Mindfulness for Wedding Planning. Find Your Focus Power.

Mindfulness Is The Answer to Stressful Wedding Planning. Focus On What Really Matters.

Mindfulness is quite the buzzword lately. It may conjure images of yoga retreats, hours of meditation and chanting monks. But my friend Allison, an instructor at From Within Wellness, also speaks on the importance of informal mindfulness, the simple acts of choosing joy, practising gratitude and being present in the moment.
Your wedding day is one of the most beautiful days of your life. But the weeks and months leading up to it can also be some of the most stressful. There are so many decisions to make, people to contact and plans to confirm. It can be easy to lose the joy and excitement of the moment you first said yes.
One of the easiest ways to incorporate mindfulness into your big day is to simplify the wedding planning process. This will allow you to focus on what really matters.  Do this exercise with your spouse before you start wedding planning. It provides clarity and helps determine where you spend your time, energy and money.

Choose Three Priorities

What’s most important to you when you think of the big day? A gorgeous backdrop? Incredible food? Are you surrounded by family and friends or enjoying quiet moments with your new spouse? Is music important to you? If so, what kind? Sit with your partner and separately write down the three biggest priorities for your wedding day.
My only priorities for our wedding day were to have a huge party with all of our family and friends, and a bagpiper playing as we walked out of the church. Everything else? Meh. The reception venue was less than stellar, my parents paid for an amazing catered meal even though we would have been happy with ham sandwiches and we bought all of our formal wear off the rack from a local department store. But afterwards, a cousin told me that the day was, “very Kelly and Josh”. It was exactly how we wanted the celebration to feel.

Time to Compromise

Once you have each separately determined your three must-haves, compare to see where your priorities line up and where they may conflict. Maybe one of you envisions a 20 person wedding party while the other imagine saying “I do” in an exotic and faraway local. Is it realistic for your friends and family to travel to a destination wedding? If so, great! If not, where can you compromise? A local wedding with an incredible honeymoon? A quiet destination wedding followed by a rocking reception once you return home? There is no one size fits all formula for the perfect wedding. Now is the time to decide what will make your celebration unique and special.
 

Work Together

Work together to narrow down your separate lists to three or four must-haves for the big day. Then, and this is the important part: let everything else go. You will still have to make decisions on other things, of course. Even if you don’t care one bit about table décor, someone is going to ask you what style of place settings you would like. But if it’s outside of your list, don’t stress or give too much thought to these decisions. Make them quickly and move on, leaving space to focus on what really matters to you and your partner. Start planning with mindfulness and spend the time leading up to your wedding joyful, grateful and present, instead of stressed out.
I can’t think of a better way to approach one of the most important days of your life.