Mere days after writing my last blog post, I was suddenly swept into the one thing I vowed not to get swept up in – stress!

All of the quiet alone time I had scheduled for myself the week before the wedding went out the window as family members strolled into town and projects piled up.

One day in particular, some of my dearest family members came over to help me pick flowers for the wedding. Once we got home with the intention of assembling the flower arrangements, I came home to find 5 family members who I hadn’t seen yet, my kitchen was filled with boxes upon boxes of champagne (we had won a giveaway and the mountains of boxes were delivered while I was out). I felt claustrophobic and my blood sugar was crashing. On top of having a million things to do and being beckoned to answer a thousand questions from not-very-helpful people wanting to “help” and my brain going in a thousand directions from attempting to delegate tasks without giving the wrong task to the wrong person, I was reaching my breaking point.

I made an announcement to everyone in my house, who were happy eating, socializing and catching up, “Everyone: I am going into my bedroom with my yoga mat and I will be in there for 10 minutes. Do not bother me, do not ask me questions, do not, unless there is a fire, bother me for the next 10 minutes. Please.” It was the best thing I did for myself all week and it was HEAVEN. I turned up some music and grooved and stretched for awhile. I had created a moment for myself to breathe which I desperately needed.

After that, I was much better equipped to handle the nonsense that tends to come up around weddings, even in the least dramatic families. I took my projects that I was working on into a separate room and turned music on, telling everyone that I would not be able to hear them over it. A few minutes into those projects, I felt like a genius as I heard my family members trying to solve problems and find things in the kitchen on their own. It seems simple, but we have to process everything we see and hear, so even if we brush off what someone says, questions have a way of sticking with us because of the way they are phrased and directed.

Be sure that even if you don’t have a wedding planner or even a day-of-coordinator, you have a friend around who can be your buffer to all of the thousands of (mostly unnecessary) questions that will flood in your direction the days surrounding your wedding. My sister was my lifesaver in that role. The majority of the questions people asked me seemed to be them talking to themselves out loud (“Where would I find a cutting board?”, etc.) and those simple, menial questions in large amounts when you’re in the middle of (slightly) organized chaos can really do a number on your peace of mind.

So while I did not have a stress-free wedding week, and in fact many times I felt overwhelmed by it, there are many easy and effective things you can do to create some space for yourself so that you are the most relaxed you can be on your big day. Carry a yoga mat with you, take a few minutes in your car to take some deep breaths before heading out to your next appointment, or maybe even scrap a few not-so-important projects to just watch a few episodes of a TV show by yourself. There are so many things that matter on your wedding day and so many that do NOT matter. Pick and choose what is worth losing your cool over, because you truly do want to enjoy your day as much as you can.