How to banish stress and overwhelm and plan your perfect wedding

So, you’ve sorted the dress, the venue, the menu, the guest list, the bridesmaids, the seating plan, the flowers, you get the picture. Everything is done, right?

 When it comes to planning a wedding the majority of people understandably focus all of their time and attention on the material side of the day. It starts with wildly pinning picture perfect images of vintage styled barn weddings. The perfect flowers, the perfect stationary, the perfect everything.

 And that’s where things can slowly but surely start to feel a little stressful and overwhelming. How are YOU going to live up to that level of perfection? Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a Pinterest board and some vintage bunting. But when your focus becomes solely about the material side of the day is when the sweetest of Brides to be can start morphing into a fire breathing Bridezilla who sends all those that know and love her running for cover.

 No-one wants their wedding to be remembered for the wrong reasons, you know “it was a great day but hell, Susan was such a flippin nightmare in the run up to it that we were just relieved to get it over with” Ouch! And that’s probably the PG version!

 There is a lot of pressure for everything to be right or perfect but if you can keep that in perspective then you’ve got more of a chance of negotiating the run up to the day itself with your sanity intact and your family and friends and maybe even your partner not wanting to send you somewhere far, far away.

 One aspect that often gets overlooked is actually a pretty simple one:

How do you want to feel on your wedding day?

How do you hope your fiancée will feel? 

What is the focus of your day?

What would you like your guests to remember?

By stopping and taking a little bit of time to think about those things, you might even find that bits you thought were important aren’t and vice versa. Something that initially seemed insignificant could turn out to be something you then remember forever.

 Because when it all comes down it, at the heart of everything is two people celebrating a declaration that they will love and cherish the person standing opposite them for the rest of their lives.

 In 10, 20, 30, 40 years are you going to remember the details of the material things or are you going to remember how you felt? When you put on your dress, when you walked down the aisle, when you watched your guests laughing and dancing, enjoying themselves. Creating a memory bank of wonderful experiences is what life is about. I’d love to know what yours are.

 For advice and tips on planning your perfect wedding without the stress and overwhelm please visit my website www.claireenston.com.  This is a Bridezilla free zone, however tiaras are positively encouraged! 

Where to start when you're planning your wedding

Where to start when you’re planning your wedding

Where should you start

It can sometimes feel that you’re at the bottom of ten Everest’s with all the many things that need thinking about and doing when planning a wedding.  How do you avoid stress and overwhelm when you’re planning the most important day of your life?

 Heading towards overwhelm central

If you think about everything that needs to be done in one go then it is going to feel a little overwhelming. There are literally hundreds of things that need to be sorted out and everyone has got an opinion on what works and what doesn’t, what looks good or what an awful wedding that their best friends sister in laws cousin had - Arghhhh!

STOP and breathe

Initially, don’t worry about what anyone else is saying. Once you and your husband to be have agreed on budget and the type of day that you’ll both enjoy,  the best thing to do is break it all down in to manageable areas.

Bite size chunks

Planning a wedding is really just making a series of decisions (if this is something you struggle to do then you’ll get plenty of chances to practice!) There’s a natural  traditional flow to the day, so think about those things in order first but don’t feel that you have to be a slave to what’s included in them:

 Ceremony

Reception

Evening Do

Once you’ve made decisions on these then you can start padding them out. If they’re all happening in the same place – brilliant! Then you can start thinking about what happens during each part. So, for the Ceremony, if it’s in a church for example, do you know how the vicar likes to run things? What will the order of service be? Do you need to print it or will the church?

 Where will it be

I would suggest picking a reception venue before you do anything else. The venue is going to set the tone of the whole wedding. If you go for a grand city venue there’s going to be a very different feel than if you go for a rural barn location. Whichever you choose the steps you go through to make the day a success will be the same.

Take Help where you can 

 If you have a wedding planner within your venue they should be giving you information on what they need and how things will work from their point of view. Make sure you use them but also think about speaking to the food and beverage or catering manager to see if there is anything they think works well or what really doesn’t work.

 Now the fun starts

Once you have the key decisions on ceremony and reception venues made then you can start to see the day taking shape. Now is the time that you can start thinking about all of the really fun stuff that is going to make your day unique.

For tips and advice on planning a stress free wedding then head on over to my website www.claireenston.com

 I don’t do tantrums – this is a Bridezilla free zone, however Tiaras are positively encouraged!