Why do people get so stressed out by planning

jenna8984

I got engaged in October and we're getting married next Sept. Not to sound like a know it all or anything because I'm certainly not but I found booking things so easy. This past month we booked the venue, same site for ceremony & reception and it was the only one we looked at. They handle the food and coordinator so those are done. I called a JOP from their recommendation list and she's booked. I did a telephone interview with 3 DJ's and booked one after meeting in person. I did a telephone interview with 3 photographers and booked one. I went to one dress store and bought/ordered my dress. I did save the dates from Walgreen's photo center and already mailed them. The honeymoon is booked. I have bought 75% of what I need for the centerpieces, guest book, card box. I don't know if I'm just better at making snap decisions than others but I really don't see what's so stressful about it?

p.s. Happy Holidays everyone!!

PolarBearFitz

Congratulations on having an easy wrinkle free experience planning your wedding? I really don't know what else to say here.

jenna8984

 

aefitz29 said:

Congratulations on having an easy wrinkle free experience planning your wedding? I really don't know what else to say here.

Ok- maybe my question which I indirectly asked is What stressed you out? Why did you have troule chosing something, or did something happen last minute that made it stressful that I should watch out for?

Inkdancer

jenna8984 said:

 

aefitz29 said:

Congratulations on having an easy wrinkle free experience planning your wedding? I really don't know what else to say here.

Ok- maybe my question which I indirectly asked is What stressed you out? Why did you have troule chosing something, or did something happen last minute that made it stressful that I should watch out for?

The most stressful part for me has been the expectations of my relatives. FMIL wants to invite her whole family to the rehearsal dinner, and my mom threatened not to come to my wedding if alcohol would be served at all. It's ridiculous.

Also, DIY projects can get intense. You look at a napkin ring or a placecard and think "I can make that easily!" and then 100 of them later you're going "EFF THIS I NEED WINE".

thisismynickname2

I don't think I'm nearly as stressed as others that I've witnessed, but here's what causes me stress: writing deposits and committing to spending money, because I'm frugal and that's just how I'm wired. (But what if I need this $1k for an emergency!?!?)  Being challenged on my decisions on little things like decor and having non-matching bridesmaids dresses, because those are not guest-centric and damnit respect my vision. Oddly enough, choosing a photographer caused me stress because I felt overwhelmed by online portfolios and people I got excited about were out of my budget- I love photography as an art form so I was really picky.  Trying to plan a honeymoon is stressful because everywhere I really want to go is too expensive and what if there is a hurricane? 

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."  

jenna8984

Musikalbunni said:

Choosing vendors has been easy for us. The only thing we have found ourselves stressing out on is financing our wedding, since we are footing the bill on everything. 

But we are pretty laid back about tiny details. If I wasn't working and going to school at the same time, I'd probably have more time to be creative. So we have to be practical and frugal about things.

Oh yes, who to invite has been a pain in the arse... so many folks we can cover with our budget. *sighs*

Same here- we're paying for all of it so keeping it pretty small, guess it might be more stressful if it were an over the top kind of wedding. Our tax returns should just about cover the whole thing. We did fight with FMIL at first over the guest list but FI and I are very stand our ground people so we had no problem shooting her down lol

MrsDeRuyter87

My stress has been coming from my family who offered to help on projects. I was grateful for the help but they never kept me informed on their progress. One example: my FMIL offered to host a rehearsal dinner. She asked where we would like to have it. We told her what our favorite restaurant was and where we were planning on hosting it ourselves prior to her offer, she said she would set it up. Awesome perfect. Well she waited to book the date til a month out (during the holiday season) and of course they were already booked. She called me in a panic trying to find other places to hold it. I managed to fix it all but still stressed me since it was something I wasn't expecting to have to do since she offered it up.

KatWAG

Planning out wedding rarely stressed me out. I only got stressed when my mom turned into a momzilla.

I think most people get stressed out about financial issues and family drama. (since this is what 80% of TK treads are related to)

ShallowSeas

We've only been planning since December 1st for our September 6th wedding, but so far the most stressful thing we've encountered was choosing the colors (which we made a decision on finally!) and the guest list. We are only having a certain amount of people so its been hard cutting people from the guest list that we really want there. We are actually still struggling with it, but I'd like to have the final guest list done in 2 weeks...so its a little rough.

jenna8984

severmilli12 said:

We've only been planning since December 1st for our September 6th wedding, but so far the most stressful thing we've encountered was choosing the colors (which we made a decision on finally!) and the guest list. We are only having a certain amount of people so its been hard cutting people from the guest list that we really want there. We are actually still struggling with it, but I'd like to have the final guest list done in 2 weeks...so its a little rough.

