Lived Experience Forum

[GraceUponGrace]

Anyone out there - I just need someone to validate this experience. It’s a long rant - sorry. 

So I planned my interstate wedding alone during the back end of the pandemic. All family on both sides live in two different states to us. We got married in a different state to where we live. Planning was a beautiful nightmare. I was so alone and unsupported throughout the engagement except of course by my now husband. My mum isn’t in the picture and her absence was noted. All my family (except father and sibling) live overseas also and didn’t come.

We had left a toxic community and a bridesmaid stabbed me in the back big time which resulted in me having a mental breakdown three weeks before the wedding. (she didn’t even come due to covid, to add insult to injury). I had to quit my job leaving us totally penniless with $3k left to pay. Despite it all, I went ahead and didn’t end up in debt.

I was so highly strung getting ready. The two days before, everyone flew in and bombarded me with questions blasting my phone every 5 minutes and made me cry. I was so desperate to get it all right and people weren’t supporting me. The day went well, but I can’t believe how much my breakdown anxiety manifested itself. I hardly feel like I was a blushing bride but more a bloody wreck, despite what my family say. I was just trying desperately to keep my anxiety at bay. Also, I had my period. So there’s that.

Since the wedding, I cannot let it go. The day itself went well, and I was happy. My dad cried when he saw me as did my now husband. Everyone is beaming in the videos and photos.

But I cannot rest, I can’t let it go. I remember on the day thinking everyone hated me. Before walking into the church I snapped at someone - I think it was my dad - and was so desperate to get down the aisle. My MOH had said I’d feel better when I saw my husband and I did, instantly. But it didn’t stop me Feeling like I ruined things because I was a bit snappy and stressed in the morning. Small details I missed, the photographer missing a few photos, not having photos with friends, choosing the wrong bridesmaids. I had almost 4/5 bridesmaids complain at me 12 WEEKS LATER telling me I was snappy in the morning and it “hurt their feelings”. I WAS snappy in the morning from pure stress and feeling isolated, missing my mum, missing my family and getting ready in an air Bnb not my childhood home, but despite everything I was feeling I duly apologised for hurting their feelings. My bridesmaids left me alone to get my makeup done when I said I didn’t want to be alone while they giggled next door. They didn’t fan out my veil or dress properly for the pictures and weren’t switched on all day. Off with the fairies - none of them had been married.

I practically starved myself in the months before the wedding and made myself sick, lost 10kg, only to still have a tummy and felt like I looked pregnant. I’m Christian and couldn’t wait to cross the 3 month married mark so people would know I wasn’t pregnant. The pressure to be your most beautiful is crazy. It ate me alive. I was scared I looked fat in all my photos despite being an 8-10. I had this fear that I’d “glow up” after my wedding and look better than I did at my wedding, making all my bridal photos somehow stupidly redundant. What a vain sentiment. 

My sibling is getting married soon and the overseas family is coming over for their wedding, and it’s killing me even though restrictions were in place at my wedding. It’s worse bc my sibling didn’t grow up with me, they were estranged, so the family that all saw me grow up didn’t witness this pivotal moment in my life except online. But they’ll see my sibling’s. How is that fair? the pandemic robbed me of my university graduation too. why? why did this have to happen?

It all just is a sobering reminder of how alone and unsupported I felt the entire engagement, and pivotal moments in my life as a first generation in this country being marked by loneliness. not to mention the damn pandemic robbing every man and his dog of key moments.

I see all the things I would’ve got right if my mum was there, if MY family was there. I see everything I can’t change, everything I would’ve done differently had I known better. Everyone is telling me I need to let it go but I cannot for the life of me go easy on myself. I just want to go back in time and slap myself in the face. Weddings are all over social media too - more flashy, more sparkly, different dresses, all these venues. I had a beautiful wedding but damn - it wasn’t like half of what I’m seeing. I had to make so many compromises on what I really really wanted. Maybe that’s just being an adult. But it sucks.

Anyway I need to say this because I’m driving my friends nuts bringing it up because they’re telling me it’s just my anxiety but I hate people telling me to let it go! YOU try planning a pandemic wedding interstate on the back of a breakdown and then tell me to let it go.

[Flotsam]

@GraceUponGrace 

Weddings can be really difficult events. It sounds like you actually did very well given everything that made your wedding even harder. 

Weddings are up there with all the really big life stress events. Cut yourself some slack and do something that you know helps you relax. At your siblings wedding it might be hard but it might be great to catch up with your family without all the stress of it being your wedding. 

Your bridesmaid doesn’t need to be in your life if you don’t feel you can trust her, no need to decide until you are ready. I have stopped contact with a sister after what she did at my wedding and I don’t think I am missing anything. Remember why you wanted to marry your husband and try to enjoy your time together at the beginning of your journey. 

It can be really hard to let go of thinking about it, it might help to try some acceptance commitment therapy. I hope this eases for you soon. 

[Little_Leopard]

@GraceUponGrace 

It sounds like you had a picture in your head of the way you wanted things to be. It sounds like that things not going to plan has made you very upset and anxious.

When we set unrealistic expectations, and become obsessed about “the way things should be” then we become our own worst enemies and we can hurt and offend the people closest to us.

I think you really need to let this go and just enjoy the moment. I think your friends were probably just trying to give you space because of the mood you were in. You can’t really blame them for not doing things perfectly. 

there is no use in dwelling on the past. Mulling over these things and getting upset stops you from being happy in the here and now. maybe it’s time for you to start practising some mindfulness, so you can try to stay present in the moment.

[FloatingFeather]

Hi @GraceUponGrace,

Firstly congratulations on your wedding and your marriage! It sounds like things were incredibly challenging and stressful around the led up, and on the of your wedding. 

I have been married for 25 years this year and my wedding didn't pan out the way I had wanted in a lot of ways. I come from a small family so a wedding of around 50 people would have been good for me. My husband on the other hand comes from a big family so our wedding guest list blew out to over 300. I was young and felt intimidated by my husband's family at the time. I wanted to give the best impression so basically said I was okay with everything they wanted for the wedding even though I really wasn't. At the time I was sad/hurt/resentful how my wedding turned out.

That was a long time ago now and what time has taught me is that I can't change the past, it is over and I need to let it go for my own sake. The wedding was what it was but the marriage (fortunately) is still going well and that is what I have taken away as the real point of my wedding. Another thing time has taught me is that holding onto negative feelings serves to hurt ourselves more than anyone else. 

I totally get being annoyed when people say let things go, you need to let go of things when you have processed them and you are ready to let go. Having said that, sometimes when we get caught up in holding onto things and reflecting on the experience that has caused us pain we miss the good stuff that is going on in the present - it sounds like you have a lovely husband and a bright future together. 

I wish you both all the best,

FloatingFeather

[Jo-anneJoy]

@GraceUponGrace You describe wanting to turn back the clock and slap yourself in the face.  Where is that hostility towards your soft small inner self coming from?  'Bridezilla' is tearing you apart. 

If your friends are not medical professionals, then they need to back off with 'diagnosing' your

expressions as anxiety. Every woman who has frocked up for a big fat white wedding expects everything to go as planned and to be treated as a princess, or a Queen, on this one very very special day.  It's not a big ask at all to believe that everyone else will understand that and get with the program.  It's not rocket science after all.

I know what it is like to feel unsupported and I have lived through the experience of dealing with a ferocious 'Inner Critic/Perfectionist'.  As a wife, you have a new identity now and you have made vows, in front of God and witnesses to cherish and to be cherished.  Everything else was just window dressing and noise.  May your mind cease torturing you and harmony fill your thoughts.