Wedding Planning Sanity

One of the danger zones for those of us really into weddings is that the planning takes over from life. There's also a risk of scaring off the future spouse. I identified myself as a high-risk for driving myself and my future husband nuts and put some mitigation strategies in place so we would both make it to the wedding day with sanity intact.

 

Remember the wedding is only a tiny part of a gigantic picture

This is the most important bit - even though weddings are awesome (and definitely worth celebrating), the celebration is just a party. It might be really important to you (or not, depending on you) but it's definitely not more important than your spouse, your family, and the rest of your life, so if relationships are suffering you probably need to pull back. For yourself this realisation is important too - sometimes the detail stuff obscures the big picture. 

 

Limit planning

I saw a tip about this somewhere, and I think it's especially true if you live together beforehand but relevant either way: have wedding-free zones. We made Mondays don't-mention-the-war night, where wedding talk and planning was banned. I think I suggested this to a relieved Mr Cake about a week in and though some weeks we have let our rule lapse (like the day we gave out invitations, which was a Monday - yeah, we talked about the wedding that day) it's definitely good to ignore it completely once in a while. 

 

Find outlets where people get the mania

If you are loving Weddingland find yourself some like-minded people to share your joy with. Friends and family will be keen to know what's going on up to a point, but maybe not the same point as you want to share up to (sorry to my friends and family to whom I have over-shared. It will happen again). A good option is getting involved in a forum of some description where people are doing the same things - the one on weddings.co.nz has an abundance of helpful brides-to-be and OMTs (stands for Old Married Tart, apparently!) willing to share their tips and experiences. 

If it stresses you out, outsource

Last but definitely not least, if your insanity is derived from stress and a place of pain, think about whether someone else can do whatever it is that's causing the problem. At the very least your future spouse should be able to help, but maybe a friend or family member can do some research or vendor-wrangling for you, or maybe hiring a wedding planner is a smart move. Or - radical - if the thing is not compulsory (very few elements of weddings actually are) you could drop it altogether. 

Do you have any tips for staying sane?