Hitting A Major Rut
It’s four months before my wedding and I gotta tell you – I was getting to a point where I just wanted it to be over. This post was originally supposed to be about choosing your outfits; which is also important (and I may add it in later) but I think that this topic is also important because to be honest, I never saw it coming. I kept asking around and everyone said this was normal for every bride, but it just felt awful to me. I began to completely stop caring about my wedding.
I know I still have a whole four months ahead but we’ve gotten a lot done and the closer it comes to my wedding, I was finding myself less and less interested in it because of how stressed I was. There were so many decisions to make, so many small things to remember and SO many opinions. Not to mention I’m planning this from another country since I live in NYC.
It was all just hitting me really hard and when I was planning in the beginning it seemed so far away it almost felt like I was planning a dream.. it was just me and Karma, we weren’t getting too many opinions and we had so much time to change our minds and do whatever we wanted. Now that it’s so close, so many people are giving their two cents and confusing us and whether it’s us or our parents.. people keep changing their minds! It can be so frustrating and honestly I didn’t know what to do, I was getting to a point where I thought, “I’ll just plan this like any other event, go through the motions and be done with it”… which isn’t at all how you should feel planning your wedding.
Now however I’m finally starting to feel good about it again and I’d like to share with you a couple things that helped me out, for whenever you hit your rut (because trust me, you will).
Express how you’re feeling to your fiancé
This is the #1 thing you should do. For a while I’d do this, and Karma could tell that I was frustrated but he wasn’t sure how to respond. Eventually, when he realized it was all stress related he began to comfort me a lot and it made me feel better – it reassured me that we were still doing this because of how much we loved each other and that this rut was just a hump we needed to get over. There were times throughout my “rut” where we bumped heads a lot, got annoyed about stuff etc. But at the end of the day I always told him exactly how I felt and I came to realize that parts of him were feeling the same way. Eventually, we began to comfort each other and decided we would get over the hump together.
Don’t be negative, and don’t let others drama get to you
I was starting to be SO negative. Honestly, sometimes I still am. Anytime anyone asked me about the wedding I wasn’t excited at all – I’d roll my eyes, or just say, “how my wedding planning going? It’s going I guess..” – I just hated the whole situation and everyone could tell it was getting the best of me. I noticed that all of that negative energy use added to the pressure I was already feeling and it just wasn’t a good attitude to have. Approaching situations in a negative way just caused me to be more irritable when things didn’t go right. Your wedding should never have so much negative energy towards it. It’s important to realize that things will change, your entire vision might change and certain things just may not be realistic. BUT at the end of the day you’re doing this to spend the rest of your life with your partner and that should always be in the back of your mind and THAT should be the thing influencing all of your decisions and thoughts about your wedding. I started coming back to that and a lot of my negativity faded away and I was able to approach things in a much more positive manner. Now, if I feel a negative thought coming on I try to take a step back and think about how I could be positive about it – it’s really helping!
Start planning your personal touches..the stuff that got you excited before
All of the technical stuff can be REALLY overwhelming; lighting, sound, food, confirming numbers etc. All of that stuff and the drama around it (ex. people’s opinions) were really turning me off. The only things that made me feel better were turning back to the things that were really personal to us. For example, our favours, our invitations (ours have illustrations of us on it), our signage (they’re theme based and so fun!), the decor etc. I finished all of the boring technical stuff and got back to the things that made me excited before and that has REALLY helped to lift me out of this crappy rut I was in. It’s helped me get back to the idea that this is OUR wedding, it’s about US and our love and what makes our relationship unique. As soon as you get the chance, focus on that stuff – trust me, you’ll start to feel better.
Have more meetings with your vendors
In the beginning stages of my planning, I finished so much early on that I started to forget what I chose or simply feel so disconnected from the process. It really helped me to have secondary meetings with my vendors to solidify what I chose and validate that I made the right choices and I could stop second guessing myself. I’m really lucky that I have great vendors and they make it so easy for me to talk to them about anything, at any time. Every time I’ve come out of a meeting with a vendor, whether it’s one of my venues, or decor, or my wedding planner – I always feel so much more calm. Shoot them an email or give them a call when you’re feeling uneasy, they deal with stressed brides all the time, they know how to handle it and (at least in my case) I always walk away feeling happier that I spoke with them.
Make a master checklist of what’s left to do
And of course, you still have to focus on what’s left to do. But checking things off the list is a GREAT feeling! I’ve been keeping a master list on Wunderlist (if you don’t have that app get it ASAP) and it’s really helped me to stay on track of all of the little things that are so easy to forget. This helps me feel way more organized and less flustered with all the decisions to be made! Every time I get to cross something off that list, even if it’s something simple, I always feel like a huge weight has been lifted. It gives me the illusion that I have my shit together..even though I know inside there’s still a lot left to do.
Just remember, everyone hits this rut with wedding planning. It’s a huge undertaking, especially if you have a job on top of it. But things do get better and it’s up to you to get yourself out of the rut and back into your happy place. Take if from me, I was so deep in my rut I genuinely thought I’d be fake smiling at the wedding just waiting for it to be over, BUT I got out of it and I’m actually on track to getting excited again! You will be too 🙂 If you need more words of encouragement feel free to DM me @liveshiv… good luck and go get em!!!
