12 Thorough Principles Directed at Frazzled, Indecisive, Overwhelmed, Perfectionist, DIY Brides

As my first wedding anniversary approaches (yaaay!), I find my thoughts often turned to this time a year ago when I was just weeks away from “I do”. I was up to my eyeballs in wedding planning, umpteen decisions still needing to be made, and all the while trying to manage a classroom full of teenage-miscreants on a daily basis, keep house for the first time on my own, eat, sleep, AND prepare for a life-long commitment with the man I love.

Needless to say, I was overwhelmed.

As with most brides, I had a regular recurring thought that perhaps Mark and I should shut down the big family wedding altogether and just elope! But I kept hearing that tiny but obstinate voice in my head argue that I would always regret it if we did. I was absolutely one of those girls that grew up fantasizing about her semi-realistic-fairytale wedding; how could I sell those dreams short for a little stress-relief?!?! So I’d wave goodbye to the eloping thought as it passed by, and I was content to go on being stressed for just a litttttle while longer.

That being said, the closer the wedding got, the more overwhelmed I became, and here’s why: there was SO. MUCH. ADVICE. out there that I just couldn’t sift through it all and decide what was worth listening to, and what could be filed away as extraneous. Between social media, Pinterest, wedding magazines, and the twelvehundredthousandtrillionmillion unsolicited opinions from everyone from your mother to the wedding dress salesperson to the cashier at Hobby Lobby, I was so bogged down by it all that making decisions felt like trying to run a marathon through waist-deep molasses. I was constantly going in circles, feeling iffy about things, changing my mind right and left about what I wanted, etc. etc. You know that feeling -- Kind of like Snow White in the dark scary forest just before she finally collapses on the ground in heaving sobs?

Yep. That was me.  

So I would like to tell you mutually aggrieved, overwrought brides what I wish someone would have told me; what would have enabled me to just say, “LALALA, I’M NOT LISTENINGGGG!” to anything that came after this list of tips and principles. And just know from the beginning here, that I am fully aware these are just MY opinions. There are exceptions to every rule, so they say, so naturally it’s not the end of the world if you break one of these guidelines; but do remember why you read this article in the first place! Let me help you help you! ;)

Okay. I think that’s it...now let’s do this!!!!!

#1 - Don’t buy wedding planning books or magazines.

Seriously. Just don’t. Save yourself some money. We all get so stinkin’ excited when we’re first engaged, and usually that inspires a flood of random bride-to-be purchases that we feel obligated to want. But if you’re anything like me (and you probably are, or you wouldn’t be reading this article), you have great intentions; but the reality is you won’t read any of that stuff you buy, so it becomes nothing more than a waste of hard-earned dollars and a nice way to collect dust in a corner somewhere. “But..but..but Amber!!!” you say to me, “I REALLY wanna at least look through one!! I’m a bride, after all! That’s what brides do!!!” I know, I know… So here’s how to remedy that incessant “need” of yours, brideypants: go to Barnes and Noble, grab a pile of resources, and sit. Flip through them to your heart’s content. Snag a couple pictures of things you find to be absolutely, indisputably vital. When you get to the end of the last resource, close it, place it back on the shelf, and leave. Empty-handed. I promise you are better off. Why? Because according to my experience, too many options and too many ideas is not a good thing when it comes to wedding planning (and believe me, this was a hard realization to come to! I’m a girl who LOVES having a million and one choices). It just makes deciding on (and sticking with) what you want more confusing. You aren’t doing yourself any favors by second-guessing EVERY decision you make! Go with your instincts, and move on confidently from there.

#2 - Control your intake of Pinterest.

This is one of the most important tips I can give you. Pinterest is chock-full of amazing, to-die-for ideas, to be sure! But narrowing down what you just HAVE to have vs. what you would want in a perfect world where money and time are unlimited can be a harrowing ordeal, ESPECIALLY if you’re even a little bit indecisive!!! 

My non-glamorous way of asking my bridesmaids into my bridal party.

Trying to make your wedding look like it walked off your Pinterest feed could easily drive you to an early grave, and that’s only a slight exaggeration. Pinterest builds up some pret-ty big expectations, and fighting to ensure your wedding rivals that of the Kardashians is just not worth it. I mean, yes, it would be chic and memorable for a bride to ride up to her groom in a horse-drawn carriage dripping with flowers, and it’s oh-so-cute to be preceded down the aisle by five adorable children wearing handmade fairy wings, with all the guests snapping awesome candid shots and uploading them to a group app with your ultra-creative hashtag…..but let’s be real here. Would it be cool if your wedding made it onto Pinterest? Yes. But is that the main reason you’re having this wedding?? If so, you’ve got bigger problems than figuring out what to do if the horses poop on your red carpet. The reason those phenomenal, grandiose ideas are even ON Pinterest is because they’re uncommon, which means no one will judge you if you DON’T have that at your wedding, which leads me to the next point...

