How to Manage Wedding Stress

Your wedding day should be the happiest day of your life, but planning those nuptials is not always a pleasant experience. Stress can take what should be a joyous occasion and turn it into a chore, but there are things you can do to reduce the tension and enjoy the amazing ceremony you have been dreaming of all your life.

Planning a wedding is not an easy thing to do, but following a few simple rules and setting some smart ground rules can help a lot. Here are some tips for managing wedding stress, so you can truly enjoy the first day of your happy and lifelong marriage.

Start Your Planning As Early As Possible

If you are eloping, getting married on the spur of the moment is totally doable, but if that is the case you would not have an elaborate wedding to plan. If you are reading this article you are probably getting married in the more traditional way, and that means you have plenty of time to plan it all out.

Setting up artificial time constraints will do nothing but increase your stress levels, and it is always a good idea to start your planning early. If you think it will take three months to plan the perfect (or nearly perfect) wedding, giving yourself six months will reduce the inherent stress and make it easy to recover from the inevitable setbacks and snafus along the way. Increasing the length your wedding timeline is a simple and proactive way to reduce stress. Ensuring the ceremony is planned and the wedding emergency essentials are set greatly relieves pressure from the planning stage.

Set a Realistic Budget

Nothing is more stressful than worrying about money, and planning an elaborate wedding that is outside your ability to pay will do more than wreck the ceremony. If you overspend on your wedding, you will be going into your marriage short of cash, never a good idea for a couple just starting out in life.

The number one thing you can do to manage wedding stress is to set a realistic budget, but that is not as easy as it sounds. Chances are you have never planned your own wedding before, and that means you are probably unfamiliar with the various costs. Spending time researching those expenses and shopping around for the best flowers, the best dress, and the best venue will allow you to stay on budget and still make your ceremony and reception the best they can be.

Remember That Your Wedding Day is the Beginning

It is easy to see the wedding as a singular event, and it is certainly true that this day will be a vitally important one. Even so, it is important to remember that the wedding itself is just the beginning and that the truly important part is the marriage that follows.

When viewed through this lens, last-minute emergencies on your wedding day start to fade into significance. In time those issues with the dress or problems with the cake will become funny cocktail party stories, not the show stoppers they felt like on the wedding day.

Think About Potential Family Drama When Setting Up the Guest List and Seating Chart

Every family has its drama, but your wedding day is not the time for that drama to play out. If you want to manage your wedding planning stress and enjoy a stress-free wedding day experience, you need to start with the guest list and the seating chart.

Do not be afraid to exclude relatives and friends whose presence would be truly toxic - this is your day and you get to decide who can and cannot attend. If a problematic or dramatic relative must be invited, you can use the seating chart to keep them far away from people they do not get along with. This may not be the perfect solution, but in some cases it will be the best one.

Forget the Fairy Tale Fantasies: Nothing is Ever Perfect

The fairy tales you read when you were younger have done you a big disservice. In those fantasy stories everything was always perfect, and the lucky bride was whisked away in a horse-drawn carriage.

In the real world no wedding day, no matter how expensive or how well planned, has ever been that perfect. If you are aiming for perfection on your big day, you are bound to be disappointed, so focus on making your ceremony and reception the best it can be. You do not have to have a fairy tale wedding to enjoy a life of wedded bliss, and focusing on the practicalities will give  you something realistic to aim for.

Take Some Me (or Us) Time

Planning a wedding is hard, and there are bound to be roadblocks along the way. If you want to minimize stress in the lead up to your big day, it is best to not sweat the small stuff. Twenty years from now no one will remember that the cake was a bit dry or that the reception hall décor was less than stunning - what they will remember is that you and your spouse are happy, healthy and enjoying an amazing 20th anniversary.

It is also important to take some time away from wedding planning, something that will be entirely possible if you begin that planning process early. Enjoying a spa day on your own or a weekend at a luxury resort with your future spouse will help you recharge your batteries and give you the energy you need to continue planning the perfect wedding.

Hire a Wedding Planning Professional

Planning a wedding is hard, but the good news is you do not have to go it alone. There are professionals whose only job is to make your wedding day as perfect as possible, and hiring a wedding planner can greatly reduce your stress by handling all the details you have not even thought of.

You might not know how to find the freshest flowers for the centerpiece and the bouquets, but your wedding planner does. You may not be an expert at catering a hundred guest feast, but an experienced wedding planner can find wedding day food that tastes like it came from a five-star restaurant.

Taking the stress out of planning a wedding is not an easy thing to do, but with the right planning and some creative solutions you can minimize the stress you feel and focus on what is really important. The tips listed above can help you truly love your wedding, all without sending your stress levels skyrocketing.