Aaw same here!! We're not made of money so we had to cut out about 15 people that I would have liked to invite. It is hard drawing that line but I was adamant about keeping the number under 75 once I attended my brother's wedding of 160. It seemed crazy and circus like to me, no offense to anyone who has that many it's just not for me LOL

tammym1001

So far really the only thing that has stressed me out was completely out of my control. I was like you, in that I booked everything right away and didn't have any issues. Then 6 months out from the wedding I found out we wouldn't be able to get married at FI's church and all of a sudden I had to find a new ceremony location and officiant and change our timeline with all of our vendors. Other than that, I have really enjoyed the planning process.

PolarBearFitz

jenna8984 said:

 

aefitz29 said:

Congratulations on having an easy wrinkle free experience planning your wedding? I really don't know what else to say here.

Ok- maybe my question which I indirectly asked is What stressed you out? Why did you have troule chosing something, or did something happen last minute that made it stressful that I should watch out for?

Ah now I have words for this...

So far dress shopping was a bit of a stresser but this is because it just took a bit more shopping than I planned to locate a dress. It also included an awful experience at David's Bridal which really bummed me out on wedding dress shopping. I am usually really decisive but when it comes to clothes on my bod things don't always work the way I want them to work.

I also had some issues with people inviting themselves to the event without my guest list even being completed. That was not as stressful as it was unexpected. Dealt with that by bean dipping around the wedding plans.

Unfortunately finding time to take care of everything can be stressful for me. There just are not enough hours in the day sometimes. There are days I'm on the go until I hit the sheets at midnight only to get up at 5am but that's life.

My least stress has been finding the food and venue. That was ridiculously easy for us and I was so happy it was my first thing done. Now that I have my dress and centerpieces everything is falling into place again.

Klysha

The most stressful part for me so far was finding a venue in the DC metro area that wasn't too far from the city, didn't cost a first born child and was big enough to hold 200 people. We had to look at dozens of places before settling on one. Then there's the budget. My fiance and I had a hard time coming to an agreement on how much to spend and everything in this area is so expensive that it's hard to avoid spending a fortune even on a low key wedding. We're also struggling to keep the guest count to 200 because his mother keeps sending us additional family members that have to get an invitation. His family is huge so if we invite everyone our guest count could easily exceed 300. We're only about mid way through the planning process so who knows what awaits us.    

princessleia22

I think most people get stressed about the money & family issues. We have been extremely lucky that we haven't had any family drama with our wedding.  And knowing our families, I don't anticipate any family drama during our last 6 months (this weekend is 6 months!) or at the wedding either.  I am SO thankful for that.  We are paying for everything ourselves, so I do find myself a little stressed over finances, but we are sticking to the budget and I haven't been over-stressed about it.  A large portion of my wedding costs come due mid-April, so I may find myself a bit more stressed at that time since I'll have to pay out a lot of wedding money, along with paying taxes (I always underpay rather than get refund), all within a couple weeks.  But, we've been paying a lot of expenses early or paying over time, so hopefully we won't owe too much at that time.  We've already got about 75% of our wedding paid for and we are still 6 months out.  I figured that would help reduce the money frustration. 

smalfrie19

What has stressed me out the most is the waiting (we have a 2+year engagement) and all the little details that I cannot solidify until we get closer. I fixate..I am working on it.

garnetandgold60

What's stressed me out is the guest list. I've always wanted an under 100 person wedding and after going over family and friends with mine and FI's families it wasn't going to be possible.

Family is one of the most important things to me and I want them all to be there (from both sides)...I guess I just never counted out how MANY there really are!

But we're all good and on track now and I'm super excited. So all well that ends well!

Everything else has been super easy and has fallen into place: venue, caterer, baker, dress, photographer...so fingers crossed for the future decisions!

Lily9911

I didn't stress about one thing. I also heard horror stories about booking venues, finding a cater and a place to hold the ceremony. We found one place that had all of that included, everything after that was super simple. 

But some people care about the color of their linens and the fabric, I just didn't make that an issue for me.  

thisismynickname2

Lily9911 said:

. But some people care about the color of their linens and the fabric, I just didn't make that an issue for me.  