#3 - Less is more.

I learned a big lesson with this one at my own wedding. Girls can dream big, and that’s no lie. But sometimes big is over-the-top, and you need to step back, reevaluate, and scale down a bit on those super-sized plans of yours. Weddings are no exception. Even if you’re a go-big-or-go-home kind of gal and you want your wedding to make a statement, don’t kill yourself (or your pocketbook) trying to make that happen. Know what’s necessary and what’s not. You can have an unforgettable, impressionable wedding without running yourself into the ground like a railroad spike. Besides that, guests are there to celebrate your MARRIAGE, not to go around with a clipboard checking off all the things you do and don’t have at your wedding. So my advice is to gather all your greatest ideas and decide what you really, REALLY want, and throw out the rest. Instead of having 2 cakes, a candy buffet, a chocolate fountain station, a hot chocolate bar, hors devours, a meal, a champagne toast, AND an open bar, pick two or possibly three, and call it a day. Your guests will be just as pleased, and you won’t break the bank OR your back trying to show-off. This even goes for showers and for post-wedding stuff (who REALLY needs announcements these days?? If they didn’t even know you were getting married, sending them a “lookatus, lookatus!” card in the mail isn’t going to make them care).

#4 - Pick your dress and your venue first and foremost.

This tip is for early in the planning process. Hopefully you’re very recently engaged and you don’t have much done yet, or this tidbit may not be of much use to you! *sad face* But in the event you are just starting out with all this wonderful planning stuff ahead of you, heed this helpful hint... Before you begin making decisions on any of the aesthetic details for your wedding shebang, you need to do one of two things: find your dress, or find your venue. Then after you’ve accomplished that, find the other one ASAP. The bridal dress and the wedding venue are the two biggest “centerpieces”, if you will, of the whole event in terms of styling. If you buy up a blinged-out ballgown made of fine tulle with a cathedral-length veil that trails behind you like a sheet of stardust, the rest of your wedding style needs to complement that; the last thing you want to do is turn around six months later after tons of planning has gone down, only to determine that the one place you can afford to have your wedding is your grandmother’s pasture. Keeping things consistent is much simpler if your dress and your venue go together like peas and carrots, and you’ve got them both nailed down from the beginning.

#5-  Borrow and organize like a fiend.

Now that you have your dress and your venue, you can get going on all those other marvelous details! But before you go out and spend a fortune on things that will never again see the light of day after your wedding has come and gone, start asking around your friends and family for anything you could borrow or possibly rent. You’d be surprised how many people have boxes upon boxes of just STUFF lying around from past weddings! Chances are they’d be more than happy to lend to you. And although there are a few hidden gems out there, most rental businesses will charge you a promissory note for your firstborn to rent pretty much anything they offer, so try to prioritize borrowing small things first so hopefully only the biggest items will need renting. But here’s another tip specifically about borrowing and renting, and I REALLY mean this when I say it: LABEL EVERYTHING!!!!!!! Color coordinate your labels. Use sticker shapes. Something, ANYTHING that will keep each item branded for the correct owner! Then keep a chart or list of some kind that identifies each label and who those items belong to and include a contact number. Make it easy to follow, too, and designate a reliable person to be in charge of the task of getting everything back where it goes at the end of the wedding day. Even though it’s lots of work initially, I can’t even begin to tell you how helpful this strategy will be to whoever cleans up all that stuff after you and your new hubby have left the premises! Not to mention all the money you’ll have saved, so it’s a win-win!!!

When you’re done with your wedding, lend out your old stuff when possible! This is a sign from my wedding that my sis made being used in my friend Hannah’s wedding, and I was so excited that she could use it!

#6 - Choose your DIY projects sparingly.

