Banishing my botherations (pre-wedding anxiety and stress)

I’ve been reading a book over the past few weeks, which is all about breaking out of my robotic way of dealing with life, and learning the embrace and appreciate the moment I’m in. For the past 12 months my life has been a continuous replay of wake, exercise, work, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat. It wasn’t until the last week or so that I made a conscious effort to change that. I started to embrace the moment, and “smell the roses” so to speak. I finished work last week, and started on the holidays this week. Suddenly the replay had ended, and I was left to wallow in my thoughts. That’s when the anxiety kicked in.

It wasn’t until chatting with a friend today that the reasons behind my anxiety started to make sense. I realised that it’s natural to feel all of these thoughts in the lead up to getting married. Everyone feels them. Yet because I’ve been so robotic it’s been easy to bury the emotions and not feel them, let alone deal with them. Inside my subconscious has been waging a war of emotion, that only bubbled up in the form of heart burn.

I figured that now was the perfect opportunity to share what I’ve learned, and hopefully some future bride struggling with the same thing can learn from it.

“I need to be the perfect wife”

This week I realised that I’ve been debating the question of “am I the right person for him”. Not once did I ever question whether he was right for me (I’m confident he is, he’s everything I could have ever dreamed of), but whether I was right for him. I somehow got it stuck in my head that our relationship needed to be perfect in order for us to get married, and any issues or reservations that he had was an immediate failing on my part.

Light bulb moment: I’m not perfect, and neither is he. Our relationship will never be perfect.

I’m going to screw up. I will be selfish. There will be moments where I don’t satisfy his every need. He’s going to be selfish. He won’t be able to forever satisfy my needs.

But we are going to talk about it.

Over the last 12 months we have become so much better at communicating with each other on what’s going on, and what those needs are. We talk about what’s on our minds, where we feel let down, and most importantly, what we feel we need to be happy. We promise to try, then we end every single day with a kiss and a hug.

If we can continue to keep successfully communicating with each other, then that right there is perfection.

“Everyone is looking at me”

I don’t like being centre of attention. I deal with it by making poor jokes and dancing around like a goof. The idea of dressing up, getting hair and makeup done, walking in heels – it’s so….not me. I debated internally about how false it seemed. It felt like I was going to be an impostor for the day, and at the very first opportunity would screw it up by falling over, crying, or stumbling my words. Put simply, I didn’t want the attention.

My fiance has seen me at my worst:

• In the midst of a raging flu, with a raw, bright red nose caused by extreme exfoliation by tissue
• When I was 10kg heavier
• After a night of too much alcohol, where I should have been thrown in the shower for another twenty minutes before surfacing
• Looking uber sexy with a bloated head after a sugar reaction
• Every month, in a hormonal rage
• When I have been crying, sobbing, and pacing the room in sheer anger

He still loves me.

If I cry when I’m trying to say my vows, I shouldn’t hide it. It shows that when I wrote those vows, that it meant something so deep for me that the emotion is spilling out.

If I fall over in heels, and get mud all up my dress, I should have a good laugh about it. On the day that he proposed I had already spilled my food down my top. He still asked the question.

It doesn’t matter if everyone is looking at me.

I want him to look at me.

And no matter whether I’m still upright in my dress with makeup and hair intact, or I’m a mess and dirty, I will feel beautiful. Because I know that I will look right back  at him and feel the love no matter what I look like.

“What if everything doesn’t go to plan”

I’ve thrown this one in because it’s a common issue, but thankfully I’ve never worried about this one. I know that we’ve been pretty organised and that we’ve given as much information to everyone as possibly, but mostly, I don’t care if it doesn’t go to plan.

One of my extended family members shared a story about her own wedding day 40+ years ago, and it was a doozy. It seemed like everything that could have gone wrong did. There were irate taxi drivers, health issues and more (you can read the comment on my post I wrote yesterday here; and I thank her for sharing it with me). And at the end of it, she’s proud of what happened.

It’s her story.

Whatever happens, embrace it. The best thing you can do is keep smiling, and just enjoy the day. You’re in control of how you react, and if you smile and still find a way to enjoy yourself, then perhaps you’ll be that person thinking back on your wedding day 40+ years later with fond memories.

I can’t wait to see what my story will be, and I can’t wait to share that all with you.

4 days to go!

To my friend (you know who you are), as you said today, we come into each other’s lives at the right moment. Thank you for being there right when I was crumbling, even when I didn’t know it. Thank you for the clarity. I’m blessed to have you at my wedding, and in my life.