Bride-to-Be Guide to Handling Pre-Wedding Stress

You may as well know, a host of things will probably go wrong as you try to organise your day - big wedding or not. I'm not being pessimistic, just realistic. Suppliers may falter, family may cause hiccoughs, people may pass away unexpectedly, an ash cloud may descend! The point is, you have to be able to take care of yourself and not let all the stress get to you so much that it takes over your life. It's only one day, remember?

Some ways that I have been able to survive:

• Substitute camomile tea for some of your cups of coffee - less jitters, less nerves
• Before you go to sleep, use some lavendar moisturiser on your shoulders, neck and hands so that is soothes you to sleep - you don't have to go to L'Occitane and spend a fortune, Boots have a lovely one!
• If things do start to get to you and you feel anxious all the time, pop into your local pharmacy and talk to the nice ladies behind the counter.  They may recommend a natural plant/herb extract which could help you relax, such as Kalms - they're not that expensive and the wee bottle lasts for ages
• Try to make some non-wedding time for you and your spouse-to-be; by this I mean, go back to something you used to love doing before you got engaged.  Be it a walk on your favourite beach, dinner in your favourite cheap&cheerful, a trip to the IFI or a match in your local GAA/soccer/rugby club to get the blood pumping. It's amazing how helpfully refreshing a match can be. I screamed and roared at Leinster in the RDS last Sunday and felt amazing afterwards - so relaxed!  Forgot all about the venue from hell for 2 hours and just had a blast with my betrothed - cannot recommend it highly enough to ease the stress. 
• Politely ask people who ring you 7 times a day about wedding things, to please not call you quite so often as you are quite busy, and need to structure your wedding-talk time a little more.  So only call at lunchtime or after work about wedding stuff. 
• If it helps - turn off your voicemail!!  Similarly annoying, 7 messages a day when you dial 171 can get to you.  Your mobile beeping, emails whizzing in, landlines hopping - it all works against you to create an atmosphere of pressure when lets face it - that's not what it's meant to be about.

Ultimately, communication is key.  If anything is getting to you, tell the people around you - that's what best friends, bridesmaids, sisters, aunts, grannies, cousins and mums are for.  They love you and will only be too delighted to help in any way they can. Sharing is caring, right?!  

Delegation is also extremely important.  Try to put anything that goes wrong into a category.  If it is family related, get your Pops onto it to help sort it out.  If it is flowers-related, get whoever in your clan is the best gardener to have a word with the florist and sort it out.  If it is food related, get the cuddly-grub-fan in your group of mates to help you with some suggestions.  NB: Ask. For. Help. 

This is not what you want:

You want to be like this!!!!

Or like this!!!