Maggie’s Mental Wellness Tips for Wedding Preparation
Happy Self-Love Month brides! We know what you’re thinking. Do I really need a whole calendar year for a bridal beauty and wedding health plan? Essentially, yes! Rather than touting harsh detoxes, short-term cosmetic procedures (so stressful! So temporary!), or ruining your mental health, we wholeheartedly approve of you taking an enjoyable, effective, and long-term physical and mental wellness approach for your wedding preparation.
In the end, building up small and sustainable changes (and adding some fun pamper sessions and beautifying treatments along the way) leads to a far more confident body image and mindset for your best day ever.
If your wedding is coming up, treat the months of prep and planning ahead of you as a luxury. Ease into your wedding resolutions with grace and intention, remembering that no matter how velvety your complexion looks on your big day, your sweetheart will be way more smitten with your personalized vows or killer dance moves. Let that adoration be your main source of support and inspiration in the coming months. Everything else can just be icing on the cake.
For our 12-month pre-wedding health, wellness, and beauty tips for wedding preparation read ahead and become the most bougie bride-to-be you can! Also, make sure to sign up for our exclusive text messages below to get all the other expert wedding tips!
11-12 Months Before: Begin Your Body and Mental Wellness Plan and Shop for Your Wedding Dress
With 365 days to go before your wedding date this is the time to set intentions, create mindful habits, uptick your hydration, and create long-term beauty plans. The keys to feeling like your “best self” a year from now are patience and planning. With this mindset, you’ll have everything you need to knock this out of the park.
First up, it’s the most exciting time of your wedding planning! It’s time to find your dream wedding dress! To get started on this make sure to take our Style Quiz to find your ideal wedding dress based on price, aesthetic, and body type, and then find an Authorized Retailer near you to get in time for your big day!
With time on your side, if working out is part of your beauty plan, focus on regular strength-training regimens to build your long-term muscle and metabolism. Workouts that involve resistance, free weights, or body weight will prep you for any future progress. It’s the perfect foundation for muscle toning and those sweet, post-workout endorphins.
PC: Dania Zaragoza Photography
Next, focus on consistent water intake and intentional meal planning. No need to go overboard on hydration. Just add three cups a day to your current intake. This will vastly improve your mood, sleep, and energy levels! Psst… This is also a great way to start your pre-wedding skincare routine! Start chugging that water and book an appointment with your dermatologist to have your skin butter soft by your wedding day. Take a look at The Knot’s tips to help build your skincare routine.
Starting your journey towards mental wellness and mental health improvement is also an important step to take at this time! Wedding planning is a stressful business, so consider looking into some temporary (or long-term!) mental health resources. Building daily affirmations is also an easy yet effective thing to start with.
9-10 Months Before: Focus on Physical and Mental Health and Build Your Beauty Plan
PC: Rob Zajac Photography
Congratulations on making it past the last couple of months! The first step is to keep going with your mental health improvements. If you’re starting to feel the pressure building, start a gratitude journal! This is an easy way to keep stock of all the good things in your life and keep you accountable to yourself as your wedding day approaches.
Starting some nutritional and physical health practices is also a good way to not only make you feel better physically but feel better mentally as well. Beginning your journey to healthy eating has never been more important than now. Potential weight loss aside, multiple studies are showing that eating healthy can help relieve stress (believe us, you’ll need to be as stress-free as you can!).
According to the University of Michigan Health, these are some healthy nutrition tips you can take before your big day:
- Avoid or limit caffeine to reduce headaches, increase concentration, and make stressful situations less intense.
- If you drink alcohol, do so moderately.
- Make mealtimes a calm and relaxing part of your day. Meal skipping can make stress-related symptoms worse, and can cause headaches and indigestion. Use mealtimes to reflect and relax from your day!
- Don’t binge eat to relieve stress as this can actually cause MORE stress and indigestion.
Now that some of the stress has settled in, this is also a great time to start treating yourself to some self-care! Getting frequent facials and taking care of your nails will not only make you feel better, but it will help your wedding prep be that much easier.
7-8 Months Before: Keep focusing on Metal Wellness, Start Vitamins, and Create Bookings
PC: Autumn Agrella Photography | PC: Kyla Jeanette Photography
All right brides, this is officially your reminder to take a deep breath and take a good hard look at your mental health. If you’re starting to feel a little overwhelmed give yourself a break! Take the time to check in on yourself throughout the day rather than on your wedding, and reconnect with your family and friends. For more stress-free wedding tips, read our blog on all the mental wellness info.
Vitamins and Exercise
This is also the time to consider incorporating a few high-quality vitamin and mineral supplements to help you glow-ify and destress as you. A daily dose of collagen, for example, aids with shiny hair growth and happy skin, while an Ashwagandha supplement can combat those onsets of planning fatigue (sometimes referred to as too-many-late-nights-on-wedding-Pinterest syndrome).