Are we seeing the pattern yet of how often CHOICES come into play with wedding stress???? :) This principle of course goes along with the earlier “less is more” and “control your Pinterest intake” principles, and yet another lesson I learned from personal experience. I was SO determined that I would MAKEALLTHETHINGS, and I was lucky to get maybe ⅓ of the stuff created out of what I planned for. And you know what that means? Lots of extra purchases that wound up sitting in a box in my storage unit after the wedding because it didn’t even get used!!! Frustrating. Don’t be like me; save yourself!!! As I’ve said before, make a list of what you absolutely have to have, and then forget about the rest. And for what you DO want to DIY, heed the next tip when it comes to making it all…

My parents' house when I was DIYing and moving at the same time.

#7 - Enlist helpers you can trust.

SUCHABIGTHING!!!!!!!! Don’t be afraid to ask for help -- Lord knows people will offer, so take them up on it! There’s nothing wrong with saying to those people, “As a matter of fact, here’s a couple of things I could really use your help with…” Woe to the bride who just smiles and says, “Um, thank you, but I think I’ve got it all covered.” THE EXCEPTION, of course, goes for the people who are walking disasters and you know it. Obviously you can sweetly decline those offers. But when there are perfectly reliable and capable offers on hand, take full advantage!! You won’t be sorry. Just be sure you’re thorough in explaining what you want, and don’t be afraid to coach them when need be (just don’t be too overbearing of you will have received your last offer of help!).

#8- Choose your battles carefully.

This tip has perhaps the most CATASTROPHIC potential should you ignore it. To say that all wedding planning among loved ones is hunky-dory is a lie from the pits of hell, so you may as well know up front that there will inevitably come a time throughout this process when someone will think something you are doing or want is wrong in some way. My advice for when this happens is to think verrrrrrrrrrry carefully about your response before you engage. While you should by no means stand passively by in the planning of your own wedding and cave to the pressures of others at every turn, you definitely need to pick your battles with caution. If you really had your heart set on a butterfly release after your vows in place of a unity candle, but your fiance’s mom has it in her mind that a unity candle is the only way to go for the sake of tradition, well, you certainly have a dilemma that needs MAJOR consideration before action is taken. Politics are an unavoidable part of anything involving the people closest to you, and weddings bring out a lot of sensitivity really quick; you have to be prepared to handle these moments with grace, whether you decide to take one for the team, or stand your ground. But don’t be afraid of the label Bridezilla, either; just because you have to put your foot down every once in awhile doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a bratty bride (although feel free to have a private little cry if someone snarks off with that kind of comment -- I know I did!). However, that being said, do keep in mind that while your wedding is primarily a celebration for you and your spouse, it’s also something that’s important to your loved ones, too, and their opinions may not trump yours, but they are still worth something. It’s in this department that you should be VERY leery of selfish, short-sighted decisions on your end that could come back to haunt you (and even possibly your fiance) for years to come!

#9 - Don’t think less of yourself for utilizing the occasional shortcut that goes against etiquette.

This tip comes into play after you’ve learned how to pull through tip #6! I’m from the South, so you can imagine that etiquette plays a HUGE part in wedding planning whether you like it or not, and therefore, a lot of disagreements can stem from this issue. Things like typing thank you notes and using computer-generated address labels for invitations can draw some major frownage, particularly from older generations. But while I am a lover of many things traditional and have no problem going by the book for the most part, I also can’t deny the usefulness of some more modern shortcuts for sanity’s sake. When you’re a bride buried in incredible wedding gifts for a month up to the wedding date, it’s all too easy to one day wake up and realize that your wedding was eleven months ago and you still haven’t gotten all your thank you notes out!!! (Which, for the record, I would NEVER EVER do………….ahem.) Once again, SAVE YOURSELF FROM MY FATE and take advantage of some shortcuts to make things more manageable for yourself!!! Go ahead and type those thank you notes!!! You just do your thang and use address labels for your invitations instead of handwriting them all yourself into all hours of the night right at the brink of your deadline! If you’re cool with seeing your groom before the wedding ceremony, take your pictures of just the two of you BEFOREHAND. Use plastic silverware at the reception. Use napkins with NO HAND-PRESSED MONOGRAM (gasp!). Write your program on a chalkboard instead of getting them printed. You get me?? This is survival of the fittest here, sister!

#10 - Spend time with your bridal party the day before the wedding.

