Dear Bride, please don’t forget about self-care!

You are in the thick of wedding planning, working, spending time with friends and family, and enjoying the engaged life, but have you taken time to check in with yourself?

For some of you lovely brides out there, right after you said yes to the best four words you could hear, you probably felt exhilarated and excited! You perhaps felt like you had the world at your feet and you were going to take it on—hand in hand—with the love of your life. But then, as time went on, you might have started to feel stressed, frazzled, or even wondered why you wanted to go through with the wedding in the first place. Wedding planning can be SO stressful!

If this is you: First off, pause reading this blog and click back to the last Dear Bride Blog post to read about remembering your Why—the reason you wanted to get married in the first place—then come back here to finish reading.

Life can get busy and the to-do lists can seem endless, especially when you add wedding planning on top of it all, so some days can just become too much to deal with or too hard to cross another item off your list.

This is why you must check in with yourself and take the time to indulge in some self-care. You might be thinking that pampering yourself is just another to-do item, but the simple answer is that it’s not. To-do items require you to accomplish things by a certain date or time but self-care becomes part of your day-to-day life and routine.

And, no, it isn’t just as fluffy as a bath bomb and a glass of Rosé.

It is so much more than that.

Self-care is one of THE BEST ways you can prepare for your wedding day. It’s how you enjoy your engagement season and it helps you to feel relaxed and excited for your wedding day!

Here are my 5 top tips for Self-Care for Brides

Schedule a Date Night (With Yourself)
You absolutely want to spend time with your fiancé, friends, and family, but sometimes you need a break. You need to unwind and relax, which means planning a date night with yourself at least once a month. Unplug from social media, unplug from the wedding world, take a night off surfing Pinterest. Allow yourself time to just chill and wind down. Binge watch your guilty pleasure or curl up with a cozy blanket, a cup of tea, and your favorite book. It’s so important that you just schedule time for yourself and stick to it!

Move Your Body
Our bodies carry our stresses, worries, excitement, and anticipation, which is a lot of energy for the body to hold and it can cause a lot of tension. One of the best ways to release that tension is to exercise. I know working out with weights isn’t everyone’s favorite thing to do, so find a way to have fun and move your body. Go for a walk with a friend, hit up a new Barre class, work your core with pilates, or unwind with some gentle yin yoga.

Pamper Yourself
So you’ve had some relaxation time and also moved your body; Now it’s time to treat yourself. This could be a spa day where you get a massage or a facial. It could be a simple mani/pedi with a gal pal. If you are feeling a time crunch or budget becomes an issue, pick up a nice face mask, a new bath bomb, and some fun magazines to relax with.

Journal
You can use a journal to write down your thoughts, feelings, rants, brain dumps, and everything else that is overwhelming you. Just get it out of your head and dump it all into a journal. Feel free to write about wedding planning, any family drama that’s arisen, how much you love your spouse, what you are excited about after you’re married, etc. Write about anything and everything from everyday moments that happen to things you are grateful for. Just take time to write and get it all out so your mind can feel clear and reset.

Be Present
The best advice I can give is to just breathe. Take a nice big inhale and a slow exhale and be still. Put a hand over your heart, feel your heartbeat, and just breathe. A minute of stillness can make a world of difference in calming any stress, anxiety, or worry.

Are you feeling like you need more personalized advice about self-care for your wedding day? I’d love to share some of my tips and tricks that I’ve learned from brides through the years and being a bride myself!

Let’s Chat Self-Care