Planning Stress

I feel your pain! I’ve been finding I’ve been getting more stressed recently, and had a pretty much continuous headache this week.

To help ground myself I’ve started thinking about things in categories of how essential are they vs how much control I have over them

For example, I was stressing about the card postbox we’ve ordered off Etsy not arriving yet. How essential is it? Not very, we could put out a basket. How much control do I have? None, it’s with the a non-trackable courier. So it goes in my list of things it’s pointless to worry about.

Another: I was stressed about my sister telling me I won’t be able to walk down the aisle without someone to give me away (she thinks it’d be too hard even though it’s what I want). How essential is it? Very, I need to get down the aisle! How much control do I have? 100% control. So I don’t need to worry about it because I’m in complete control of what will happen.

It makes me feel calmer because I’ve yet to find something essential that I don’t have any control over, so everything I can’t entirely control is non-essential and therefore not worth worrying about.

Oh yeah, I also booked a spa break, hoping that’ll deal with any residual stress 😂

1) Focus on what really matters - you and your OH getting married. As long as all the legal bits are in place, everything else is kind of optional. Yes, your wedding day is special, but a day is all that it is - so don't let it take over.

2) Don't be afraid to simplify if things are getting on top of you - weddings are getting ever more complicated, and it's fine if that's what you want, but don't be afraid to ask yourself 'Do I really need this?'

3) There's more to life than wedding planning! Make sure you have at least one day a week when you don't do wedding stuff - ideally, try to keep it to one or two nights a week. And make sure that you and your OH spend some time together doing something other than wedding planning. Go for a walk or a coffee and ban all wedding talk during that time!

4) Delegate where you can and take on board anyone else's problems. Get your OH to take on some of the admin, and if you have family and friends who you can trust not to take over, then it's also worth asking them if they would mind helping out.

I think first of all it’s important to acknowledge that it’s normal to be stressed, a lot of people describe this as the most stressful thing they’ve done, as most of us aren’t event planners or project managers.


We’ve done a variety of small things to kind of reclaim and reutilise our time more efficiently, not just because of the wedding but it did help motivate me to be more efficient with our time. Some of the pragmatic things outside of read more, less screen time, meditate etc.:- A mid-week click and collect food order, rather than spending hours trundling round shops on a Saturday morning. Wednesday night at Tesco is like 25p for me!- A fortnightly ironing lady to deal with shirts, trousers, blouses etc., all the the things I hate ironing! Reclaimed my Sunday afternoons.- Starting work a little earlier. Morning is dead time, I’d rather have a longer evening. We have flexibility with work though.- Gym/Pilates on set nights per week, to provide structure, and we go together, but it’s our mental chill out time. No talking, and definitely not about the wedding! I will caveat that I was a gym-goer before, so it may stress some out more than help them tbf.- Dedicated Wedmin time. It can feel stressful if you’re dealing with everything as soon as it comes up, we have planned in evenings, and that’s when we get through things, tick things off my giant spreadsheet, rest of the time, we don’t talk about it, unless it’s to add a new task to the spreadsheet.- Date days. We have kept our 1 date day a month thing going for a few years now, and that is a wedding/stress free day of just being ourselves and not the high-pressured adults we are the rest of the time.
Hope your stress levels come down soon!

I've been stressed at times and then my fiancé tells me to relax and enjoy the wedding including the preparation. He tells me not to worry. The best thing to do is to enjoy it all. That helps me relax.

We've started "prosecco and planning" or "pints and planning" where we go to the pub, with a laptop if we think we'll need it, and sort out predetermined wedding things e.g. last time it was decide on the readings and choose the wording for our vows. It helps keep wedding planning fun and stops it taking over your life! Outside of these sessions we try as best as possible to avoid wedding talk unless it's fun chat, anything that starts to devolve into a stress or a hard decision, gets earmarked for prosecco and planning and we put a time in our calendar for when we're going to do it!

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I love this idea!! I think I might give it a go. Im almost at 3 months to go, so its getting a bit full on, so i think this will help manage it

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Oh yay!! I hope it works for you - it's been a game changer for us! We're a month after you so a similar timeline. I feel like as soon as it hit 2023 the stress really started to hit and this has definitely helped keep it feeling fun and celebratory

Just to add to the other comments, which are great, btw....
Trust your vendors. They do weddings and parties all the time. Leave them to do their thing and don't try and get involved in every tiny detail. So we got married last week, woohoo!!!! The flowers in the church, we told the ladies what colours we wanted then left them to it and they were beautiful.
We left the venue to decide exactly where the buffet and cake and tables were- we said, whatever worked for the kitchen and serving. Trust you other half- my hubby sorted our wedding cake, I had no involvement at all! I trusted my best mate to do the Spotify playlists and format the order of service for printing, just left him to it, all worked out perfectly. Finally, try not to have too much "stuff" you don't need which all takes organising. You don't need favours, printed place names- hand written is fine, you don't need entertainers, people just chat, you don't need slippers, blankets or loads of personalised things. Probably a bit late now, but cut the bridesmaids- they can be v stressful...... 🤣🤣🤣People only remember the love, the marriage and seeing friends friends family, not whether the chairs had sashes or not. Good luck x

Hey girls! I understand your pain so well. I have gone through this myself, and now I am working on a start-up focused on simplifying the wedding planning process. I would greatly appreciate it if you agreed to have a chat with me to share your pain points in the wedding planning process. Pls email me on *****@************.***