Is Wedding Planning Stressing You Out? Here Are 10 Self Care Tips to Keep You Sane

Are you positively freaking out over wedding planning? Are you having nightmares where you’re naked because you forgot your wedding dress and everyone is laughing at you? Are you having trouble focusing at work because you can’t stop thinking about how you’re going to transport your guests from your ceremony venue to your reception? Okay. We understand. Take a breath and pause. Consider that wedding planning is becoming a part time job on top of your full time job. It is not something that you should do every waking moment that you don’t have to be at work. Wedding planning involves a lot of logistics, timing, production and focus.

10 common Wedding Planning stressors & self care tips to help relieve them:

1. You are having a DIY wedding on “the cheap.”

You don’t think you need a wedding planner let alone a photographer or professional DJ. You’re thinking “my dad can DJ” or “my mom can be my ‘day of coordinator’”. You’re trying to manage having your dad be your dad on your wedding day while still making sure people have fun and dance. You don’t want to hire a florist to make your centerpieces so you’re going to Michael’s every week to buy fake flowers. You’ve spent $1000 on silk flowers and have no idea how to execute them. You don’t know how to prioritize your spending or manage your family’s expectations. You are totally stressing out.

Self Care Tip:
Write a Cost Vs. Payoffs list. What is more important, Value or Price? What kind of experience do you want to have on your wedding day? Do you really want to put your family or friends to work? Accept that you can’t do it all by yourself and delegate. Hire a professional. Having a wedding is a luxury. If paying for a wedding is stressing you out and you’re trying to cut costs, don’t have one! It only costs $60 to get married in Illinois.

2. You are trying to make a wedding happen in less than 6 months.

You’ve been engaged for 2 years and you’ve procrastinated, or you just got engaged and you are super excited. You’ve started looking for venues 3 months before your date and all of them are booked except for Sundays and you were dreaming of a Saturday wedding in September (the most popular dates in Chicago).

Self Care Tip:
Give yourself 12 - 15 months before your wedding date! This will give you plenty of time to consult with a wedding planner who can tell you right off the bat what to expect before you start planning. Think about whether you want to have a wedding before you jump into it! Take a breath and give yourself the gift of at least a year of planning. It’s okay, you can wait to get married!

3. You are walking before you crawl.

If you are thinking about the color of your invitations and you haven’t even selected a venue. STOP! Take a breath and go back to the big picture. Your budget will influence what kind of venue you can select. Your venue will set the look and feel for your design which will help you make decisions about your dress and invitations later down the road.

Self Care Tip:
Start big picture and then move to details. Budget first. Venue second. Caterer third. Book the rest of your vendors and then move onto smaller details.

4. You don’t really want to have a wedding.

You hate parties. You hate attention. You hate having photos taken of you. The thought of everyone toasting you makes you gag. The thought of spending money on a wedding instead of buying a home is absurd. You hate everything about it.

Self Care Solution:
Take a breath and ask yourself - why are you having a wedding? For your family? Because it’s what you think you have to do? Stop and think about what you really want! Maybe you’re stressing out because all you really want to do is elope and tell some people about it. Remember weddings are a luxury! You don’t have to have one to spend a wonderful life with someone.

5. You are wedding planning before bed.

You are up all night having sweat nightmares about bacon wrapped dates!

Self Care Tip:
Give yourself 2 hours before bed time with NO wedding planning. Spend this time taking a bath, reading, spending time with your partner. Write a Top 3 To Do list every morning. On your lunch break or after work, tackle the 3 tasks. Then move on with your day!

6. You are doing things that you hate to do or that you aren’t good at doing.

You hate spreadsheets. You hate organizing. Or you love spreadsheets and being in control but you’re afraid that your tendency to micro manage will get in the way of you enjoying yourself on your wedding day.

Self Care Tip:
Check your personality type! The more you understand about the way you work, the more successfully you’ll be able to project manage and the more likely you’ll be able to delegate the tasks you don’t want to do! What personality type are you?

