The Nine Most Common Sources of Stress For Today’s Bride
Planning a wedding can be stressful. It can be exhausting. It’s probably the most emotionally involving experiences in a woman’s life. Let’s face it. Magazines, Pinterest, social media and the latest reality TV shows don’t help either. These have all created the leading cause of pre-wedding anxiety with the bride-to-be’s attempt to meet a smorgasbord of unrealistic wedding expectations that have been “forced” upon her by society, media and of course, her closest friends and family for 
this once in a lifetime event.
Your wedding celebration is an event. It’s not just a simple party where a few friends come over to watch the big game. It takes vision. Your vision takes creativity. Your wedding takes flawless execution. It’s takes lots and lots of planning.
In fact, the typical U.S. bride spends an average of 270 hours planning a wedding from the moment she says “yes” to “I do.”
With the average wedding engagement of 14 months, this means you’re probably planning about 19 hours per month (or about four to five hours per week). Most of it happens at the very beginning right after the proposal, and at a lightening, dare I even say, at a frantic pace at the very end.
With over 1,500 weddings performed as the most preferred Estes Park wedding DJ proudly performing nearly 150 weddings at Della Terra, tons of wedding ceremonies at the Stanley Hotel and multiple fun weddings at Mary’s Lake Lodge, we understand the nine most common sources of stress for today’s bride.
We get it!
A lot of brides begin on “cloud 9” until the gravity of planning hits. Unfortunately, not helping much is the average groom. The loving husband-to-be who feels it’s best to “simply stay out of her way,” and when asked to help out, only tackles (half heartedly) the most obvious and simplest of tasks. (Don’t worry ladies! This is why Colorado wedding DJ and Master of Ceremonies, Matt Martindale, created the Colorado Grooms Workshop. So many of our brides say it’s helping a ton!)
The fact is, the median age for first time marriages has risen sharply the last thirty years. As this age increases, so does a couple’s maturity, level of interest, and their personal investment on the path to creating their wedding day. Couples want to intersperse their wishes, tastes and desires since they have a greater financial security in the day. The fact still remains, today’s contemporary bride is bombarded with external pressures beyond anything yesterday’s brides ever encountered.
The Nine Most Common Sources of Stress for Today’s Bride:
- Attempting to achieve the “perfect wedding”
- Attempting to make every guest happy
- Taking other people’s criticism personally
- Trying to control factors she can’t possibly control (like family, weather, etc.)
- Stretching a wedding budget without breaking the bank
- Mediating family members who don’t play nice
- Dealing with family and friends who want things done their own way
- Forgetting to take personal down time and not actually looking forward to the wedding or celebration
- Taking frustration out on the groom, family or other vendors who don’t deserve it (or does he?)
The Reality
Everyone seems to have something to say about your wedding with comments like: “But that’s how things are done!” and “It’s tradition in our family!” or “What will people think?” Yes, you may have even heard tales from friends, or even watched siblings go through the same torture creating a lot of unnecessary stress transforming the wedded bliss of “I can’t wait for this wedding” to “I can’t wait for this wedding to be over.”A few tips in the planning process to help:
Tips to Cope With Stress
First and foremost, guys, be a good listener. Express legitimate interest and concern. Be there for her and get involved.
Ladies, pace yourself. Set limits of where and when you’ll plan and discuss wedding details. Be ready to give your opinion when: a) others are proven wrong; b) when their opinions are proven inappropriate; c) when the groom, parents, friends or family upset you.
Together, set a regular and weekly date night where you both agree NOT to talk about the wedding at all. For real! Use this time to enjoy each other’s company. While on the date, any discussion of the wedding is completely off the table. For any wedding plans, set separate dates where the topic is “only” wedding plans. Trust us – you need to separate the two. So many couples have said this little secret has helped set boundaries for a healthy marriage well after the wedding day as couples continued with a weekly date night.