They are supposed to be blushing, glowing, ecstatic.
But for many brides-to-be, the stress of planning a wedding — let alone a
married life — is enough to turn a slight blush into a red-faced meltdown.
“They go into it quite innocently thinking this is going to be wonderful,
this is going to be fun,” said the Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway, who helps run a
Bridal Survival Club in New York. “It doesn’t really take long for them to get
stressed out. They get into this mode of people-pleasing and creating this
‘perfect’ wedding.”
The details alone can be overwhelming: There’s the guest list, the
save-the-date cards, the invitations, the registry, the flowers, the dress, the
cake, the centerpieces, the music, the bridesmaids’ gifts, the favors. There’s
picking the location, finding an officiant, planning the honeymoon.
Add to that budget worries (the average American wedding costs $26,327,
according to the Fairchild Bridal Group). Family arguments. Relationship growing
pains. The bride and groom may disagree about how to spend money or deal with
the in-laws.
“We sort of think of engagement as boot camp for marriage because so many
things come up during the engagement that you’ll have to deal with in your
marriage,” said Millie Martini Bratten, editor-in-chief of Bride’s magazine.
So how to keep the happy occasion from turning into a nightmare?
Brides, wedding experts and therapists who specialize in pre-wedding jitters
have a few tips to keep anxiety in check.
The most important: Delegate, especially to your fiance. Men are getting more
involved in wedding planning — there is even isolated talk of metrosexual
“groomzillas” — but for most couples, weddings are still women’s work. Note
there is no Groom’s magazine.
“Women are conditioned in this culture to dream and plan and think about our
wedding. It’s not unusual for us to start thinking about it on the third date,”
says Brockway, author of “Wedding Goddess: A Divine Guide to Transforming
Wedding Stress into Wedding Bliss.”
But giving some control to your fiance — who is going to be your life
partner, after all — can be liberating.
“When you tap into other people’s strengths and let them help you with your
direction, you’ll end up with something even better than you hoped for,” said
Liza Elkind, a television writer and producer in New York who got married in
October.
Another smart way to delegate is to hire a wedding planner or coordinator.
But be sure to find a reliable one. When Brenda Moody had a rehearsal for her
250-guest wedding, the coordinator was a no-show, and Moody was besieged with
questions she didn’t know how to answer.
“I understand why people become bridezilla,” said Moody, 40, of Fontana,
Calif. She excused herself to take a moment to calm down.
“My godson asked if I was OK because he heard me screaming in the bathroom,”
she said. “He said he heard some really bad words.”
Another way to keep anxiety in check is to keep the wedding small and accept
that you will never be Charles and Di. When Brockway heard about runaway bride
Jennifer Wilbanks, she wasn’t a bit surprised.
“The stress related to that kind of wedding is just phenomenal,” she said.
Her advice: Focus on what you want, not what you think your future
mother-in-law might think.
Allison Moir-Smith, who specializes in counseling brides, said anxieties
about wedding details often mask something deeper.
“It’s a lot easier to stress out about favors and flowers and seating
arrangements and to focus on that than to do this really pretty heavy lifting of
dealing with a change in your sense of who you are,” said Moir-Smith, who is
publishing a book next year, “Emotionally Engaged: A Bride’s Guide To Surviving
the ‘Happiest’ Time of Her Life.”
New brides are losing their identities as single women, their sense of being
daddy’s little girl, even their dating life with their husbands-to-be.
Understanding the reasons for that stress can help deal with it.
“For most brides, this deeper stuff is going on within them, privately,
alone. They don’t share it with anybody. It can be a very painful and very
lonely time of life,” Moir-Smith said.
Sometimes obsessing over the details masks fears about whether to get married
at all.
“The e-mail I get most frequently says, ‘I’m engaged and I don’t want to
marry him, but I have the hall,’” said Rachel Safier, who wrote “There Goes the
Bride: Making Up Your Mind, Calling It Off & Moving On.”
Several people interviewed for this story agreed that the wedding industry
profits handsomely from pre-wedding jitters and the perfectionism it inspires.
But most agreed that those they knew in the industry simply wanted to help
couples fulfill their dreams.
“It’s easy to be bitter at the wedding industry when you’re 10K in the hole,
but to me that’s like blaming McDonald’s for obesity. Honey, you don’t have to
eat there. No one is forcing you into Vera Wang,” Safier said.
Martini Bratten said the stress of wedding planning typically disappears as
the day approaches — and most brides say they would do it all over again.
“There aren’t many times in life when we get together to celebrate something
really happy,” she said. “There’s this rush of love in the room that puts it all
in perspective and you don’t know that until you’re there.”
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