Dealing With Overwhelm When Planning Your Wedding
It’s very common to feel totally overwhelmed during your wedding planning. Maybe you’ve booked your venue and then the reality of everything else you need to do suddenly hits home.
Maybe you’re planning a wedding in a short space of time. Or you’ve bitten off more than you can chew with your plans and your DIY elements. 
Whatever the reason, it’s not unusual so don’t feel alone, don’t struggle and don’t feel like you need to cancel or change everything.
Here are my top tips for working through this type of scenario.
Break it down
With all projects, it’s vital that you break everything down into bite size chunks. I always used to teach this at work when I was a full time project manager.
You can’t do everything at once so you have to break it down and focus on one thing at a time. Decide what you’re going to do each month or week and ignore the other things until it’s their turn.
Take a break & re-connect
Sometimes during your wedding planning, it can be easy to lose sight the of real goal and you can find yourself bickering over the most ridiculous things.
When this happens, you need to take a complete break from the wedding planning. Promise yourselves a weekend without mentioning it once. Go out somewhere and reconnect with each other.
Lists
Now everyone who knows me, knows how much I love a good to do list. Get everything out of your head onto paper. This ties in with the breaking it down advice.
Make a list of everything you need to book, buy or do and then chunk it up into months or weeks. The satisfaction of crossing things of your list is fab! (I have been known to write things I’ve already done on my to do list just for the satisfaction of then crossing it off!!)
Be realistic
It’s important to be realistic about how much you can get done but also about how much you need to do.
You won’t, and don’t need to, complete your wedding planning a week. Set yourself realistic timescales for completing things, balancing whatever else is going on in your life too. So for example, if you have a 2 week holiday coming up don’t expect to also complete a dozen wedding planning items that month.
And be realistic about what you need to book – do you really need a fire eater to wow your guests? Think about your budget and what’s important to you both.
Step away from Pinterest
Now I love Pinterest but it’s far too easy to get sucked into a whole world of amazing but unrealistic wedding ideas. Many images on there are from inspirational shoots which are totally staged and can make you feel totally inadequate. It’s easy to think you have to have everything and to keep changing your mind when you see new ideas or colours etc.
So close it down and take a break. Re focus on the theme and colours you’ve already chosen and be realistic about what you need and can afford. Most wedding guests remember the food and if the day was fun – they don’t remember what colour napkins you had!
Rope in friends and family to help
Don’t be afraid to ask for some help. Friends and family are usually only too happy to help out.
You can see my thoughts here on things which can easily and safely be delegated.
You could arrange a girls night with your bridesmaids and get a production line going to finish your invites, table décor or favours. You’ll have it done in no time and you’ll have a laugh whilst doing it. Just don’t drink too much Prosecco before you’ve finished!
Remember why you’re doing this
At the end of the day, you’re planning this wedding because you want to be married to your finance and spend your life with them. That is what it’s all about.
So whilst it’s perfectly normal to want to have a fantastic wedding day, never lose sight of why you’ve undertaken this. At the end of the day it’s not about the flowers or the cake – it’s about making that commitment to the love of your life.
Get professional help
Obviously I have to mention this! For some couples the overwhelm can’t be solved with a new to do list or a few days away from the planning. 
This is when it’s time to get some professional help. You can bring in a wedding planner at any stage and most have a range of services to help you.
For example, I offer a 2 hour consultancy service which can either get you off to a great start or get you back on track when overwhelm hits.
Or you might choose to book partial planning which enables you to pass as much to me as you like. Partial planning also includes wedding day management so you can relax and enjoy your wedding day knowing that I’ve got everything under control.
Why not drop me a line and let’s chat about how I can help.
Louise