• Type A - “The Boss” - Goal oriented, good under stress but not very detail oriented. You might want to plan your wedding but not manage your wedding.

• Type B - “Social Butterfly” - Enthusiastic, creative, but impatient and not very detail oriented. You might have an eye for design but have no idea how to execute it.

• Type C- “The Thinker” - Detail oriented, logical, not creative. Making decisions is impossible for you. You might need help selecting your vendor team!

• Type D - “The Supporter” - Task oriented, cautious, not creative. Super excited to be given tasks like addressing your wedding invitations, but resists decision making when it comes to the budget and bigger planning decisions.

7. You don’t have any organizational systems in place.

You are “winging” event planning. You don’t know when you should book your venue. You have no idea how much you’re spending. You’re figuring everything out as you go.

Self Care Tip:
Use Google sheets or another platform to help organize your ideas. Create a spreadsheet for your budget, a timeline with deadlines for your planning and research what things cost. Or, hire a wedding planner! We use a software program called Aisle Planner which has every event planning tool you could ever need - from a budget tool, to a guest list tool! Pro tip: create a separate email account for wedding planning! Organize your email folders into each category of event planning. Anything that you get from your DJ, you put in the DJ folder and so on. That way, when you’re done event planning it isn’t all mixed in with your personal or your business email!

8. You work 40+ hours a week and you are planning your wedding by yourself.

You own your own business. You have an extremely demanding job. You work at night and sleep during the day. You simply don’t have enough time in the day to email vendors back and forth or spend countless hours reading reviews on Yelp or Wedding Wire to select the right vendor for you.

Self Care Tip:
Talk to a wedding planner. We can help you task manage or take over the task all together. You don’t have to do everything by yourself! You already work really hard all day long! Happy people delegate. Consider that this will allow you to enjoy your engagement in a happier more present way.

9. You are letting your friends and family tell you what kind of wedding you should have.

You’re getting caught up in other people’s opinions instead of making your wedding about you and your partner. Maybe your sister used to work in the industry and is calling you up with horror stories about her days in the business. Maybe you run into a friend on the train and they make a face when you tell them you don’t want to wear a veil. (This happened to me.) Perhaps your grandmother threatens not to attend when you tell her you don’t want a religious ceremony.

Self Care Tip:
Smile. Nod your head and say “ Thank you so much for your suggestion to _________ mom/sister/best friend.” Then move on and do what you want to do. It’s your wedding day. Not theirs. It’s not your responsibility to take care of them. If they want to be negative that’s on them. It always works out in the end.

10. Money is stressing you out.

You don’t know how much things cost. You fall out of your chair when you see a quote from your caterer because you don’t understand how the costs work. You don’t know how much you want to spend. You don’t want to think about it at all.

Self Care Tip:
Make decisions based on numbers instead of emotions. Set a budget from Day One. Set your priorities. Are you a foodie and want to splurge on filet mignon? Don’t care so much about flowers? Put more money into catering than the decor. Talk to a wedding planner! We know how much everything costs in this industry. We know how to manage expectations. We can help you figure out what is most important and where to place your money based on your goals. It’s just like buying a home or starting a business. You need a plan!

More on this:
Manage expectations around money. Is your mom paying for the catering and you are paying for the flowers? Let your mom manage the catering. Let her have the shrimp cocktail and the champagne toast. She’s paying for it. Mom doesn’t like roses? Too bad. She isn’t paying for it. And remember, money IS abundant in this world. There is a lot of it and you can have it, too. This is such an important day to you, and you deserve an out of this world experience. Don’t let money scare you into doing something sub par. If you set a goal, you will be amazed how the universe can manifest it for you. Talk to your family. Your grandmother DOES want to help out and chip in for the wedding. You don’t have to do it by yourself!

Still feeling stressed out? Sit down with Fierce! We offer a no pressure complimentary consultation. We are passionate about supporting our clients, so they can rest easy throughout the wedding planning process. We’ll help you bring your creative vision to life! Book your free consultation by filling out our contact form, or call us at 872-588-1542 to learn more!