Don’t borrow trouble

Among the best pieces of my advice for brides is to choose vendors for your wedding that you are comfortable with and trust. Do your due diligence in educating yourself about the outcome you want. Choose vendors that have good values, customer service philosophy, appreciate your desired outcome, and make suggestions to help you achieve your wedding related goals. Then place that piece of the wedding in the hands of the professionals you have chosen and make your best attempt not to borrow trouble. Now you might ask, “What do you mean by not borrowing trouble?” Good question. Partly I mean refrain from worrying about outlandishly unlikely potential problems that could possibly arise at some point in time. For example: You probably drive home from work every day. Do you constantly run scenarios of things that could go wrong in traffic? “When I stop at a traffic light someone dressed in a gorilla costume could run up to my car carrying a mattress and fling themselves on top of my vehicle in an attempt to mattress surf when I resume travel to my desired destination!” That’s not a helpful thought process to engage in if your goal is to have stress-free drive time. If you’re gunning for a panic attack, maybe… but not stress-free drive time.

My point is that your florist is probably not going to love fielding phone calls regarding your impending feeling of doom that the country of origin of your dream wedding flower is suddenly going to completely run out of or have their entire crop of said flower demolished just in time for your wedding. That’s not a productive use of time. And honestly, if that happened your florist (if you’ve picked a true professional) will have a plan to save your bridal bouquet from unrestrained ugliness. So don’t spend your precious wedding planning time concocting absurd “what if” scenarios. A volcano most likely will not erupt at your desired honeymoon location, a herd of elephants will most certainly not break loose and ruin your engagement photos (cause face it, elephants would clearly enhance any engagement photo), and *if* you light a floral centerpiece on fire by accident your venue is required by law to have a fire extinguisher handy.

Granted, there are difficulties that may occur during the wedding planning process, but I have help for you there too. One of my mentors encouraged me recently not to waste time worrying because, “You’ll always worry about the wrong thing.” That was the most liberating philosophy about worry that I’d ever heard! You’ll probably have some sort of hiccup in the wedding planning process but if/when a problem surfaces it’s best to realize that every problem has a solution. Energy is best expended in finding a solution or finding the person or company that can help you create a solution instead of lamenting the fact that a problem presented itself. Often if you waste time focusing on the problem you’ll lose valuable time that would bring about a more speedy resolution and minimize your stress level. You need to enjoy the journey and not just the end result of your planning efforts. You only have the opportunity to plan your wedding once and being stressed out of your mind is certainly not the way you want to remember the process. So take a deep breath, curb the conspiracy theories, and remember the key point: Don’t borrow trouble.