Don't Sweat The Small Stuff!

Whenever you are feeling stressed frustrated and overwhelmed by all the wedding planning and preparations, step back, take a deep breath and reassess. Wedding stress can take the joy out of everything!

Do you really think anyone but you will care if the wedding programs aren't folded perfectly, or that the font Times Roman and not Century Schoolhouse was used? Who will even notice that the bridesmaids wore different styles of shoes? Does it really matter if your wedding bouquet has five lilies instead of six? Who is going to notice if the you had a printable wedding invitation on handmade paper rather than ones that were letter pressed?

Don't let the pressure of trying to create a "perfect wedding" drive you into an early grave. Your wedding day is a celebration of the love the you and your fiancee share for each other, and a way to share that love with those you care for and who care about you. If you are seeing your wedding as a chore because planning is such a miserable experience, then you really have to rethink your process. Here is a site with checklists and other wedding aids to help you simplify. You can even get your own wedding planner from PhotoWorks to help you through the process.

You want your happiest wedding day memories to be of the adoring look on his face as you walk down the aisle, and of the happy, friendly wedding reception where you all celebrate your new marriage in joy. You don't want the happiest memory of your wedding to be relief that it is finally over!

I vividly recall a wedding I attended as a child. It was 95 degrees and really humid. A huge storm system had dropped several inches of rain the day before the wedding and everything was wet. The air-conditioning of the church was non-existent and two bridesmaids and a groomsman passed out from the heat. At the wedding reception, held in the bride's family backyard, the ground was so soaked that the chairs were sinking into the earth whenever anyone sat down. It was a race between which would melt first - the ice sculpture or the wedding cake.

And yet, the wedding couple was happy and smiling. All the guests took their cues from them. Because they were calm and unstressed, the guests remained calm and happy. What could have been a disastrous afternoon turned out to be fun and actually frivolous as everyone took off their shoes and tramped around in the mud, eating, drinking, and even dancing in bare feet. Twenty years later and that marriage is still going strong and whenever we are together, we all recall what a wedding it was! There was no wedding stress at that wedding - and everything that could go wrong did go wrong!

Make your wedding what you, as the wedding couple, want it to be! Don't sweat the small stuff. Whether you are having an elaborate traditional wedding, an at-home informal wedding reception or a destination wedding, the most important thing to remember is that you are getting married to the person you love and everything else is secondary.