Women need to make big decisions every day, especially when becoming a bride or a wife. The stress and pressure of making all of those decisions in a short amount of time can make it overwhelming.
In reality, you don’t have to, and these ideas will help you understand why:
1. Wedding
To be clear, it’s perfectly normal to feel that you’re transforming into a bridezilla. Wedding planning is incredibly physically and emotionally stressful. It doesn’t help that this one-time event costs a lot of money. According to The Knot, the average spending for couples in 2019 was a whopping $28,000. Of course, you want to make sure your money is spent well.
But you can also be a bride-chilla when you plan this big event well:
- Get help. Ask your partner to take some of the responsibilities in the planning, whether it’s looking for accommodation for the guests or choosing a DJ for the reception. Hire an on-the-day coordinator, so you can save money but avoid stressing about the flowers while you’re marching down the aisle.
- Give yourself time to plan. It doesn’t matter if you want a quickie wedding or an elaborate one. Allow enough time to cover all your bases. Otherwise, be ready to compromise with your options.
- Accept that things can go wrong. There will be surprises no matter how much you plan. So don’t stress yourself over tiny details, like the color of the chair covers, if it’s not an issue for your guests.
- Don’t feel obligated to invite everyone you know. You can drop dead because of stress if you try to please everybody. It’s perfectly fine to have a small ceremony. You can always have a bigger reception later for everyone else.
2. Moving
After the wedding comes the moving. It can be so nerve-racking that a vast majority in one survey ranked it more stressful than a divorce.
That’s understandable, though. You might have to uproot yourself and move to a different state and find a new job. You might need to be away from your family and friends.
How do you deal with moving? Here are ideas to consider:
- Hire a mover. This way, you don’t have to do too much heavy lifting. Also, it’s easier for them to move the furniture with ease. The best movers can also do so much for you. They can pack the items, store those furniture pieces that won’t fit into your new house, and assemble and disassemble fixtures, among others.
- Schedule visits to friends and family. Moving away can be tough. But visiting them on the weekends or even heading back for special occasions will keep you connected with them, which lessens your nervousness.
- Take advantage of new technology. With social media and tools like Zoom, Skype, and Facetime, you can always communicate with loved ones back home.
- Think about doing remote work. You can do your job from anywhere if there are great internet connections available. It will help you ease the transition in moving because you don’t need to find a new job right away.
3. Having Kids
Let’s face it. Women constantly face a lot of pressure for many things. When you’re married, you can expect people to ask when you will have a child. In fact, in one UK survey, about 28 percent said they’d been pressured about childbearing.
How do you relieve yourself of this? Don’t feel guilty about it. Many couples choose not to bear kids right away for a lot of reasons. Others don’t want to have them at all, and all these choices are perfectly fine.
Sometimes, though, you might have to explain your choices to others, especially your loved ones. You’ll always know what’s best for you and your spouse. It’s your marriage, not theirs.
4. Changing Your Name
More likely, in the moments that you’ve been alone planning your wedding, you’ve toiled over the idea of whether you have to change your name.
Not many women want to do that. It could be because they love their name, that’s how they’re known in their field, or they don’t want to go through the trouble of updating their public records.
Here’s good news for you: you don’t have to. Changing your maiden name to use your husband’s last name is a matter of preference. It doesn’t affect anything in your life, even your credit score.
It’s both healthy and normal to get jitters about the life ahead as a newly married woman. It might not turn out exactly as you want it to be because life has a way of throwing curveballs. But you can still enjoy the process when you plan, prepare, and let go of the small stuff.
