Steadying Your Emotions While Planning Your Nuptials

Regardless of your emotional stability prior to your engagement, knowing you’re going to marry your sweetheart can cause spontaneous outbreaks of sentimentality and tears. Throughout the wedding-planning process, some brides and grooms experience such overwhelming emotion from time to time – seemingly for no reason – that they cannot contain it. For those of you dealing with this, here are some suggestions on how to balance out your intense feelings during the engagement.

-  Give yourself a lot of time. Though we typically recommend eleven months as a general timeline for your engagement, it’s important that you and your partner cater that length of time to your wants and needs. Picking a wedding date one and a half to two years out will give you some extra slack when it comes to planning, allowing you to take more time to soak in your engagement, feel the emotions fully, then refocus on the logistics. You won’t feel as pressed for time, so you can afford to get sentimental more often!

-  See a therapist. It may seem extreme, but having the opportunity to release all of your emotions in organized periods of time is such a relief. Even if your feelings are all positive reflections of how happy you are, talking to an unbiased third party about any overwhelming emotions is always a great way to better your mental health. Additionally, you’re bound to run into stress during planning – talking out those frustrations with a counselor is a cathartic way to express yourself.

-  Don’t bottle up your emotions. Discuss these feelings with your beloved, close friends, or family – but don’t dwell. There’s no need to hide your joy: you’re excited! Taking the time to let your loved ones in on why you feel such overwhelming emotion is a great way to keep it in check – but be careful not to linger on the subject at every little milestone, as that isn’t healthy for anyone involved.

-  Focus on what needs to be done. Once you’ve had your cry, or even when you feel your emotions escalating farther than where you’d like them to be, look over your to-do list. It may not be the most enjoyable option, but turning your attention to booking a florist, making the guest list for your bridal shower, or researching that band you’ve heard so much about can help regulate the sentimental aspects with the logistical tasks. It’s important to strike the right balance between the right and left brains.

Read tips from celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss on what not to forget while planning, find out how to handle low attendance at your wedding, and see how you can effectively plan your nuptials at work!