I am really excited to share this post from Mwai Yeboah, a lovely friend and luxury wedding planner; who used her own experience to write a wonderful book about how to have a joyful wedding. Mwai is a true wedding planner-extraordinaire; and I had the pleasure of working with her on some incredible weddings and events in London, Vienna and Zambia. What makes Mwai such a joy to work with is her ability to stay calm and focused under the huge amount of pressure that comes with her job. In this post, Mwai shares some simple but powerful tips on how to prepare for a joyful wedding.

Mwai Yeboah
Award-Winning Luxury Wedding Planner & Designer

 

As a luxury wedding planner for culinary enthusiasts, fashion admirers and adventure seekers, I’ve heard the following statement many times before. Perhaps, you’ve already started saying it:

 “Wedding planning is stressing me out!” 

As couples plan for one of the biggest days of their lives, they often experience wedding planning stress that puts pressure on their relationship. If it’s not the length of their checklists, it’s stress from family pressure. With so many moving pieces and decisions to make, planning becomes overwhelming and instead of experiencing one of the most expectant and joyful times of their lives, they get the wedding planning blues.

Imagine for a moment what it would feel like to stay calm and collected as you work through checklists because you’ve been able to unravel the chaos in your mind and heart. Imagine for a moment carving out space to go on a date with your fiance or binge watch Netflix without talking about wedding planning, because you’re grounded, on top of your game, and confident that you can successfully respond to family members when they pressure you to do something that’s out of alignment with your wedding vision and plans.

I want you to have a joyful wedding and be really intentional with the state of their heart and mind from the very beginning of your wedding planning journey.

If you’ve already started planning, don’t worry. You can get your heart and mind in the right place whether you’re two months in or your wedding is a year away.

 

Here Are Five Tips To Help You Have A Joyful Wedding: 

 

1. Get Enough Sleep

I know, I know—you might want to fling a shoe at me for saying this, because not only do you have your regular commitments, but now you’re planning a wedding on top of them. It’s still super important for you to get enough sleep from this very moment all the way to the day you say “I do!”

How many of you have said to yourself, “ I can get by on little sleep.” I used to say that, too ( in fact, it’s still tempting to say that), but here’s what getting too little sleep spirals into:

 

• Making poor food choices because you’re too tired to make dinner or that much-needed grocery store trip, or because you need a sugar-infused afternoon pick-me-up.
•  Snapping at everyone around you, because let’s face it, when you’re tired, you’re more irritable and less tolerant and gracious than you’d normally be
• Less focus and more anxiety. When we’re tired, we lose focus more easily and when we lose focus, it takes us longer to get stuff done. This leads to anxiety because we feel like we’re running out of time to get everything done and don’t have enough of it.

 

All of that does sound like we’re “just getting by,” and getting by is not how you want to spend your wedding planning months or your wedding day. You want to spend them thriving and full of excitement and joy.

Foregoing sleep and overextending yourself can be one of the worst things you can do for your mind, body and spirit leading up to your wedding. A lack of sleep lowers your immune system, making you more susceptible to sickness (simply recall the stories you’ve heard of brides who’ve gotten really sick before their wedding day or completely crashed during their honeymoon and couldn’t enjoy it).

You must get enough sleep and a great way to make sure you do that every night is to 1) make a to-do list each night before you go to bed, so your mind isn’t spinning and 2) create a solid morning routine that keeps you on track, productive and at ease.

If you sleep well throughout the wedding planning process not only will you look more vibrant and refreshed on your wedding day, but you’ll also feel better emotionally, which helps mitigate “bridezilla” moments and melts downs, because you’ll have a clear mind and the ability to better manage mishaps or unmet expectations.

2. Consider Spending More on a Grand Venue

Let’s be honest—grand venues often come at a grand price, but here’s why you might want to spend on one. Grand venues are organically beautiful and naturally stately which means they don’t require a lot of décor or dressing up. You won’t have to completely cover the ceiling with drapery or set aside a huge budget for décor and design. These venues are already well-designed and well-laid-out so with a few finishing touches and sprinkles of your personality, you can create a stunning atmosphere and ambience with little effort or extra money.

