if it will rain, snow, be cold or be unbearably hot on the wedding day. We all want that perfect day...and the report in that little square, projected as far as 10 days away, can either elate us or send us into a spiral of despair. No one can predict the weather totally accurately, as Mother Nature has a mind of her own.

But what you CAN do is create alternate plans to ensure that your day will be covered and comfortable no matter what. Talk to your site manager about how quickly the outdoor ceremony setup can be moved into the ballroom. At my own wedding site, I know they can magically transport everything indoors in 45 minutes, and then have the ballroom with all fully set tables arranged during the hour of the cocktail party. If we can't take photos outside, I've picked out sites at my home and at the reception hall where the backdrops indoors will be perfect.

When you imagine your plan B fully, and will be happy with whatever may happen that day, you eliminate the stress of watching the storm clouds and clicking on weather sites like your life depends on it.

Compromise is key

2008-04-07T17:53:57Z

You have to give a little to get a little. If you're in a situation where an in-law has requested something for the wedding that is slightly different than the way you envisioned it, why not make a little change so that you're both happy? It'll be worth it in the long run if you make every effort to include his side of the family, whenever it's a detail or a plan that doesn't eliminate what you really want. Case in point...my future mother-in-law wants to enact a traditional Polish ritual of presenting us with bread, salt and wine as symbols of good luck. But in their family, this ritual is done when the bride and groom walk into the reception. Looking at the entry celebration, that's when everyone's introduced into the room, and Joe and I have our First Dance. It would wreck the whole entry moment to do the bread, salt and wine thing right away. So, here's what we came up with...we'll be introduced into the room, we'll dance our first dance (to 'At Last' by Etta James), do the parents' dances, and THEN she can do the bread, salt and wine thing before the Best Man's toast instead of after the toasts as we had originally planned. She doesn't have to be nervous about her presentation for long, it's done at the start of the reception, and everyone's happy. It just takes a little bit of shuffling to get an in-law's traditions into your day, and everyone can continue Planning in Peace knowing that their most important rituals are included.

Celebrate your fitness progress

2008-04-03T14:16:37Z

If you're working towards a better fitness level for your energy, health and the way you'll look in your wedding dress, it's important to celebrate what you have accomplished so far, instead of getting down on yourself for not being at the weight or tone level you planned for this point. If you've only lost 4 pounds instead of the 10 you wanted to lose by now, that's cause for a celebration! You're 4 pounds down! Stop judging yourself by the numbers on the scale and look in the mirror. You can see that weight loss in your face. Your arms look more toned. You're not dragging by 3pm. You feel better. Acknowledging your accomplishments this way will better motivate you to keep at it, and it's just a lot more fun to cheer for yourself than to berate yourself for not meeting (unrealistic) fitness goals during a time of stress.

This Planning in Peace tip is all about being your own best supporter, being proud of yourself for how well you're doing. Give yourself a reward...of the non-chocolate variety. How about a new shade of nail polish? Or a fabulous new shampoo? A fun tee shirt that says 'Bride-To-Be' on it?

With a positive mindset for what you've already accomplished, you're in a better mindframe to step up your efforts in a healthier way. A happy person doesn't consider crash diets or desperation measures. She congratulates herself for her great efforts and then looks for fun new workouts to try at the gym, adds healthier foods to her diet, finds more dedication to wake up early to go for a run. Even if she's only lost 2 pounds so far. It's still a Win, and that smile keeps stress at bay.

How are you going to reward yourself? Share your story in the Comments section.

"I thought this would be more fun"

2008-04-01T14:22:53Z

At some point, the fairy tale bubble bursts. You thought this was going to be a time filled with every dream coming true, agreeable parents and loved ones, every plan coming together without a hassle. It was supposed to be all rainbows and rose petals. And then [insert sound of screeching tires] a friend says she can't make it to the wedding, the church won't allow videography (what?!), the tulip crop froze overseas so they won't be available, your hairstylist has another booking that morning and you have to find someone else to do your Up-Do. Every bride faces these unforeseen problems, and every bride is at a crossroads:

Do I let it get to me or not?

Think about the law of averages. You have literally hundreds of elements to your wedding day. It's more realistic that some things will go wrong than that nothing will go wrong. So when your bubble bursts, and you see that you haven't been granted some kind of Cosmic Perfection Blessing, you're now in a GREAT position to work more rationally on your wedding plans. You won't be thrown by the next snafu...and there will be one...you're not operating under an unrealistic mindset that everything should go your way. Some things are just out of your control, so you get to find that solution and move on to the next fun part of your planning.

It's a good thing when the bubble bursts. You're finally a 'real' bride.

Your groom might be more nervous than he seems

2008-03-31T13:50:52Z

Don't make the peace-wrecking mistake that many brides make by assuming that their grooms' delays on working on wedding tasks is disinterest. At any stage during the wedding plans, and especially when the big day is just weeks away, many grooms feel a ton more anxiety than they readily admit. And their way of dealing with it might be to wall off a little bit, take a day or two before making a seating chart with you...because they're nervous.

Grooms tell me, "I didn't want to tell her that I'm nervous because SHE'S nervous right now, and I don't want her to over-react and think that I don't want to get married." Grooms say that their stressed-out brides can get a little creative with their worries, and it's 'safer' to just self-protect by doing tasks when they feel more pulled-together.

So if your groom says, 'not tonight, honey,' just take it at that. Don't read in hidden meanings of castrophes, and don't attempt to 'cure' your groom of his nervous feelings by grilling him to share his thoughts and thinking that you can snap him out of it. We all have to spend some time in the soup of anxiety, and your man is no different. This wedding is greatly on his mind, so allow him the peace of mind in a delay. It's the most loving thing you can do.