Wedding Planning Is Stressful: 10 Tips for Fighting Burnout

Wedding planning burnout is real. Particularly if your engagement is a shorter one, you have so many responsibilities to organize this large party for you and your partner, as well as your loved ones.

Of course, wedding planning is always going to be stressful. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to make wedding planning less stressful, but you can implement a few tactics to reduce your stress and keep it from building up.

10 Ways to Mitigate Wedding Planning Stress

Shedding stress isn’t easy, but if you plan around it and implement ways to eliminate some extra pressure, you won’t feel its effects as strongly. Getting rid of excess stress may involve changing the composition of your daily life, but remember that you can experiment with different ways to absolve your wedding planning burnout.

1. Get Moving

Getting your recommended dose of exercise per day can help you regulate your weight and lower your blood pressure. But did you know that it can also help your mental well-being? Just by getting up and moving, you can improve your mood and self-confidence in addition to decreasing your stress. Exercise doesn’t need to be formal or organized to benefit you.

2. Try Meditation

Spending a moment in meditation, silence, or prayer before you start your day can help you center yourself and prepare for the tasks ahead. It’s an excellent way to connect with yourself and de-stress before the work begins — particularly if you have a job other than wedding planning all day long. Meditation can also help improve your memory and focus.

Since you have so many responsibilities, you have to learn to prioritize different things at different times. Getting ready for the day using meditation, guided or not, can help you reorganize that list of obligations in your brain.

3. Start a List

You don’t want to think of wedding duties as “chores,” but it might benefit you to have an ongoing to-do list of things in the order you should do them. For example, you’ll likely want to book your photographer before you find your DJ. In that case, you’ll move “find a photographer” higher on the list than “find a DJ.”

Sorting out your priorities in this way can bring you some relief, too. Having a list in front of you of everything you need to complete, as well as dates you need to finish by, can help you plan your days around your duties.

4. Get Better Sleep

You want to look your best for your wedding, and part of that beauty comes from getting enough rest and the right quality of sleep. Make your bedroom an oasis free of distractions and work other than sleep and rest. If you work in your bedroom, you’ll be less likely to sleep well because your brain might switch back over to working mode.

Wedding planning is stressful, and it will take a toll on your body if you leave it unchecked. Set a bedtime and adhere to it every night, especially a month or so before your wedding. When you’re well-rested and feeling fresh on your wedding day, you’ll be glad that you went to bed early.

5. Pick Up a New Hobby

Hobbies don’t have to cost you money! While you’re spending so much on your wedding, you should find a low-cost hobby like painting or coloring in adult coloring books. Expressing yourself creatively is sure to relieve stress and allow your mind to wander away from the responsibilities you’ve set for yourself for just a little while.

6. Write Out Your Emotions

Now is the best time to start a journal. You can log everything wedding-related in your journal, both good and bad, and it can help you release your emotions. The bonus here is that it will serve as a keepsake years from now, when you can look back on the planning process and remember your highs and lows and how everything went perfectly despite all your worry.

7. Remind Yourself How Far You’ve Come

Look back at what you’ve done since you became engaged. You’ve booked vendors, acquired decorations, and bought your attire. When you’re feeling overwhelmed by the stress of what you have left to do, it’s helpful to look back and see how far you’ve come.

You started out having none of the things booked that you currently do. You had a plan, and that was it. You’ve moved forward, cheered yourself on, and have already accomplished so much. That fact alone is commendable.

8. Take Time to Decompress

You don’t have to be doing something productive constantly. Spend an hour or so per night doing something mindless. You can binge-watch a Netflix show with your significant other or scroll through social media until you reach the end of your feed. Doing something mindless once in a while can give your brain a reset.

Also, take one day out of the week to not focus on anything wedding-related. All questions and answers to emails can wait until the next day. Just breathe and focus on yourself for a night. The wedding conversations will still be there tomorrow.

9. Practice Self-Care

Self-care isn’t always getting a massage or facial. Sometimes, it’s doing the bare minimum to keep yourself afloat. Make sure you’re eating and sleeping well, and you should also take care of your body. Having a self-care routine can help fight the effects of burnout and depression.

You may have to drop responsibilities that aren’t as important as your wedding. If you volunteer for something and it’s giving you stress, take a step back for a while. If obligations with friends are stressing you out, ask to do something at home or more low-key. There’s always a better option than burning yourself out.

10. Ask for Help

Plenty of your loved ones would jump at the chance to help you plan one of the most significant events in your life so far! All you need to do is talk to them about your feelings and enlist their help in doing something for the wedding.

If you like to have control over most wedding components, assign them to something small, such as searching for the perfect charger plates to match your table linens. Whatever you have in mind, someone will always be willing to lend you a helping hand so you can focus on your other responsibilities.

Wedding Planning Burnout Is Real, but You Can Fight Back

Your wedding is one of the most important days of your life. It’s okay to experience stress during this time — wedding planning is stressful! You shouldn’t feel bad for wanting to take a step back from planning. It’s normal. And asking for help is more than okay. Hang in there and remember that all your planning will result in a beautiful day you can celebrate for the rest of your life. Don’t let wedding planning burnout distract from your big day.