Perfectionists...how do you cope with planning stress?

Oh man, i was the type that had envisioned my wedding since young too and when i started planning mine i realized that to get exactly what i wanted wasn't realistic unless i shelled out that much money. some of my friends felt like what if i was compromising though or just settling and not getting exactly what i wanted. uh but the things i want aren't always realistic either because i have a budget and so it wouldn't have made sense for me to spend so much on something if i couldn't pay for something else, etc.

so in the end i think sometimes you'll find that even if things don't go EXACTLY the way you envisioned, it doesn't necessarily compromise your overall happiness either.

I'm very much a perfectionist which made wedding planning very stressful. Like you, I envisioned my wedding day since I was a little girl. My husband kept reminding me that the most important thing was that we were getting married surrounded by everyone that loves and supports us. There were definitely times I drove him, our families and friends crazy with planning because I wanted everything to be perfect and just like I envisioned. I had a ton of Pinterest boards dedicated to our wedding, but sometimes you just have to quit looking at Pinterest because it will drive you crazy. I will say that no matter how organized or planned out you have everything something is bound to go not exactly as planned. I lost my necklace and earrings the morning of the wedding. The night before the wedding I foolishly thought it was a good idea to share a hotel room with my grandparents. My grandmother is an overly anxious person which only made me more anxious. I got up super early the morning of my wedding to shower and wash my hair. She kept telling me to be quiet so I wouldn't wake my grandfather. At one point, I literally snapped at her. At eight am, I had to go meet with the hair and makeup artist to show them where we were getting ready. My grandmother insisted that I take everything from the hotel room I needed because she didn't want me making trips back because god forbid I would have woke my grandfather. Once I got everything to where we were getting ready, everything was a whirlwind and I didn't have the opportunity to sort through everything I had to make sure I knew exactly where I put everyone after transporting it from the hotel room to the getting ready room. My mom, grandmother and some of my bridesmaids spent 30-45 minutes searching for my jewelry when we realized it was missing. This cut into photo time which meant I didn't get as many getting ready or bridesmaids photos. I also didn't get any up close photos of my jewelry. While I'm definitely bummed this happened, I should've realized sharing a hotel room with my over anxious grandmother was a terrible idea.

I will say the checklist on weddingwire helped me a lot. I am one of those people who likes to have everything planned out and then deal with the small issues as they happen.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for these words I needed to hear! It’s definitely daunting seeing how much everything costs... I almost feel silly for wanting so much (cuz that’s not what it’s about) I’ll definitely have to figure out what is a need and what is a want. Thank you!

View Quoted Comment An example was I wanted fishbowls for my centerpieces but ended up using mason jars cause they were far more economical aha it didn’t really kill me that I ended up with that over fishbowls like at the end of the day those are all such minor details ya know?
I think everyone thinks that the day has to be so perfect but at the end of the day what matters is what we want most and so the small little things end up not mattering as much as we think

Once you determine a budget and have an idea of guest list size, start researching vendors and taking care of the “big” things. Once they are in place, you can have fun focusing on the details!

AHAHAHAHAA!! yaass!!! I LOVE THAT I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE OUT THERE!! I am a perfectionist too, and I have wanted to get married since I was 5 yrs old... (i am now 32..and still waiting, but it's coming soon, I know it!!) I have been planning my wedding since i was 15 or 16... i had typed up ideas on word docs on my laptop and in notebooks., and on Pinterest, only a few months ago did I create an account on here. I started dating my boyfriend, Ryan, almost 2 years ago, and more recently have been talking about getting married. So I have been slowly working on narrowing down my ideas... I have heard so many stories and seen on here girls panicking and not making up their minds of stuff.... the perfectionist that i am, i am working out all the details i can before i am officially engaged, so that it will be less stressful. I already ordered my custom made wedding dress, have the invites all figured out (minus the venue/time/date) and the decor style I am going with... i even started working on the picture slideshow (at least of my baby pics) then once engaged, ask HIS mom for pics of him growing up to add into it...Ryan knows I have been working on this for years, and he even started giving me names for people on his side to invite to add to the guest list! (at this rate once he does propose, we both know it will be a VERY short engagement and he says he is thankful i am already working on the little details. thankfully weddingwire here has helped me with the budgeting and organizing everything, this is so easy on here, everything in one place, and a guest list/seating chart area on here.. LOVE IT!!! so hopefully the stuff that remains til i am officially engaged will be smooth sailing after this... the part that has me most concerned is the food.... it's EXPENSIVE!!! well that, and to see how covid will be in the future ....

sooooo.... advice..... take one area and focus on that first and work out from there... start with colors or theme, then go to invites, or decor... don't try to do too much at once... breathe, take breaks if you need to. maybe narrow down (or create then narrow down) a pinterest board. for different parts...

DH and I are both actors, so we deliberately approached the wedding as a production of a show.

This means: mistakes happen, things go wrong, weirdness occurs, but the show goes on.

I cannot emphasize how much that helped. (DH probably struggled with it more than me!) Instead of trying to control every second, we went big picture. How did we want the day to feel, to look, to be remembered?

And then, from there, we picked out the things that had to be perfect, and the things we didn't really care about, and the things we didn't give a fig about. (The food, the transportation, and the linens being examples, in order. So, we focused on venue, hired a limo based on reviews but not on color, and when our venue coordinator suggested linen colors we just rolled with it.)

Limiting what we worried about really helped bring the anxiety and the nitpicking down. Getting a good venue meant we had a great support staff, so we could relax.

The other thing was remembering to take time off from wedding planning every so often, and just have fun. (I also tried to keep wedding talk to the forums and one or two friends who liked to talk about it. Then my conversations weren't only about the wedding, and I felt like I had a life.)