KEEP THE BLISS BUBBLE GOING
Got a new engagement ring on your finger? Congratulations! The winter holidays, New Years and Valentine’s Day are primetime for popping the question, which means there are a lot of you new brides-to-be floating on clouds, radiant, in a bliss bubble with your Happily Ever After dreams about to come true.
Speaking of that bliss bubble, don’t pop it! Enjoy that dreamy, overjoyed, utterly content feeling for as long as possible – because it’s a lovely way to feel, and all that happiness is good for you. You’re madly in love, with happy hormones coursing through you, and everything in the world just looks, feels and smells better when you’re this cheery and joyful.
Give yourself lots of time to stay right here in the excited stage, which will keep your groom and everyone around you ‘up’ and joyful as well, rather than rushing right into the wedding planning stage where wedding stress takes root within you, pressures mount, details overwhelm, and you wind up sleepless with a pint of ice cream in your lap and tears in your eyes because of a cold snap that froze all the tulips at your local organic farm, or the discontinuation of the invitation style you really wanted. Some brides lose it over the napkin colors. And some destroy friendships by getting way too intense about email response delays.
Those are the brides who popped their bliss bubbles too quickly. All that initial radiance is just gone.
So to help you keep that bliss going, here are some top tips for your own happiness, health and harmony with your groom and all who love you:
- Don’t even think about planning the wedding yet. Give yourself a good month to just be engaged, and celebrate with friends and family. Call or visit with each of your friends to tell them all about the romantic details of your engagement, and share those excited squeals, hugs and jumping up and down. Each and every time you share this kind of news-popping, it’s a fresh injection of joy for you. These exuberant interactions with your friends, siblings, and everyone in your circle are so much better than sending out a mass email or posting on Facebook to let everyone know at once. Black-and-white emails or posts saying, “Congrats!” just don’t deliver the same kind of good energy as personal interactions and celebrations. Your engagement party gathers everyone together for a giant bliss bubble with catering and is definitely something to be enjoyed with your focus just on your happy news.
- Tell parents to hold their horses. They don’t have bad intentions, but parents have been dreaming about your wedding day since you were born, so they might jump right into suggestions like, “You should have a church wedding” or “You should get married in the spring when the cherry blossoms are in bloom.” “We have to invite the cousins from overseas, you know.” “Let’s go dress shopping this weekend!” Parents range from overly-excited cheerleaders to grumpy, steamrolling control freaks with personal dramas, so the only way to stay in your bliss bubble is to say, “We’re not planning anything yet. Let’s just all enjoy this time before things get hectic.” With parents on hold, your bliss bubble stays nice and shiny and intact.
- Get romantic. In this month before you step onto the rollercoaster of wedding planning, shower your sweetie with a ton of attention, gratitude, massages, surprises, romantic dates…and sex it up before the wedding planning machine saps you of your energy. Many grooms out there say the minute they slipped that ring on the bride’s finger, she took off with her friends and lived with her face in wedding magazines, spent hours online and – this is bad – took their wedding planning stress out on them. So don’t be one of those runaway brides in a different sense. Be all about the two of you and the love you have, always keeping your relationship nurtured and fun all the way through the planning. But especially now.
- Be with you. Keep or establish your meditation, yoga, running or wellness rituals, so that you’re at your best and most peaceful. If you already have a fabulous regimen for balance and calm, you’re in great shape to keep it going, and use it to banish any wedding planning overwhelm. If, like most of us, you could always improve your meditation or yoga practice or want to start one, now’s the perfect, non-intense time to get going on it. Starting a regular massage routine is a fabulous way to be with you, and gives you a touchstone for decompressing all throughout your planning process. With your multi-faceted balance regimen all set, your bliss bubble might even take on some very pretty chakra colors.
- Talk about the future before the wedding. In addition to the romance with your sweetie, share some dreamy time talking about how beautiful your future is going to be together. Instead of thinking about napkin colors, imagine what color your future house will be, or where you’ll travel together when you’ve grown old together, the kind of dog you’d like to adopt from a no-kill shelter someday, how you’ll plan hiking vacations with your kids in the future. Imagine all these beautiful things about your life together, during cozy in-bed chats or while snuggling in front of your clean-fuel fireplace.
- Create your Priority List for your wedding. This is dipping your toe into wedding world, with just the two of you talking about what’s most important about the wedding ceremony and celebration you’d like to have. When you share your wishes for fabulous food and great entertainment as your top two priorities, you then know what you’ll take care of, with other, less-important details handed out to those itching-to-participate parents. You might even agree that a dozen things are on your Don’t Want It list, booted from your mind and budget altogether. This easing-in to your plans clears away so many extraneous details, you can then commence with the Pinterest image-hunting and site-searching while still in a place of calm and gratitude and love.
Stressful things will come. No bride escapes them. But when you keep your bliss bubble around you in the earliest stages, it gives you time to approach and handle all the wedding ups and downs with more clarity, grace and a deeply-rooted perspective about this all being about the two of you. And when things get bumpy, just look back at this list and be reminded to get romantic, be with you, and talk about the future. You may just revive that bliss bubble around yourself again, and be radiant, happy, and floating on clouds no matter what’s going on with the tulip crop or the invitations.
