How to handle wedding nerves

Your wedding: one of the biggest and most important days of your life. So, you have every right to be nervous. But how do you handle those worries, doubts, and details?

I remember it well. Frantically thinking of all the things which might or might not happen on our wedding day, trying to plan for every single eventuality to ensure a wonderful day. The one thing I had not planned for was a torrential downpour of rain – literally bouncing off the pavements, dampening hairdos, splashing on dresses. Of course, I needn’t have worried – it was absolutely without a shadow of a doubt the best day of our lives, so many thoughtful people bringing armfuls of umbrellas and good cheer staved off any bad feelings. In fact, the rain seemed to make it even more special.

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

- Mark Twain

When we pause for thought, this will be familiar to many of us. Why? Because our brain's capacity to look at things from a negative perspective can be second to none. However, we can take back control, we can alter our perceptions and we can get to our end goal of walking up the aisle or making a presentation, feeling happy and content with our life.

One of my clients recently commented that she had never dreamt that she would be able to do this and enjoy her wedding day. With a history of 20 years of anxiety that dominated any social event and her life, she couldn’t believe this could happen.

However, she engaged in the process, put into practice breathing techniques and began to make small achievable goals and utilise several different tools. It was with great delight that she noticed her nausea and dizziness disappearing and her confidence shining through – and her panic attacks stopped completely.

None of us are static in our lives. Our emotions and feelings come and go. We need to remember that our brain looks at our body as a vehicle to get it where it wants it to go and will create chemicals to make sure we do exactly that. We have been doing this since caveman days and it is what has ensured our survival.

This activity is mainly driven from the amygdala (the centre of our fight-flight-freeze mechanism). But, if we can just take a moment before reacting to a situation, we can take back control and respond in a solution-focused way which does us justice.

When we breathe, and we pause to notice our breathing – either box breathing, rectangular breathing, nostril breathing, or we are just conscious of noticing our breath. That gentle rise and fall as we breathe in and out allows us to take back control. We are sending a very clear message to our parasympathetic nervous system that there is no need to be anxious, it calms our body and our mind. Scientifically, it is loading our dorsal prefrontal cortex full of information and lowers the threat level.

Take comfort in the fact that you can take back control, you can enjoy your wedding day and you can stand up and present. You can always get back to the best version of yourself – you might even surprise yourself.

If you want to take back control, contact me. If you want to ask about any of the techniques, terms and ideas described here then please get in touch. Go on, surprise yourself.