How to cope if you’re planning a wedding and Christmas at the same time
If there are two major occasions that may well compete in terms of the stress they can exert on our lives – including our bank balances – they are surely Christmas and a wedding.
But we also can’t blame those who decide to hold their Gibraltar weddings in December, especially if it’s a straight choice between the very hospitable conditions the British Overseas Territory tends to see at this time of year – think average temperatures of 15 degrees C – and the cold, dark and drizzly UK.
However, it isn’t just people for whom the festive season and their nuptials directly coincide who may experience this kind of doubled-up stress. If you’ve scheduled your wedding for the early spring, for instance, you could be well into your wedding planning by the time the preceding Christmas rolls up.
So, how can you cope with all the craziness November and December can bring when you have both tying the knot and wrapping Christmas presents on your mind? Here are some of our favourite tips.
Set a budget… and be really disciplined about it
Following a responsible budget is, of course, exceedingly important when preparing for a wedding, even if Christmas or a similar ‘big’ festival is not also on the horizon. But we can only place an even stronger emphasis on this advice when you have both the wedding and Christmas to juggle.
A good rule of thumb is to work out, well ahead of time (as you should be doing regardless), how much you will need to put aside for the wedding (accounting for everything from décor and ‘thank you’ gifts, to what still needs to be paid to suppliers), and then figure out the amount that leaves you for Christmas. You really will have to be stringent about it, factoring in everything.
Capitalise on the sales with both special occasions in mind
If you have ever been buying items for Christmas from an online store and fallen just short of the threshold you needed to reach in order to qualify for ‘free delivery’, you’ll probably get a sense of what we’re hinting at here.
In short, if you will be using ecommerce stores, now is the time to combine your Christmas and wedding shopping in as few orders as possible. The online stores of department stores can be especially good for this, as there will almost certainly be a sufficiently wide range of items on sale from such brands for you to do a lot of your purchasing for both occasions from the same place.
Putting aside the whole ‘delivery’ thing, though, and encompassing both online and offline shopping, now is definitely a time to aggressively take advantage of sales. You might even set yourself certain rules – such as only buying items that are discounted, or only products that are strictly necessary, whether for Christmas or the wedding.
Cut yourself some slack for the dress fitting
Even if you’ve sworn to yourself that you absolutely won’t overdo it on the mince pies this year, let’s be honest… that self-talk often fails to prevent us from indulging that little bit too much.
The chances are, though, that this past year has been a tough one for you. You absolutely deserve to enjoy some festive partying, so we would urge you to avoid placing a lot of pressure on yourself to “not eat too much” so that you can fit into your dress.
Instead, when your dress fittings start about six to eight weeks before your nuptials, ask the seamstress to give you that bit more breathing room, so that you can enjoy yourself (relatively) guilt-free over the course of December.
It’s important not to allow yourself to become so stressed by the combination of Christmas and wedding planning, that you end up not properly enjoying either of these special occasions. So, why not get our own experts in Gibraltar weddings to take some of the burden off your hands?
Reach out now to Sweet Gibraltar Weddings, and ask us how we can help construct your dream destination wedding.