Oh boy. I had a coworker share her wedding planning experiences which included, "The flowers showed up looking more bluish-purple than purple-purple and *tsk* ugh!"  Um, sorry?  Grand scheme of things, folks! 

NavyBlue143

AW Momzilla. Who wanted her own shower and bachelorette party. As in, in her honor. All because I wouldn't let her invite ALL THE FRIENDS, many of whom I didn't know. So since I wasn't letting her celebrate, her words, she needed parties in her honor. That is all.

[Deleted User]

The most stressful thing I dealt with for the wedding was having to deal with other people and their assumption that their timeline for the rehearsal and wedding day was better than the one DOC created. Example: My brother's GF asked us to pick her up while we were getting ready to head over to the rehearsal. She failed to mention to us that she wasn't at home but at a salon getting her nails done. Being late to the rehearsal made my blood boil so on the way to dinner I chose to go with my sister rather than get back in the car with her. A tip for readers and brides-to-be: do NOT ask the bride and groom for any favors the day before and the day of the wedding! You need a ride? Call someone else!

HisGirlFriday13

I had very little stress over the things I could control. DH and I made decisions quickly and easily about venue, church, food, etc.

I was laid-back about most of it -- including the flowers and the cake, neither of which I was totally sure about what we were getting until the day of the wedding -- so that helped.

The parts that stressed me were the parts I couldn't control: Our venue co-ordinator was unresponsive and un-helpful when she was responsive. Once I stopped dealing with her and let my mother handle her (mom was local to there and I wasn't), everything with that went smoothly. Our cake baker was not as responsive as I would have liked, but in the end, it worked out.

DH's brother and brother's FI waited until the day before our wedding to buy their son (one of the RBs) his attire, and then called us from the store, arguing with us about whether they should buy him the khakis and Oxford shirt we requested and thought he'd get re-use out of it, or the suit that DH's BSC grandmother thought he should be wearing instead.

I said to DH, "Your brother had TWO FUCKING JOBS, to get HIS suit and your nephew's outfit, and if he fucks this up because your BSC grandmother couldn't keep her god-damned nose out of our wedding, I will be furious." That was the only bridezilla moment I had, actually, so I was proud of that.

The closer you get to the wedding, the more people will give you opinions -- that they don't like this or don't think you should do that or they recommend this or they suggest that. That gets stressful and frustrating. 

Obviously, if they're just casual friends, you can just ignore them. If they're family, you (might) have to listen to their opinions. 

It was INCREDIBLY stressful for me to have a constant barrage of negative comments from DH's grandmother, although once I just stopped discussing the wedding with her at all, things got better. 

(Sample conversation:

Her: What are you doing for flowers?
Me: I read this really interesting book about Henrietta Lacks and her HeLa cells last week, let me tell you about it?

Her: I don't like daisies, and I don't want them in my corsage.

Me: The ethical and legal questions surrounding the use of her cells is precedent-setting.)

So, that's what stressed me out. And to DH's credit, anytime he HEARD his grandmother being ridiculous (changing the attire, telling me my nephew was too young to be in the wedding, telling me she didn't like our flowers, inviting her friends verbally, telling her relatives they could substitute other people on their invitations, etc.) he shut her down quickly and tersely. It was when she caught me alone and blind-sided me that we had issues. 

My advice would be to be prepared for the stress other people put on you -- for some people, if they're not stressing you out, they're not happy. 

kerbohl

A little money stress, family drama, and the fact that my FI's church kept saying that we could do something and then  completely changed their mind and we had to replan that, and then they changed back and we had to come up with a new plan . . . Oh, and my caterer decided to randomly drop us as a  client and we had to find another one sort of last minute.  I don't care about linens or colours or matching, I have no flowers, I wanted a simple, easy wedding, and the stress still got me. 

Anaelsea

A: Indecisiveness

B: Wanting what they cant have/afford in reality

C: Conflict with inlaws, BP/parents, cant agree with fiance etc

Worry "what people will think"

E: OCD

F: The american culture of weddings, PPD

I have heard brides post wedding saying, "I cant believe it went by so quickly, and i spent so much time obsessing over the table cloth colors"

chibiyui

I'd say I'm less stressed and more bored by wedding planning. It was fun at the beginning, but now it's more like work and fuck that. As far as stress goes in the wedding, the guest list was some, dealing with Bio Dad, and while it hasn't happened yet, it looks like we'll have a lot of rentals to coordinate which is not a skill set I enjoy. I imagine about a month before the wedding I'll be more stressed and less bored, right now is a bit of a lull. 

artbyallie

tammym1001 said:

So far really the only thing that has stressed me out was completely out of my control. I was like you, in that I booked everything right away and didn't have any issues. Then 6 months out from the wedding I found out we wouldn't be able to get married at FI's church and all of a sudden I had to find a new ceremony location and officiant and change our timeline with all of our vendors. Other than that, I have really enjoyed the planning process.

