Brides to Be - Tips to Avoid Wedding Stress

Although it seems an absolute life time ago now, this time last year I was on the 3 month countdown to our wedding and honeymoon. With a to do list that seemed to get longer more rapidly than it got shorter, it was pretty hard not to feel the stress!

With wedding season coming up, and lots of brides-to-be probably feeling the same way I did, I decided to put together a little list of tips for brides (or grooms!) who may be feeling the stress.

1. LIST LIST LIST. This is probably an obvious one, but the important part of making a list is that it's detailed enough to make sure that nothing will be forgotten. Initially when you start planning your list can be a bit more general, eg dress, grooms wear, flowers etc. When you get closer to the date, break these down so that every task is accounted for, eg

Grooms wear -

• Choose suits
• Order suits
• Suit fitting
• Collect suits
• Steam suits
• Shoes
• Belt
• Shirt.... And so on and so on

It can seem overwhelming when your list grows and grows but it really does ensure that nothing can be missed, and if you're anything like me you'll get a great feeling of satisfaction when you see more and more items marked off. (I used a highlighter to mark off my completed jobs and oh, the joy I felt when the page became a glowing shade of pink!).

2. Use a calendar to schedule in plans. As above, your lists can become huge and overwhelming, particularly if you are doing a lot of DIY tasks like I was, for example making your invites, diy candy buffet, decor etc. To keep me sane, around 3 months before the wedding I printed off a calendar and scheduled in when I expected to do each job. For the final week I used a weekly calendar with more space, which let me scribble on, in detail, what was happening in the final week before the wedding. Feeling like you have time to get everything done really helps to keep your stress to a minimum.

I printed mine directly from my printer but these pages here from Urban Girl blog are pretty similar to what I used -

3. Sort out the legal stuff as soon as you can. Again this seems really obvious but despite me seeming really organised, I'm actually a complete procrastinator and leave most things until the last minute. However this one - DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE. I did joke at times that if I didn't get the legal stuff sorted and the humanist booked that we'd just be having a big party, but obviously we sorted it in the end, after a mild panic that I was going to be too late!

Read more for advice on Marriage in Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales.

4 - Get hair and make up trials ASAP. Talking of leaving things to the last minute, this is another one that I left rather late. So when my make up and hair trial was a complete disaster (naming no names) I was left 2 weeks before the wedding in a blind panic about what to do. Get this done early, to give yourself enough time to book a back up if need be. In the end I did my own hair and make up and used the money I'd saved on some fancy make up (dangerous, now I have a taste for expensive cosmetics!).

5 - Let others help. A DIY wedding doesn't literally mean you need to do every bit yourself. It can be hard to let go of some control if you have a very clear image in your mind of what things will be like, but seriously, let your family and friends help you. Whether it's just cutting identically sized strips of lace or sticking a sticky fixer on each corner of a card (actual jobs my family did), these little jobs take time, and you won't lose any "artistic control " by passing them over to a family member. If they want to help - let them!

6 - Now that you've got family and friends roped in, put your feet up and take some time off! Kidding! Well kind of. I don't mean leave others doing your work for you, but you do need to make some time for non wedding life stuffs. Grab your fiancé and go out for a meal, read a (non wedding related) book, or put your feet up with a wee glass of wine and some trash TV.

7 - Utilise lunch breaks and commutes for contacting suppliers. The majority of my wedding planning was done via email or Facebook messages to various suppliers, and so I quite often used my lunch break to correspond with potential vendors, meaning I usually had a response by the time I finished work that day. This meant that instead of spending an hour in the evening emailing pianists or florists or whoever, I could do something else, like putting my feet up and watching Orange Is The New Black whilst tying 100 tiny pink bows (seriously).

8. Get a wedding website - this tip may actually be too late for couples who marry in the very near future, but having the wedding website was a massive time and sanity saver for us. We used gettingmarried.co.uk and were able to create a page with information about the venue, transport etc. We also used this for our RSVP's which made it quick and easy to see who was coming, who needed seats on the bus etc. We also saved some money by collating all the information on there, as we didn't have to print out loads of stuff to go with the invites. **If you want a peek at our wedding website, please email me and I'll send you the link and password!**

9 - Let it go! (Had to get a bit of Disney in somewhere!) This is easy for me to say now that I've made it out the other side, but honestly, no matter how big your problem might be, try not to panic (too much). We had some little and large hiccups during our planning, including the disaster hair and make up, BHS sending the wrong size dress for my 9 months pregnant bridesmaid (and subsequently being out of stock for the correct size!) and the biggie, my venue cancelling my entire wedding 10 months before. But you know what, we made little (and large) changes, moved on, and had a great day. Did we remember these things on our wedding day? No. Did we have an absolutely amazing day? Yes.

Have a cry, then Let it Go!

10 - Remember what it's all about! Similar to my last point, just remember that no problem you have will ever be bigger or more important than the reason you are getting married in the first place. I'm not going to lie, during the planning process there was at least 2 times when I cried while mumbling out the words " I can't be bothered with all this crap, I just want to be your wife", which made me wonder why I hadn't just run off to Florida and got married with Mickey and Minnie as our only guests. But it was all worth it in the end, the wedding itself went without a single problem (that mattered) and by the end of the day we were husband and wife, which really is the only thing that really, truly mattered.

I really hope these tips might help someone, but if you have any more questions please feel free to email me (jillyloves@hotmail.com) me or tweet me or just leave a question in the comments!

Good luck brides!

Jilly xox

Ps links below for more wedding related posts -

Wedding Planning

The Hen Do

Wedding Day Part 1

Wedding Day Part 2