She’s losing her mind. 

   You’ve never seen your friend the bride quite so stressed-out, so snappy, or so overwhelmed. She’s forgetting plans, or she doesn’t have enough energy to come out with the girls on Friday night. She’s crying on the phone with you because the florist just said the lilacs won’t be available, or she’s had a fight with the groom.

   It may be considered ‘normal’ for a bride to experience big mood swings, as in ‘Every bride goes through this,’ but you know it’s not normal for your friend the bride to be so tense and so miserable. So, as a fabulous bridesmaid, you’ll naturally want to find ways to de-stress the bride, to lighten her mood and help her return to the vibrant, smiling person you’ve always known. 

   While you can’t do anything about her busy schedule, or trouble with the wedding plans, you can balance what’s going on in her life by providing an escape, some comic relief, and a better perspective. Here are our top ideas on how to help de-stress the bride:

Take Her Away From It All

• Plan lunches or breakfasts, even Sunday brunch if her workweek schedule is too jammed, where there is no wedding talk allowed. Let her know that while you’re more than happy to talk wedding plans with her during the week, these regular get-togethers are now deemed ‘wedding-free hours’ where you’ll both talk about everything else from the latest gossip in your circle of friends, to what happened on her favorite reality show the night before. Make sure she’s aware that you’re doing this as a break for her, so that she doesn’t wrongly assume you’re uninterested in the wedding plans (which will stress her out more). If the topic veers towards the unscrupulous cake baker, veer her away from the topic and onto something non-wedding with a promise that you’ll be happy to talk with her later about that horrible cake expert. Just an hour’s break will do her a world of good, reminding her of who she is outside of the wedding plans.

• Plan regular girls’ night out. If once a week is too much to expect, given your busy schedules, make it every other week. And reconsider going on a drinking spree – alcohol and its hangover can stress her out more. So replace your usual happy hour with a movie night or dinner out.

• Plan regular spa visits. Make it a standing date that you’ll both go for mani/pedi’s at your favorite salon every few weeks.

Get Her Out into Nature

• Go for a walk, or ride your bikes, out in nature – through a park, around a lake, on a runner’s trail through the woods, in a state park. Just being out in nature is extremely relaxing for most people, so get her to a quiet place where everything is peaceful and natural, quiet and beautiful. And take a moment during your hike or ride to just stop and sit on a big boulder and look at the scenery.

• If it’s snowing, go for a midnight walk and listen to the crunch of the snow underneath your boots.

• On a starry night, sit out on the lawn and look at the sky. If you have access to a telescope, even a low-powered one, zoom in on the moon and the stars and let that adjust her perspective.

• Get her out by the water. Some people just relax automatically when they’re near an ocean or lake or river. It brings back fantastic memories of family vacations, or perhaps she got engaged by the ocean. The air by any body of water is wonderfully charged, the breeze off the ocean is relaxing, and the sound of the water or waves can relax you both immediately. Even the sound of seagulls can create a relaxation response for her, so search out times for you to take a roadtrip.

Get Her Moving

• Regardless of whether she wants to lose weight for her wedding, exercise is a top stress-buster, so plan evening walks or runs, or schedule times for you both to meet at the gym for a workout. Most gyms have plans where two people can share a personal trainer, so consider the budget-friendly approach of getting a motivator to keep you coming back for more fitness training and the resulting de-stressing.

• Sign up for yoga classes, or meditation classes, at the nearby yoga center and attend together. Some brides say they also signed up for martial arts classes with their bridesmaids and found them to be a terrific release of stress…and then they kept up with the martial arts even after the wedding.

Get Her Laughing

• Laughter is a terrific stress-buster, so rent the funniest movies you can think of, or go to a comedy club once in a while.

• Spend time with your funniest friends, inviting them out to dinner or to your place for desserts, and steer clear of any ‘downer’ friends or envious relatives. Those happy, bubbly people you know can pass on their good mood, while the downer people are energy drains. So keep company only with those who bring out your best moods, and who add a lot of laughter to the room.

• This one’s a DON’T. Don’t send her joke e-mails to her home or business e-mails, thinking you’re cheering her up. Some brides report that this one backfires…you’re just crowding their computers’ memory systems, and adding to their busy daily schedules with more e-mails to check. If a joke is funny, tell it to her in person.

• Plan a surprise for her. See our article "Surprises to Plan for the Bride."

Give Her Something To Read

• Share your favorite book, like Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s “Gift From the Sea,” or a book by her favorite comedian, an inspirational quotes collection or feel-good affirmations book, or a trashy summer beach-read novel she can escape into.

• Give her a bridal gratitude journal where she can write down what’s going well with the wedding plans, and all the people involved in it. As the plans move forward, she can look back over her own entries on down days to cheer herself up again. Check out my bridal gratitude journal.

Let Her Vent

• And of course, be the person she knows she can call to talk out her concerns. Let her vent about anyone and anything, and promise her your complete and total discretion. You won’t share her concerns with anyone. Everything she says is completely confidential. That could be the best stress-buster of all.

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