When you select a beautiful venue that already has all of the design elements you love, you reduce the stress you’ll spend trying to cover eyesores up or come up with a huge design plan.

Hot Tip: Brides often fall in love with a venue and tend to brush off any cons in terms of what’s included in the venue rental. At every venue you visit, you should fully research all inclusions and consider how they will impact your wedding and budget as a whole. Those cons can turn into Concentrated stress later on. You don’t want that.

 

3. Think About Your Life After the Wedding

My first, top piece of advice around your wedding budget is to constantly think about “life after the wedding.” Return to what you want your life to look like after the wedding over and over again in order to keep yourself on track and keep money stress at a minimum. This will also help you talk yourself off the ledge of some—potentially—detrimental wedding budget decisions.

You don’t want to put yourself in an extreme amount of debt in an effort to throw the most beautiful wedding. You also don’t want to take advantage of the generosity of your family and stir up resentment. This can lead to SO much stress.

Yet—at the same time—if you have family members who want to chip in, absolutely step into a spirit of receiving with grace and allow them to. Simply be mindful of your choices and expectations.

If there is ever a time to cling to the famous quote that “less is more,” it’s now! Don’t forget that simple can be very classy and beautiful. Some of the chicest weddings have an understated elegance about them, so don’t think that you need to have it all to have the most beautiful and joyful wedding.

If you overspend and go against your values or commitments to yourself and future spouse, in your subconscious mind, you’ll house those tensions. They’ll sit there, unknowingly causing anguish because you know that once the wedding is over, you have to pick up the pieces of a lack of integrity in your decisions.

 

4. Ask For Help and Rotate It

In society today, many of us have a “go it alone” mentality. We glorify independence to the point that many people go to extremes (to their determinant) just to prove how independent they are. There’s something very satisfying about knowing you’ve worked hard and accomplished a goal, but there’s also a time and a place for community and support. Your wedding is that time.

Even if you don’t have family around or have an estranged relationship with them, there are plenty of ways to rally support and get help. If you’re a person who likes things done a certain way and doesn’t think others will perform to the level you would, I would encourage you to relax, open up and allow yourself to be surprised.

Your wedding is a monumental task and even if you hire a wedding planner, there will be things you’ll need to do and want to do without him or her. To avoid overwhelm and resentment, enlist the help of your friends or family members—and rotate it! What I mean by this, for example, is to ask your mom to help with dress shopping, your maid of honour to help set up the centrepieces, a close cousin to run errands on your wedding day, etc.

By asking for help and rotating it, you can accomplish your tasks with greater efficiency and eliminate the risk of burning out one particular person or creating tension because you’re together 24/7. It’s also a great way to bond over your wedding with each special person in your life.

 

5. Employ Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations can really help you refocus your mind and realign your perspective. Here are some wedding planning affirmations and quotes you can repeat to yourself every day:

• My body is relaxed and my mind is at ease.
• I trust that everything for my wedding will turn out beautifully, and I do not need to worry.
• I am a prepared person and will be fully prepared without pressure.
• My friends and family will wholeheartedly rally around to support and assist me during my wedding planning.
• I will build a reliable support team and am unafraid to bring on a professional planner if I feel it’s a good fit for me.
• I will enjoy my wedding night with my new spouse and make memories that we will cherish forever.
• We will laugh together, play with each other and have a blast during our honeymoon.
• We’ll get special deals because we’re “honeymooners” and thank people for treating us extra special.

I hope that helps, dear bride-to-be! Happy chaos-free and stress-free planning! You deserve a joyful wedding!

If you’d like more tips, practical advice and access to more wedding planning affirmations, I’d love to invite you to grab a copy of my book on Amazon by clicking here. The eBook is mere pounds and the paperback is always under £20.

xoxo Mwai

 

Mwai Yeboah is a multi-award winning, international wedding planner and designer who helps culinary enthusiasts, fashion admirers and adventure seekers plan luxury weddings that exceed their dreams and impress their guests. Read more from Mwai or learn about her services by visiting www.lovefrommwai.co.uk