wedding problems

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I'm getting married in 4 weeks and overwhelmed. There is now funding and I have an appointment for an Asperger's assessment in mid-June.

Firstly I'm wound up over my bridesmaids. I seem to be doing most of the running round organising my hen do and possibly even paying for myself + room hire-unless they surprise me. When I google overwhelmingly people say the bride should pretty much just turn up and people should cover her costs. It's just so complicated and I've got a lot of bad feeling towards my bridesmaids I'm trying not to express as they are doing me a favour. It/I keep chopping and changing. All the problems are coming to me e.g. which hotel, which bar, what time, which riding stable, which spa and I have spent hours researching these things. I was gutted that the horeriding isn't happening, the 1st 2 options fell through. I think this is because she hadn't left enough time to organise it! The bridesmaid said the other places I spent my lunchtime researching for her were too far away so we'd struggle to get back in time. With time to think I should have told her to start the other things later. The spa moved day and that has altered everything but as she has been emailing people the plan it constrains what we have said we would do.

I tell them what I want then they want more decisions. It would have been a lot easier to organise myself as they are causing more stress. I may be bringing this on myself but if I am I am not sure what it is I am doing. I emailed a list of activities I wanted at the start and thought they would just organise it. I have even said I am overwhelmed and 1 of them took charge for maybe a day, but it has reverted back again. I ended up booking my Saturday evening myself as the bridesmaid said as I had already phoned it would confuse things for someone else to talk to them. I email for opinions and they just don't really reply or are really vague.

I'm upset as feel I don't have supportive people around me apart from my partner and this highlights it. I just think I don't bond with people and the whole wedding is fake having these people around me and I keep wondering why I am doing this. On one hand I want it but on the other I'm turning into an anxious wreck. I keep getting agitated about details e.g. table decorations and that every little detail is completed in time and is right. I am fretting that I will miss something. I have spent half the night awake. I can't relax and stop the thoughts and end up sleeping on the sofa using the TV to distract myself enough to sleep. I talk to my partner but I don't feel any better, it is like he is siding against me and just comes up with more positive reasons for why the bridesmaids are acting like this e.g. they think I want a more active role. When I am like this even if I talk to people they seem to say the same things that don't make me feel any better or seem to underestimate what I am going through. I'm not sure who I can trust to talk to about this. I'm not sure if it would make it better or worse to talk to the bridesmaid about the fact I may have Asperger's and this is why I am behaving a little strangely/particularly stressed. I spend ages deliberating over who I could talk to.

Why do weddings have to be so stressful?

Well actually, they don't.

My sister didn't want the stress so she didn't have a wedding. She just had the minimum ceremony required at city hall and a small dinner with her inlaws.

Some people hire wedding planners if they want a big wedding without the stress, or they have a pre-packaged wedding (Disneyland offers these).

My parents were married in my father's back yard. The biggest task was finding a rabbi and ordering the cake,the former which my great aunt did and the latter which my grandmother did.

I don't understand why it needs to be such a stressful ordeal...

Hi

Everyone feels overwhelmed right before they get married, it's going to be ok. Try not to let it get you down! It's a huge life change and there are so many details to attend to. One thing that can help not to worry too much is to think of the details like this. Only a handful of people know exactly what the plan is for the event. If any details are missed, most people won't even know it. For example, if you planned to have disposable cameras on each table, then forgot to order them, no-one would know they were missing but you and the bridal party. The people that came to the wedding would not have expected them so they wouldn't miss them. Another thing that can help is to make a notebook. Put a checklist on the first page with one line for each thing you have to make sure of and check it off when it is done. Then on the other pages you can make one page for each thing with the details about that thing so everything is in one place and you can easily check if anything is forgotten. This is how the professional wedding planners do it.

At my wedding reception, the bartender we hired did not show up. A family friend stepped in and saved the day by bartending for us. Some things may not go exactly as you planned, but it will be ok in the end. Try not to panic ahead of time. If anything does go wrong, people will help you and you will probably be able to fix it anyway.

I hope this helps you feel better.

This is why I'm going to be married by a justice of the peace (like my parents) or not at all. If we want to celebrate afterwards, that can be arranged too. But I don't see the point of hours of ceremony, planning, thousands of dollars spent all for one thing you can get done for a small fee. Yes, parties are expensive... but not as much as a wedding, I simply can't understand why people feel the need to make a spectacle of it... planning something out makes it less realistic, and life is what happens when you make plans, so why not let life unfold as it normally would? That's what makes moments matter, not anything arranged.

Thanks Franma that is reassuring. Good idea about the notebook.

The problem is my relationship with the bridesmaids/people on the hen do due to social difficulties. This is making it more difficult to have the type of (big) wedding I want.
I'm not sure how to put it right with my bridesmaids and can't tell if things are strained or it is just me worrying.