Mrs2Be

How to avoid wedding planning stress

 

Getting married is one of the top four stressful situations a person can do in their lifetime. It is as stressful as getting divorced, going on holiday or moving home.

I can say that, having experienced almost all of those stressful situations, getting married was easily the most stressful, and for several very good reasons.

So, I pass on to you, the woeful tale of my wedding-related mistakes in the hope that at least one of us can learn from them.

 

Saying 'Yes' is just the beginning

Jeremy and I met in 1991. Having got engaged in 1992, we then concentrated on setting up home together and having children before panic set in during late 1998 when I realised that not only was I fast approaching 30, but that I would enter the new millennium as, essentially, a single woman with children and a 'partner'. I mean, what do I call him? I was too old to have a 'boyfriend', not posh enough to have a 'fiancé' and evidently not gay, in which case 'life partner' would have been perfectly acceptable.

2 Spice Girls & I

Having decided to tie the knot, I went to the newsagents and bought every magazine with a woman in white on the cover before going feverishly in search of the perfect venue. The stakes were raised, as two Spice Girls were planning their weddings that year. believe me, the offer of two thrones at the Fir Grove was too tempting.

The first hotel I liked was fully booked for the whole year . The room I liked in another was about to be renovated, with other rooms either too big or too small. Lots of hotels were too expensive. We eventually went for a safe option, a hotel where we had made our first public outing as a couple at an office Christmas bash almost a decade earlier. The Cresta Court hotel, in Altrincham, Cheshire was hardly the leafy country retreat of my dreams, as it is situated at a busy city centre junction. I was willing to live with this because the hotel, and the room we ended up taking, symbolised something. Pick your venue with care, yes - but you will (almost) never find perfection.

Pick a Date...... Any Date.....

Having decided on the hotel the next decision was the date. Why on earth did I want a June wedding when we started dating in November and nothing of any importance ever happened to us in June? In the end, June was booked so we settled on July 15th, a date so utterly meaningless to me that I have trouble remembering it. If you pick a date that has at least some significance then you will save yourself additional stress every year as you struggle to remember - was it the 14 th or the 15 th?

No Expiry Date

So my first tip is, to not feel as though all the details have to be sorted out straight away. Even if it means waiting for a little longer than you would have wanted, it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to organise every detail immediately.

Remember that unless your groom specifically said that the offer would expire in 30 days, there is no rush to speed up the aisle. I know if I had booked for a November wedding I would have been happier, had more money available and been less uncomfortable in a corseted dress in the middle of summer. But the story about the dress comes later............!

 

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