Ah, wedding planning. While we encourage all to-be-weds to #EnjoyTheJourney, it’s inevitable your checklist will feel overwhelming and even all-consuming at times. But if you feel like it’s keeping you up at night and taking over your life, you definitely need to tone it down a notch (your beauty sleep is more important, we promise). Below, find five common signs you’re getting way too worked up over wedding planning, and how to get over it. (And don’t forget to download our Ultimate All-In-One Wedding Planner app—it’s a lifesaver.)
1. You’re using all of your lunch breaks to do wedding-related tasks and errands.
News flash: Skipping meals is bad for your mood and can lead to exaggerated emotions and amped-up stress (sound familiar?). Making a habit of planning instead of relaxing, eating or doing other things you love is a lose-lose.
How to fix it: Set a limit on how often you can swap your salad for a wedding task. Maybe one lunch per week can be wedding related and the rest need to be an actual break.
2. It’s straining your relationship with your partner (and they keep suggesting eloping).
Your wedding planning should be fun (more on that later), not stressful for both you and your partner. Maybe they’re not even involved in planning, but mentioned how excited they are for the process to be over so they can stop hearing about it (ouch). Sometimes it takes a reality check from someone else to know it’s time to put the brakes on your wedding woes.
How to fix it: Press pause on planning for a second—your wedding is about your love for one another, not your reception menu or color palette. If your stress is causing strain to your relationship, then that’s a big indication you need to sit back, relax and have a nice date night with your partner, sans wedding talk. (And so you can assure them your reception will be much more fun than eloping, thank you very much.)
3. You start questioning all of your decisions.
You know you’re overthinking things when you start wanting to trash all your original plans for New! Better! Ideas! Worrying you made the wrong call about your reception venue, which florist to hire or how much to spend on photography will only feed your stress even more, making for a never-ending cycle of fear.
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How to fix it: If doubts start creeping in, let up on planning for a week or two. When you come back with a fresher mind, you’ll have a better idea of which doubts were truly valid and which ones were just a product of your anxiety.
4. You procrastinate on the tasks that really need to get done.
It’s not how you normally picture a bridezilla—ignoring her checklist and putting off to-dos—but if you’re finding yourself neglecting wedding planning tasks, you probably don’t even realize how overwhelmed you are.
How to fix it: If your wedding date is looming and the list looks impossible to tackle, start with something fun and easy, like a cake tasting or shopping for your wedding shoes, to get back into the swing of things. Having a few small items checked off will make the rest seem more doable.
5. It stops being fun.
It all comes down to this: If you’re focusing more on the negative (like the number of guests who RSVP’d “no”) than the positive (like the fact that you’ll be married to the love of your life at the end of all of this), something needs to change.
How to fix it: Come up with a mantra that’ll help you concentrate on the bright side. Reflecting on the fact of why you’re actually doing all of this—because you love your partner—might bring you a huge sense of calm. Trust us: Wedding planning should be thrilling and sublime, not stressful. Don’t let this exciting time go to waste.
