Groom Duties

How To: Deal with Over-stressed Bride

A reader writes:

“Do you have any advice when it comes to an overstressed bride?

“Basically, my fiancée and I have been engaged for a little over a year now, and the wedding is this summer, and all of a sudden in the last few months she’s convinced the wedding is going to flop somehow. 

“Like people are going to hate it or be bored or something.  I know it’s a wedding so it’s not really associated with fun, but we were hoping to plan something more like a party where we happened to get married. 

“Well, to be fair, she’s planning, I’m pitching in when she asks.  She’s wanting something where the marriage part is clearly important, but people are also supposed to have fun, with dancing and drinking and general merriment etc, a big celebration.  Something that isn’t boring or stuffy. 

“And she’s been cool with it all along except the last few months where all of a sudden she’s worrying that people are either going to hate some of her more offbeat ideas since the wedding isn’t very traditional, or she’s afraid that people are just going to be bored as hell like at most weddings.

“So here’s my question: do you have any advice as to what I could say to comfort her?  I’ve tried comforting her but I don’t really know what to say except stuff like “Of course it’s going to be great, don’t worry about it.”  I know it’s probably a normal thing for her to be stressed about but she’s got so much on her plate, it would be nice to give her one less thing to worry about.

Any advice you have about this would be really awesome.

Sincerely, Worried Groom.”

Dear Worried Groom,

Three things will comfort her:

1)    The knowledge that she is doing the right thing.
2)    The knowledge that you support her 100%.
3)    The knowledge that her guests will actually appreciate something non-traditional.

You’re a lucky dude. Your fiancée is doing something radical, something revolutionary, something that flies in the face of 60,000 pages of wedding-porn: she’s trying to make the wedding a party. She’s trying to make it fun.  [GASP!!!]

See also: A Ruthlessly Simplified To-Do List For Your Wedding

This isn’t easy. She’s balking at the conventional wisdom, and the conventional wisdom does not like to be challenged. There’s a $50 trillion dollar wedding industry that thrives on building pressure, making her second-guess, triple-guess, quintuple-guess herself.  There’s a reason she’s stressed: all the “experts” are making her feel like she’s doing something wrong.

She’s swimming upstream. She’s trying to make a fun wedding, not a Martha Stewart wedding. Martha doesn’t approve, and Martha can be a bitch. (Figuratively. We’re sure that she, personally, is a lovely lady.)

Yes, yes, in fairness, plenty of wedding-porn publications will say, “It’s okay to have fun!!!” but then they undercut this with 200 pages of shit you have to do.

Ignore them. Believe in her vision.

She’s doing the right thing. She has the right idea. Remind her this constantly, be her rock, be her unwavering supporter.  (Point #2.)  And don’t just agree with her in theory, actually bring up specific ideas that you like.  Make her believe that you believe.

See also: What You Don’t Know, Will Kill You

And, finally, the guests will appreciate a wedding that, you know, doesn’t suck. If there’s some 74-year-old clam who despises the unorthodoxy, well, she’s welcome to leave at her leisure.

Sounds like you’ll have a good time. Enjoy it.

The bride is bound to face some form of wedding stress.  You can do a lot of alleviate this by just pitching in a little and doing your fair share.  Sign up for our Custom Email Reminders and we’ll help you avoid dropping the ball.

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