 I really think it's the illusion of control that gets people stressed. My cousin just got married, and while I love her dearly, she doesn't deal well with change and likes to feel in control. Unfortunately, none of us are really remotely in control of anything. I was totally laidback leading up to my wedding because I just let things work out how they would. I didn't freak over achieving some 'vision' or panic because things weren't going to be how they were originally planned out. I lost my reception venue halfway through planning because they scrapped their kitchen facilities for no reason other than a refrigerator broke and they didn't feel like spending the money to replace it. So we moved the reception to my church instead. Not the end of the world, even though it meant I had to nix the wine I wanted.

jacsquared

The things that make planning stressful?  Oh, where to begin.

-FI is changing jobs next year.  Details of the new job haven't been finalized yet, and we're waiting on the contract.  Bottom line is we don't know how much leave he'll be able to take and when.
-Managing expectations of others and setting boundaries.  Many of our family members have dreamed of this day, and definitely have high (and very differing) expectations.  Unfortunately, some of our relatives seem to think that DJs, full open bars, and fancy food are necessities.  There's only so much bean dipping you can do before people start to feel excluded.
-Budget.  I live in a major metropolitan area, where everything is very expensive.  When a reception room rental starts at $2K and the church rental starts at $1K, a third of my budget is already gone without properly hosting my guests.  We've already decided to have a small wedding, the next way to make it smaller would be to invite immediate family only.

tammym1001

artbyallie said:

tammym1001 said:

So far really the only thing that has stressed me out was completely out of my control. I was like you, in that I booked everything right away and didn't have any issues. Then 6 months out from the wedding I found out we wouldn't be able to get married at FI's church and all of a sudden I had to find a new ceremony location and officiant and change our timeline with all of our vendors. Other than that, I have really enjoyed the planning process.

 I really think it's the illusion of control that gets people stressed. My cousin just got married, and while I love her dearly, she doesn't deal well with change and likes to feel in control. Unfortunately, none of us are really remotely in control of anything. I was totally laidback leading up to my wedding because I just let things work out how they would. I didn't freak over achieving some 'vision' or panic because things weren't going to be how they were originally planned out. I lost my reception venue halfway through planning because they scrapped their kitchen facilities for no reason other than a refrigerator broke and they didn't feel like spending the money to replace it. So we moved the reception to my church instead. Not the end of the world, even though it meant I had to nix the wine I wanted.

I actually have been pretty laid back about everything. This wasn't really an issue with my "vision" of my wedding. Without an officiant we couldn't get married at all so that was pretty stressful. Because we had planned all along on using FI's church and priest I had no idea where to even start looking. I did eventually work it all out, but it was stressful until I knew that we would still be able to get married. 

selenathegreat

My family has caused way more stress than I expected. They think everything costs way too much but they get mad when I try to pay for everything on my own. And even if I can afford it, I have tons of guilt about spending what is to me a boatload of cash. Then I look at too many inspiration pictures and convince myself that everyone will hate my wedding and laugh at me. So, yeah, stress.

thisismynickname2

selenathegreat said:

My family has caused way more stress than I expected. They think everything costs way too much but they get mad when I try to pay for everything on my own. And even if I can afford it, I have tons of guilt about spending what is to me a boatload of cash. Then I look at too many inspiration pictures and convince myself that everyone will hate my wedding and laugh at me. So, yeah, stress.

Ugh, right? No thanks to Four Weddings where every detail is ripped apart. You don't like my tiny flower centerpieces that the restaurant provides? Then put the flowers where the sun don't shine. 

CaliMel11

The part that's most stressful for us is that everything is so.expensive. in this area. Plus we work full time and organizing everything along with having a life and working is difficult.
Also, figuring out who to invite, who is in the bridal party, it's all been stressful.

AddieCake

My stress came when we had to change venues 6 months out, but other than that, no real stress until the few days prior to the wedding.