Once you’ve taken a beat for holistic health, start looking into potential makeup artists for your big day. Aestheticians can be in high demand for engagement and wedding season, so don’t let procrastination get the better of your bookings.
5-6 Months Before: Confirm the Glam Squad, Prepare with Your Partner, and Secure the Wedding Bands
PC: Julie Schandolph Photography
Whoa, you’re halfway to your wedding! Seriously, don’t panic. This might be a high-stress moment, but trust that you’ve already built some healthy habits and self-care practices to get you through it.
Keep going with your wedding workout plan, nutrition, and mental health check-ins. We would also suggest keeping written track of items on your beauty timeline. You will want to book the following appointments:
- Makeup and hair specialists! If you haven’t gotten your beauty squad yet, now is the time to do your research and make a few consultations to get them booked for the big day.
- If you’re planning on coloring your hair before the wedding, make sure to book a consultation NOW. Especially if you don’t already have a trusted artist. Read our blog for some wedding hair inspo for more ideas.
- There’s no better accessory than a smile! You have to get your teeth cleaned every six months anyway, so make sure to get them cleaned now and talk to your dentist about whitening treatments.
- If you’re wanting to go that extra mile for your self-confidence and get laser hair removal now is the time to do it! Laser hair removal usually takes around 4 to 6 sessions to complete so start now.
This is also the perfect time to get your partner involved (if they haven’t already). Not only is this a great time to pick out each other’s wedding bands but investing in some premarital couples counseling will allow you to have a strong marriage before it even begins.
Fair warning, however: your next 6 months will fly by way faster than your previous 6 months.
3-4 Months Before: Dress, Hair, and Beauty Tips for Wedding Preparation
PC: More Beatty Photography
Here comes the luxurious part of your wedding health plan: treating yourself to skincare, beauty inspo, and another trip to your bridal boutique.
At this point, you should have already booked your hair and makeup artists. Now it is time to set up a couple of appointments to test out your potential beauty looks!
Additionally, with the wedding day so close make sure to treat yourself a bit! Book a facial, make a massage and get a mani-pedi to help ease any stress that you might have. Practicing mental wellness means taking care of your outside as well as your inside.
By the way, if you haven’t already, book a session with a dermatologist or facialist for skincare to discuss any major skin concerns. If you’re worried about persistent hormonal acne or a rosacea flare-up for your big day, now is the time to ease into a preventative treatment and adjust for any side effects.
This is also the time to dial in your bridal gown alterations. Once your wedding dress is delivered and confirmed, talk to your boutique specialists about your projected fitting schedule. Alterations will depend on a variety of factors, including what gown size you originally ordered, your current measurements, your gown’s silhouette, accessories, and any customizations for sleeves, neckline, and train.
1-2 Months Before: Pamper, Prep, Soothe, and Dial in on Mental Wellness
Congratulations—you’ve arrived at the 2-month homestretch before your wedding! This checkpoint is all about maintaining your established health and wellness routines while ticking off some fun new cosmetic items. First up, treat yourself to a professional facial session and a pack of brightening sheet masks, and get some leave-in conditioner to make sure your hair is extra healthy looking before the big day.
Secondly, make sure to reconnect with your partner over the next couple of months. Plan some nights where you can celebrate your love for each other whether it’s a staycation or a real affair!
1-2 Weeks Before: The Final Touches
PC: Marianne Lucas
It’s real! It’s happening! You’re about to get married, and you feel like magic! You’ve got just a few items left on your wedding health plan, including:
- A final hair trim to ensure it looks natural before the wedding.
- Regular exfoliation and moisturizer.
- Your pre-wedding wax session (Eep!).
- A glow-inducing spray tan.
- An eyebrow shape and wax session.
- A mani-pedi with your wedding party.
- Book an appointment for your wedding nails a couple of days before the wedding.
- Have a mental health check-in with yourself to make sure that you’re feeling good and positive before you walk down the aisle!
Most importantly, keep drinking plenty of water and plan for a good night’s sleep before your wedding day. If we have one piece of advice for how to get healthy before your wedding, it’s to give yourself plenty of time for rest and hydration.
Bottom line, wherever you are in your wedding health plan, don’t lose sight of your intentions toward mental wellness. There’s already so much potential for extremes in wedding planning: big highs and stressful lows, impulse buys and overspending, and new conflicts between your partner, wedding party, and families. The very last thing you need to pile on is a crash diet and an impossible workout regimen.
Instead, focus on shifting your habits toward positivity and productivity (take care of your insides and out!). Trust us, if you’re kind to your mind, body, and soul before the big day, you’ll be seeing far better beauty results than any “30-day mega-cleanse wedding diet plan” pretends to offer.
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