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- Christina Hubeli
How To Avoid Wedding Planning Burnout
If you’ve been around here for a bit, you know we often talk about how being engaged can go from the best time of your life to super stressful in a blink of an eye. From figuring out a budget and guest list to sorting through hundreds of vendor options on The Knot to realizing that your favorite Pinspiration is going to cost you an arm and a leg, wedding planning stress is no secret.
And having this stress for a prolonged period of time can lead to burnout. We’ve likely all heard of burnout as it relates to the workforce, but it can also happen with activities that you are contributing a lot of time and energy to like wedding planning!
Now, no one wants to dread wedding planning or have it be an unenjoyable process. But how can you avoid wedding planning burnout? Read below for our top tips to loving wedding planning from the start.
Get Organized
Before even starting to plan your wedding, we recommend creating a new email inbox for all things wedding-related. Having a separate email address for just wedding planning will help keep your wedding emails separate from your personal and business inboxes. While at work, you won’t be flooded with emails from your vendors and can instead hop into this special inbox whenever you’re ready to do some wedding planning.
You can of course do this for free with Gmail, and along with an email, you’ll also have access to Google Drive. This is where we recommend you house all your wedding planning documents: proposals and contracts, meeting notes, spreadsheets like your budget tracker and guest list, timelines, floor plans, etc. You can create folders for each of these categories (and even sub-folders if you’re super into organization like us) to keep things nice and tidy.
Now onto your Google Calendar (no, we aren’t sponsored by Google)! This is where you can house important reminders, such as payment deadlines, upcoming meetings, and notes like when you’re able to pick up your wedding day attire from alterations.
Pick a Planning Day
If you keep a tight schedule, select a day (or two) and time during the week that you can dedicate to wedding planning. As much as possible, try to stick to your schedule so that you are focusing on planning only during those times. When the time for planning rolls around, this is when you can hop into your new wedding planning email and start tackling your checklist!
Schedule Planning Breaks
If you’ll be planning your wedding on your own, it will be helpful to put together a timeline and checklist of when you hope to accomplish certain tasks (and make these deadlines as realistic as possible). Here at BURST Event Co, we plan our weddings in stages, and our planning cycle is broken down into 4 phases. After we complete each phase, the couple goes on a 30- to 60-day wedding planning break. These breaks are so beneficial to helping couples love their engagement; they have the chance to step away from wedding planning for a bit and really connect with their partner & remember what this time in their life is all about.
Even if you won’t be hiring a planner, you can incorporate planning breaks into your planning period as well! If you’ll be planning your wedding on a tighter timeline, you can always take shorter breaks, such as one or two weeks, so that you still have time to step away from planning. Take this time to go on a date with your soon-to-be spouse, treat your wedding party to drinks (and don’t talk about wedding planning), and practice some self-care.
Keep Communication Open
Most likely, you’re planning your wedding with at least one other person, whether it be your partner, a family member, a friend, or a planner. Keeping the lines of communication with your planning partners open is so essential to reducing wedding stress for everyone.
This starts at the beginning of planning. Talk with each of the people involved in your wedding planning process that are either contributing to your budget or helping to actually plan. This is a great time to hear everyone’s thoughts and priorities, set expectations, and get everyone on the same page. Chatting with your planning partners in an honest way from the start of planning will help reduce unnecessary stress and drama among parties.
Then, throughout the planning process, continue to keep the lines of communication open! Even if it’s just you and your partner planning your wedding, be open with one another about how you want your wedding day to look and feel. It will get you on the right track and make the planning process so much more enjoyable.
Close Pinterest
If we could shout it from the rooftops, we would. Pinterest is not the end all be all of wedding planning! Yes, it’s a helpful tool for gathering inspiration photos and planning resources. However, the photos you see on Pinterest are intended to be just that - inspiration. And unfortunately, Pinterest can give couples unrealistic expectations of what they think they can (and can’t) afford.
More often than not, this relates to wedding flowers and other design elements. So before getting too far into the Pinterest rabbit hole, chat with a wedding pro to see what you really can afford. Whether it’s a florist, planner, or designer, talk with them about your budget and top priorities and go from there. Chances are, they’ll be able to put together a beautiful design for your wedding that you wouldn’t have been able to find on Pinterest in the first place! Remember that when sourcing design vendors, it’s their job (and likely their passion) to produce original, creative designs for you. So close out Pinterest and let the pros wow you!
Wedding planning can (and should!) be a fun and pleasurable experience for you and your partner. By trying out these tips from the start of planning, you’ll put yourself on a path to enjoying the process and avoiding burnout. And remember, if you do start feeling wedding planning burnout, that’s okay! Talk about it openly with your partner and see what adjustments you can make to get back to loving your engagement.
Wondering if you need a Wedding Planner?