A little while back I wrote a post called ‘Twenty zen-like tips for getting married and planning your wedding‘, where I outlined some kick-ass wedding mantras to keep brides and grooms-to-be in check with reality, with the aim of keeping their mind, soul and spirit intact during their wedding planning process.
Without mincing my words, because I prefer not to be a mincer of words, the process of getting married can make people lose their shit. Seriously. I kid you not. It’s sad really because getting married is ultimately about two people in love, making a public declaration to each other, yet somehow, at some point it has turned into something way bigger than this.
I would even go so far as to say that for some, getting married has less to do with how you and your love will be taking the next steps together in a new phase of your relationship and more to do with the event which will see you become married. Mix in to that a whole lot of stress, pressure and unrealistic/unnecessary expectations about what should happen on your wedding day and there you have the perfect recipe for losing your shit, right there.
So each week, I’m going to revisit the mantras from my original post and talk about them in much more detail for a new post series called The Mindful Bride, because I think we all could do with being a little bit more mindful from time to time, whether it’s being mindful during the wedding process or simply just being a mindful human being about the day-to-day bits and pieces of life.
I would love to be able to help brides (and grooms) to approach their wedding day with a zen-like state of mind like that of a ninja, a wedding ninja who gets the deed done with minimum fuss, stress or energy wasted and having a wedding day which really reflects you both as a couple and embodies everything that you want (or don’t want) it to.
So here goes the first mantra.
Mantra # 1. Remember the real reason for getting married
Action: During every single day of your planning process try to focus on the reason why you are getting married. Namely that you love each other and that you want to be together for as long as life allows you. This is the only reason.
This is quite a hell of a mantra to get stuck in to, I think. This is so so so important, but something I don’t think enough couples remember.
From the minute you become engaged, everything becomes about your wedding as an event, not about your wedding as a sign of your commitment to each other. Everything becomes about how you’re going to look, what kind of venue you’re going to have, what fancy ways you’re going to feed your guests, what kind of theme your day will have etc. All the aesthetics and nothing concerning the matters of the heart!
Therefore, when you’re dealing with your major life event and planning for a major life event it is pretty obvious that there will be times that you are suffocated, stressed out and worried as hell about the wedding you’re going to have. You and your love bunny will probably disagree on a lot of things. you’ll argue, fall out and then fall back in. Your budget will probably go to shit, and you’ll start wondering about where the money is coming from to pay for your event. Planning a life event is tough, kids, it really is.
So this is why, if you can get your head in the right frame of mind, you’ll have more chance of approaching the whole process with the right, healthy attitude, so that when things get a little bit stressful, over the top and causing you sleepless nights, hopefully your better judgements and thoughtful mantras will kick in.
…focus on the reason why you are getting married. Namely that you love each other and you want to be together for as long as life allows you. This is the only reason.
This mantra can help pull you back into the real world and to get you in touch with your emotions again. It can give you the strength to stick with your own plans, to carry out your own ideas and to help you realise what it is you need to do to eliminate whatever might be causing you stress or worries. Sometimes when you are knee deep in shit, you just need one simple, clear step to help you out of it, and positive, concise and inwardly-looking mantras can help with this.
Remembering what is important and why you are getting married forces you to look at the bigger picture, which will then put everything into perspective and hopefully make you see that these relatively ‘small’ things that are causing you problems, actually probably aren’t worth giving a shit about.
Being a mindful bride, doesn’t mean rejecting what the wedding industry has to offer, but it does mean putting yourself in the right frame of mind to effectively choose what you do want and what you categorically don’t want.
When you can consistently and continually remember what is important, it can help you to forget what isn’t important. Being in the right frame of mind will help you to tackle everything you need to tackle, efficiently and with the focus, determination and motivation of an Olympic champion.
So there you have your first mantra, which will hopefully put you on the path to some inner peace as you forge ahead with planning your joyful day.
