OyChicago blog

In early July, on one of the happiest and most perfect days I can remember, I got married!

After a year and a half of wedding planning and events—including showers, a bachelorette party, an auf ruf, a wonderful and warm wedding and an amazing honeymoon—suddenly, it’s two months later, it’s all over and I’m left with a sky high pile of thank you notes to write and a quickly fading tan…Oh yeah, and a new, caring, handsome and kind husband who I adore.

As we are in the midst of wedding season and coming up on a three-day weekend that is surely jam-packed with weddings and engagements, I thought I’d impart some of my wedding wisdom (I mean, I’ve been married a whole two months now, so I’m basically an expert) to all of you brides and grooms-to-be out there. Here are a few lessons I learned from this whole crazy process:

No matter how stressful the planning process may seem, it’s totally worth it.
I’ll admit that at the beginning, and through most of the planning process, I wasn’t so much into all this. Lucky for me, my mom was super organized and took the lead on the process—and I’m so grateful that she did. I promise, all the stress and fighting and tough decision-making is worth it when you get to that day.

The first few months after you get engaged are really exciting and fun, but they can also be the most stressful and overwhelming time. It’s totally normal to cry a lot (I definitely did), but once you figure out the major stuff—I recommend choosing your date, location and officiant first, then band or DJ, photographer and wedding coordinator, if you’re having one—you can take your time figuring out the rest.

Wake up on your wedding day with a smile on your face.
I spent a lot of time leading up to my wedding worrying about little things that I wish I hadn’t. You put so much stock and effort into this one day and there are so many factors you just can’t control—weather, traffic, if someone comes down with the flu—and it’s easy to get caught up in worry and anxiety.

My best advice for the day of is to just let all the stresses of the past few months (or years) of planning go.  This might sound a little crazy, but leading up to the wedding, I would envision myself waking up that morning happy and excited and ready to get married, instead of stressed, anxious and nervous.

Partly because of this, and partly because of the fact that once you wake up that morning there’s nothing left to worry about, it worked—I was the happy, excited and calm bride I had envisioned (now if only I could envision myself this calm all the time, I’d be in good shape.)

There will never be enough time.
Your wedding will fly by. I thought this was maybe just a cliché, but it’s true. You won’t have time to dance with everyone you want to, talk with everyone you want to, taste everything you want to—you probably won’t even get to see your dessert (I didn’t). So just do the best you can—people will understand. And try to have as much fun as you possibly can while at the same time being the most gracious bride or groom you can be.

Your friends are awesome. 
At least mine are. Our friends totally made our wedding. Good friends will be there for you all day and dance like idiots all night. Just be sure to thank them profusely and be sure to return the favor when it’s their big day. Same goes for family members—(shout out to my sister, who was the world’s best maid of honor.) 

Beat the post-wedding blues 
You’re married, now what?

This is definitely not the healthiest thing to do, but the first thing we did after our wedding was to eat anything and everything we wanted…I’m not sure how long this diet (I’m calling it the anti-diet) is acceptable, but we’re still doing it….maybe when our clothes stop fitting?

But seriously, I think the best way to beat post-wedding blues is to move on to the next big step in your lives as a couple. For us, it’s been searching for a new place to live that is big enough so we can start married life with a kitchen table. It’s also fun to get back your photos and videos—I sometimes find organizing my photos and memories helps me close an exciting chapter in my life and move on to the next.

That’s all from this newlywed. I’d love to hear what all of you have to say—comment below with your wedding advice: