Planning A Wedding When You Suffer From Anxiety

Planning A Wedding When You Suffer From Anxiety

Wedding planning. Many of us gals dream about planning our big day. In my head, I pictured choosing bridesmaid dresses, colour schemes and my wedding dress, and not much else. The reality is way different. You get to do all the fun stuff, and it is pretty cool. But boy does wedding planning also come with a massive ton of crap. I just didn’t realise how stressful it would be, and also how many things there are to do.

It’s kind of crazy what weddings in this day and age have evolved into. I mean, it’s incredible what’s expected of a bride and groom. If you opt for a proper wedding, you’re expected to put on some sort of epic party. And how am I supposed to plan a formal affair when I can’t even lay a table properly myself?

I’m definitely not your average bride. Most brides are totally on it, but organising is not really my thing. Plus, my creativity manifests in my writing and ideas, not arts and crafts. And weddings do seem to involve an unholy amount of arts and crafts. You could literally make ten million things if you wanted to.

Table plans, favours, bows for chairs, table decor, games, things for guests to sign, displays to go around the room. If you’re not careful you can fall into a trap of thinking you can make so much shit, not realising making shit takes a hell of a lot of time. Like months and months. My sister, who is thankfully very artistic, is making loads of stuff for our wedding, and she needed six months advanced notice of what to make.

But all this stuff isn’t even the hardest part. Yes, I’m stressed about getting all this stuff done. But what I’m more stressed and anxious about is pleasing other people. I don’t know what it is about weddings, but they literally send people bat shit crazy. Like proper psycho. Suddenly, everyone has an opinion and it’s not really about you anymore. And if people don’t get what they want at your wedding, you’re in for all sorts of abuse. It’s like switch goes off in people’s heads as soon as anyone mentions the word wedding.

You will have the challenges of deciding who to invite, and being told you have to invite X and Y person. You will be burdened with wedding politics. And by this I mean who plays what role, who does certain things on the day, where you put certain family members. The list goes on.

Most of this stuff happened in the early stages, when we were making big decisions about our wedding theme and when/where to have our wedding. I’ve found that once you make a decision and tell people ‘this is what’s happening’, they have to suck it up and get on with it.

You will probably get a few uber annoying negative comments along the way, but it’s your job not to let that bother you. Because if you do let other people get to you, not only will it not end up being your wedding as you’d imagined it, you will really struggle to cope.

I’m just over three months away from getting married. And no, I’m not worried about making a big commitment to one person for the rest of my life. Thankfully that’s the bit I feel most confident and happy about. I’m stressing about things that could potentially go wrong. So here’s a little insight into an anxious bride to be’s brain…

What if I’m ill?

This one’s definitely top the list. Oh god it send shivers down my spine. There are loads of illnesses I can cope with. If I get a cold, well, that’s a bummer but I can deal with that. If I’ve got stomach cramps or a sore throat, yup that will suck too but I’ll manage.

But, what if I get a vomiting bug, one of my horrendous coughs, or, god forbid – diarrhea. Can you imagine having a bad stomach and trying to go to the loo in a wedding dress. Bad times. Very bad times. I keep trying to convince myself that any of these things happening is extremely rare. These days I’m ill about two or three times a year, and it’s never anything that completely knocks me out.

I’m also planning on eating heaps of vegetables and maybe taking some vitamin supplements to improve my chances of being healthy. It may sound a tad OTT but this just might be one of my biggest worries, and it’s partially out of my control.

How do I sleep the night before?

Seriously. Does anyone sleep the night before their wedding? I can never sleep before sports competitions because I’m so darn nervous and worried about failing, I’m sure I will feel the same in the lead up to my wedding.

I will probably just be up all night feeling a bit sick playing different scenarios through my head and simply waiting for morning to come. But I don’t want to look like a zombie bride on my wedding day coz I’ve had no sleep. That’s certainly not going to make me look good in photos.

To counteract this unhelpful worry I’m trying to focus on the nice things instead. So rather than going to bed thinking oh god have I done X,Y,Z, I’m going to picture myself walking down the aisle and seeing my other half for the first time. I’m going to be excited and happy. Well, that’s the goal anyway. If that fails then I may keep a Piriton handy because the drowsy tablets make me super sleepy.

Weather contingency plans

I’m getting married in winter, and all of our wedding is inside, so there really is nothing to be concerned about. All I want is some sort of window where it doesn’t rain so that I can go outside and take some dreamy wedding photos. Pretty please Mr weather man.

I just hope it doesn’t piss it down all day long. These sort of dreary rainy days can happen winter or summer, in fact, we’ve had a few the last couple of weeks. Ideally, I’m after a sunny but crisp, frosty day. Is that too much to ask?

Family dramas on the day

Enough said. I’m hoping everyone behaves themselves and I don’t have to deal with any awks comments or family tiffs. It’s one day people, let’s keep the peace.

Supplier fails

What if some of the suppliers mess up, or worse, can’t get there or don’t turn up? Thankfully, I’ve found an amazing bunch, and I’ve got a lot of faith in them. So I should be all good. But being anxious little me, these worries still find their way into my brain.

Getting my period

Yeah, for realz. I tried to work out the chances of me getting my period the other day and by my current calculations, it’s highly likely I will have it for my hen do and my wedding day. That’s pretty sucky. I’m hoping that the universe helps me out and I miss my wedding day by a few days.

Because no one wants to have to deal with their menstrual flow whilst trying to look elegant and sexy in a white dress. Or not be able to make sweet sweet love on their wedding day (just kidding, I’m guessing we’ll probs be too shattered anyways). Some ladies have the luxury of being on the pill and being able to simply back to back a pack, meaning they skip a period. But I can’t have the pill so I’ve got no control over my bodily hormonal behaviour. ARGGGH.

Bloating

I’m literally going to be terrified of everything I eat the week before the wedding. I get such bad bloating. I constantly look about three months pregnant and feel like my belly is an enormous balloon. I’d really like to have a nice flat tum on my wedding day, so I’ve got to be darn careful not to eat anything that will make me go pop. I’m currently trying to decide what the safest thing to eat the night before when I go out for dinner with the bridesmaids. Plain chicken and rice anyone?

Reaching my target body shape

Currently one of my main concerns atm. I’ve got three months to whip myself into shape, and although I don’t really need to lose weight as such, I’m nowhere near happy with my body. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be tiny and bony. I just want to be toned and feel like I tried my best to have a healthy body.

I don’t want my arms to look enormous in photos, and I’d quite like some muscle definition. I thought I’d have loads of motivation to hit the gym and get super fit, but for some reason the motivation just hasn’t materialised. I’m still active, but I haven’t really been doing anything extra. I needed a kick up the butt. I can’t seem to change my habits on my own.

I need to examine my relationship with food and find some real motivation. So I’m doing a life coaching programme for three months with Antonio Esposito. Click here to find out more about it. I will be writin a post about my journey very soon. 

So yeah. Those are my main worries. I’d be interested to know what other things brides to worry about? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

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