Alright, so now we’re moving into it’s-really-close-to-the-wedding-day territory. The day before the wedding, there is going to be a lot going on. But if you’re like my husband and I and you have a large bridal party and many of them don’t know each other, then this will be a very good idea for you! Spend a couple hours with everyone gathered together and playing some party games. We rented the facility where we would be having our rehearsal dinner for the whole day and put everyone in a big circle in the main room and just goofed around playing group games. There was a lot of laughing, and everyone was introduced to each other so the I-don’t-know-you-from-Adam barriers were broken. You can make it as customized as you want, and the possibilities are truly endless. If not everyone can make it, that’s understandable, but hopefully the majority will be present so you and the groom can spend some quality time in a more relaxed atmosphere with your people. Since the bridal party helps set the tone in a BIG way for the reception of your wedding in particular, you want to at least make everyone somewhat familiar with each other ahead of time so that there is already some semblance of camaraderie between them all for the actual wedding. You’ll also make some great memories having all of your closest friends together at once, which almost NEVER happens as adults!!!

#11 - Take your time with pictures post-ceremony.

Yet another thing I learned, unfortunately, from personal experience. Mark and I have almost NO pictures of just the two of us from our wedding day. The ones we do have are sweet but they aren’t actual portraits (we hope to one day “re-create” our wedding day looks and take some formal portraits together with our photographer to make up for it). We were pressed for time to get to the reception because guests were getting impatient and many folks were leaving early, and it was very cold to boot so the bridal party was super antsy and uncomfortable. I was bound and determined to not have my guests waiting forever for us to get to the reception, so I agreed to cut the photos short in favor of moving on faster. I HATE MYSELF FOR THAT!!!!!!! I really, really do. Even if Mark and I can re-create our wedding day to some extent for portraits sometime, it won’t be the same because we won’t have that day-off, newlywed glow! *crocodile tears* So my advice to YOU is don’t let time run you away from getting all the portraits you want. You can’t go back and have a do-over, at least not authentically. If half your guests want to leave early, let them. Those are probably the people who didn’t want to be there very much in the first place, so what difference does it make?

#12 - Stay focused, and enjoy your special day.

This goes both for planning as well as the wedding itself. At the end of the day, your goal is to marry the one you love. Keep that at the forefront of your mind when your makeup turns out a little Drag Queen-ish and you have to fix it discreetly in the bathroom, or when the groomsmen somehow get to the altar with no boutonnieres (and when you get them on for pictures, you realize they aren’t even what you ordered), or when you find out the middle of your monogram for the ceremony backdrop is hanging from the ceiling at the reception above the cake table, etc. etc. And don’t forget that just as much as you’re preparing for the wedding day, you also need to be preparing your heart for your life every day after that. The wedding is, after all, only one day, and it goes by SO fast you won’t even believe it! Savor every moment.

I hope these tips/principles will be of real use to you and maybe tone down the weariness! If you have questions or comments, feel free to reach out. If you have advice to add to mine, leave it in the comments for other readers (all 9 of them). ;) If you don’t know where to go from here in your wedding planning, or even what to think(!), I’ve put together a list of helpful resources to help light the way below.

HELPFUL RESOURCES

1. Wedding Myths Debunked: Wedding Truths You Probably Haven't Been Told
2. So You Can’t Afford Your Pinterest Wedding: Building your budget
3. Building (And Pondering) Your Wedding Registry: Wedding Registry 101
4. Questions to Ask Before Hiring A Wedding Planner: Wedding Planner?
5. Free Wedding Planning Spreadsheets: Wedding Planning Binder
6. Making Your Own Website: Wedding Website Tutorial
7. Don’t Buy Your Wedding Dress Without Asking These Questions: Say "Yes" to the Right Dress
8. Five Things Your Photographer Forgot to Tell You: Making the Most of Your Wedding Photography
9. Ten Lessons from a DIY Bride: Tips for Determining What to DIY
10. Finding Bridesmaids Dresses Everybody Loves: Stress-Free Bridesmaid Dress Shopping
11. How to NOT Annoy Your Bridesmaids: Avoid Being the Source of Bridesmaid Irritation
12. Eight Steps to Creating a More Personal Ceremony: How to Make Your Ceremony Extra Meaningful
13. Preparing For Your Wedding Day Setup: Day-Of Organization Tip
14. Ten Must-Do’s for Honeymoon Readiness: What to Do Before Your Honeymoon
15. Expert Advice for a Smooth Rehearsal: How to Pull Off a Decent Rehearsal
16. An Introvert’s Guide to Surviving the Week Before Your Wedding: A Shy Bride's How-to for the Week Before
17. Twelve Things to Know Before Your Wedding Day: Logistics for the Wedding Day
18. Ten Things You Need to Do After the Wedding: Post-Wedding To-Do List