Self-worth and the wedding mentality

Is Your Self-Esteem Tied to Your Wedding? 

I am not alone, and I bet many brides who are planning their weddings, who did plan and will plan their wedding day will go through this chaos of emotion planning their wedding.  Self-worth has been my biggest stress while planning this wedding.  From a bride maid who is absent in all planning process making me feel completely unloved and worthless to the tea ceremony’s invitation with the wrong margin making me feel imperfect, I began to dislike my own wedding before it even happens.  What is going through my head at this point that brought me to hating the one event I have been planning since I was a little girl?  Here are the lies that are coming and taking space in my head:

• You better perform, people come all the way to see this
• If she doesn’t care about this day, what other day will she ever care?
• What are you going to do to show your gratitude? Would that be enough?
• Are you standing up for anything or is your wedding just going to be a show about you? How selfish and wasteful are you?
• What are you going to do with people you could not invite? What are they going to feel?  How could you call yourself a good friend?
• What if you won’t fit in your dress? What are you going to wear?
• Again, what is the point of this day? How are you going to make it worth it for everyone?

Yup, those are a few that come and go quite often the last few months.  Those words tie a giant knot in my gut, and sometimes the words become so entangled inside that no blood would pass through and supply my brain making me unable to think rationally.

Brides and all who are going through this, take a deep breath (make sure you count this breath from 1-5).  I know what you are going through.  Stop stuffing your face with food or the opposite, starving yourself.  Call your lifeline: best friend, sister, fiance, whoever you know would tell you that they are extremely happy for you and to celebrate you.  Think about how in love you are with the one you are marrying, and yes, think about your day as a day when you get to legally and publicly claim this person to be your own forever (in a good way).  Think about all your friends and family being in one place.  If your family can’t all be there, in my case, all of mine will be back home in Vietnam, think about how much you love them.  Lastly but most importantly, have a mentality that SHIT might go down and things might not go as plan.  Set an expectation of being spontaneously creative and fun.  You got this.  Your BFF got this with you.  Your family got this with you.  Your person whom you are marrying got this too.  Everyone is totally capable and totally are excited for you.

Love,

From a bride to another