How to Stay Sane While Planning a Wedding

It’s wedding season, folks! Chances are, you’ve got friends posing for cheesy engagement photos at sunset, on horseback, on the beach. Or you’re going to go a little hungry this summer because you’ve got a lot of presents to buy for the weddings you’re attending (look at you, Mr. Popular). Or you’re beginning to panic about your own wedding as you watch in awe the spectacle that has become the modern wedding.

Don’t get me wrong, planning a wedding is tremendous fun and if you’re doing it, it’s (hopefully) a happy occasion. That said, it can be overwhelming and can feel like another full-time job, only with more emotions, opinions, and tempers than you ever thought possible. Here’s how to keep your cool (and your sanity) while tackling the biggest party you’ll ever throw, from a bride who’s right there with you.

1) Enlist the best team possible

My soldiers in this are my mom and my best friend. My mom will drive up and down the Bay Area with me looking for venues, dresses, rentals, fabrics, Narnia – whatever. She’ll venture through 100+ degree heat and rooms full of toy monkeys because I heard there’s a lovely venue/caterer/juggler we have to see, so she’s there and she’s ready to help. I can ask her to take care of tasks with the absolute certainty that they’ll be done and done well. Someone like that is indispensible because there’s no way you’re doing it alone.

My best friend is the same way, only she handles different tasks. She is my emotional support and pitbull. She’s got my back when I get (unnecessarily) worried that something is going to go wrong, and she’s ready to take down whoever is doing the messing up. She’ll be there whether I ask her to come over for help with a panicky, last-minute invitation mailing or whether I need her to help me get some much-needed perspective. And I know she’ll tackle anyone who crashes my wedding (contingency plans are already in place, folks).

Between the two of them, I’ve got the trusted support I need to make this whole circus run smoothly, even when the elephants are spraying water everywhere and the bearded ladies have gone on strike.

2) Master the art of saying, ‘’No’’

Oh, you think what this wedding needs is your cousin’s clown troupe to perform during the ceremony? Thanks, but no. While that may be a slightly weirder (if more unique) suggestion than what I’ve actually gotten, it accurately conveys how I might feel if someone who just met me decides that they know exactly what my wedding needs. And that seems to happen a lot to brides.

As soon as someone catches wind of an impending matrimony, they bust out the unsolicited advice. Sometimes it’s ok, if it’s coming from a friend or they’re telling you what worked for them as a way to give you guidance, but most of the time it’s phrased as, ‘’You should…’’ or the even worse, ‘’Oh, you’re doing that?’’ Just because something did or didn’t fit someone else’s style, doesn’t mean it will have the same results for everyone. To all those well-wishers who want you to do everything the way they did or who can’t understand why you won’t just pay for an ice sculpture of yourselves dancing the tango, just say no, firmly and politely. Otherwise you’ll be stuck with a clown troupe spinning plates during the most important moments of your life, and you’ll regret that a lot more than the you’ll regret confrontation.

3) Don’t trust Pinterest

Oh, sure, it’s all pretty and dreamy and romantic but Pinterest weddings are notoriously high-budget and often come from magazine shoots or deals with the devil rather than normal people planning their holy matrimony. Please, for the sake of your sanity, don’t hold your wedding up to those standards.

4) Learn to shrug it off

When I started the planning process, I wanted everything to be perfect and carefully done. So when the time came for mailing out Save the Dates, I set up a beautifully organized table with delicate instruments for making sure I get the envelopes closed just so. A few months and much more experience later, I am stuffing invitations into envelopes on the floor of my bedroom because there isn’t time for all the delicate hoopla. Choose what’s important to you and focus on that. There’s no way you’ll be able to do everything with the same care and attention, so don’t kick yourself.

I know something’s going to go wrong. It always does, for everyone. And I’m training myself to shrug it off. Cake doesn’t make it? Have a contingency plan and shrug it off. Someone uninvited shows up? Have your best friend tackle them and shrug it off (see: #1). No matter what happens on your wedding day, as they say in show business, the show must go on!

5) Remember to enjoy yourself

I said in the beginning that a wedding is a happy occasion and although the planning process can feel overwhelming, it’s important to enjoy every moment of it. You’re (hopefully) only doing this once, and you’ll never again have the opportunity to be as selfish as you’re allowed to be as a bride. Relish the attention, enjoy the free cake, and remember the point of the whole thing isn’t the fireworks or the caviar blini – it’s about you and your spouse declaring your love and starting a life together.

And the clowns. It’s also about the clowns.

Tatiana Sundeyeva has gotten into the terrible habit of thinking too much about everything. She enjoys fantasizing about traveling, compulsively buying literature, laughing at her own puns, and consuming anything (and everything) that can be found in a bakery. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley where she got a degree in English with a minor in Italian. She can be found celebrating awesome female friendships on LadyBromance.com.

by Tatiana Sundeyeva