I'm totally burnt out on even THINKING about my stupid wedding. It's non-stop drama and I'm totally overwhelmed! My clever theme has become irritating, and the prospect of getting my family together sounds like the dawn of WW III. Help! —Danica
Yeah, it can all start to feel like a bit much sometimes, can't it? There's a whole chapter in Offbeat Bride dedicated to ways to preserve your sanity when planning a wedding (STAYING SANE: How to keep your proverbial shit together), but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Here are five more ways to lift your spirits when you feel like your offbeat wedding is coming apart at its DIY, craftsy seams:
1. Enjoy this bridal catalog photo of a model awkwardly posing next to a vulva sculpture. (via kvetch)
2. Write it out. Sit down and write the nastiest, most graphic letter you can about everything that's gone wrong with your wedding planning and how it makes you feel. Curse out your vendors, describe in detail the ways you're going to beat each of your guests senseless with the handcrafted favors your aunt has told you aren't good enough. Spare no detail, and when you run out of rants, start drawing. How about a lovely picture of your prudish officiant's blood splattered on the sacrificial altar? How do those wedding magazines make you feel? Get it out! Once you're really REALLY done, take your awesome, violent letter out to the backyard or an alley and burn it while waving your arms around and chanting "fuck that shit, fuck that shit." This is performance art therapy!
3. Bury yourself in world news. Nothing like a little attitude readjustment to slap that wedding angst right out of your mind. Oh, I'm sorry: was I just freaking out about my velum paper while people are being burned alive in small villages across the globe? Why, hello there, perspective! It's nice to see you again.
4. Masturbate. A fail-safe solution for many breeds of emotional turmoil and angst, it works for wedding planning stress, too.
5. Get organized. A lot of wedding anxiety is the result of feeling like you're forgetting something or don't quite have a handle on what's still left to do. Take a few minutes to get all your ducks in a row. I loathe theknot.com, but they do have a helpful wedding planning checklist tool, that's extra awesome for offbeat brides because you know you're not doing a bunch of the froofy shit on it and you can immediately check those things off. It's infinitely helpful though to have a solid idea of what you've done (yay, accomplishment!) and what's left. In my experience, not knowing what's left to do is more stressful than having a big to-do list. It's like being swarmed by invisible bees, as opposed to swatting flies one by one.
Big fat shout-out to Sarah for the title of this post!
