Wedding Nerves

I was going to call off my first wedding and allowed myself to be talked back into it by a well meaning aunt. She said it was too late to call it off and I was nervous. If I had been at my mom's it would've been a different story. Nevertheless I learned a lot about myself through that experience. I divorced 9 years later.

I am happily married to my husband and we will celebrate 23 years this summer. We both had horrible first marriages and I believe through those we appreciate each other more. He is my best friend and I can't imagine life without him.

My advise to someone who doubts they should get married? RUN!!

Blessings!
L.

I had absolutely no anxiety. I was completely calm. I had a very successful and very happy marriage. We never fought, never grew tired of each other, he was my best friend. The only reason it ended after ten years was because he died in an accident.

I can add to the others... my first marriage should never have happened. My dad told me as we walked down the aisle that I didn't have to do this. I should have listened. I stuck it out because I didn't want to disappoint my guests... Disappointing other people has nothing to do with your long term happiness. If your gut says no and the people you love don't like the person... RUN!

I am now married to the love of my life. No jitters going down the aisle. My family adores him and we have the most adorable babies. I am blessed, but it took a few toads to find my prince.

Good question! I remember walking down the aisle and whispering to my brother, who was walking with me, "hey there's still time! Go get the car!"....
Lol...we've been happily married 10 years....
Actually I'm kidding about that, we divorced a year later...I wish, more than anything on the planet, that I'd listened to that hesitation I had. I believe I'd have a much different story than what's happening now!

This year will be 17 years for us. I didn't have wedding anxiety or second guess the plan. We don't have fights, we've never separated.

Every person I know that had that huge "What am I doing?!" gut-level anxiety before the ceremony has ended up divorced. :-/

In general, I'd say to any bride (or groom) to "trust your gut".

However, I do think there are people who COULD make a go of it if only they put 10% of the effort into their relationship that they put into the "event". This ranges from bachelor/bachelorette stuff, showers/registries, dance lessons, $50,000 receptions, Elvis impersonators, and so on, to $10,000 gowns, make-up artists, table settings, and so on. I think people lose sight of what the goal is, and if you add in some family drama and people who refuse to attend if X attends, plus 3 couples who insist on bringing their toddlers because "what kind of person wants to separate me from my children?" and so on. So wanting to chuck of all that doesn't necessarily mean that the marriage won't work.

I knew walking down the aisle (and actually for a month beforehand) that I would not stay married to my first husband. But it was my ticket out of my mother's home so I went through with it. Decent guy, no red flags except that we weren't meant to be together. My second marriage has lasted decades and it's very rewarding and successful. We work at it.

When I married my first husband? I was fine up until the point where my parents were walking me down the isle. I stopped and said "this isn't right" - they said it's nerves. (this was a year after my mom and dad had stated their concerns about him and I walked through them with them).....my sister wasn't fond of him and my best friend wasn't either....HUGE RED FLAGS...can I tell you I was young and in love??

We were married (yesterday - IF we had stayed together would have been 26 years)...for about 8 months before I left...for a weekend and should have stayed gone - but again....young love...then we moved to Europe 3 months later.....his first TDY was okay....next one?? Not so much...came home with lipstick on his uniform shirt - "aw it's nothing!! We were out dancing" - "ooo okay..." it just got worse from there...after 5 years we tried marriage counseling - that worked for about a year...then he was back to his old ways...We were in Germany and I was done. I wanted a partner not a child and his antics weren't worth my life (he didn't like condoms).

When I married my husband? I was excited - you couldn't keep me back...no one had reservations. We will be married 18 years in October. Has it all been roses? Nope. We've had some tough times - but through it all? I can't see myself with anyone else.

I agree with you regarding the "really nervous" - I truly stopped and said "this isn't right" and my parents thought it was "nerves". They had worked through their misgivings - and until that point? I didn't think I had any either. However - would I change anything? I don't know. I don't think so. Much of what I learned during that time? Made me who I am today - both the good and the bad. I struggled, learned about me and what I could and could not handle...we were great at times - it wasn't all bad times.

I've been married almost 16 years, and we were together 12 before that. No doubts, no anxiety. Other than agreeing to a large wedding for the sake of my family when I just wanted to elope. The wedding day was stressful because I'm not into big parties and it wasn't me. But no anxiety over getting married.

I did not have any doubts. I was mostly excited, but My MIL made me upset and I started crying about 10 minutes before the ceremony when she told me "she did not want "me "to give her the Mother's rose when we were going to walk back up the aisle! "

I then was determined that nothing was going to stop us from marrying!

We have been married 33 years, I had not spoken to my MIL in the last 5 years until this last Sunday.

She has now had to eat her words about so many preconceived ideas about me, My husband/her son, Our daughter, our marriage and our successes.

And yes I have a friend that told a group of us, she did not want to get married, but her mother told her to go through with it and break up with her husband after the honeymoon!!!! The mothers reasoning was that "it was too late to cancel everything.."

This is why if I am asked, I tell brides and grooms to follow their Hearts and Brains..

Who cares what other people think? If you do care what they think?
You are not mature enough to get married.

No anxiety. Happily married almost 14 years.

My best friend was having major doubts. She convinced herself things would change once they got married. I tried to talk her out of it. They got married (she was 29 and DETERMINED to be married by 30). Four years later she still had her doubts, but thought a baby would help. I told her that was the last thing they needed. She ended our friendship. They had a baby. Haven't seen/heard from her in almost 5 years.

No doubts here. But we went to the courthouse, so we made the decision, got the paperwork the next day, and were married a week later.

I almost talked a friend out of marriage. I wish I had. As I suspected, they ended up divorced.

I was a nervous wreck before my wedding, it actually took me a long while to decide if I was going to even say yes. I was not just leaving my mother's home for him, but my entire family, my college, my job, my friends, and my country. He was a service member and had orders to Japan. If we had problems after saying "I do" I knew I could not run home to mommy, or even really call except for very limited hours due to the time difference. IMO if I had not been nervous that would have been strange. And no one thought we would last, the longest anyone gave us was 5 years. People told us to our face we were making a mistake.

That was 16 years and one week ago. We are even more in love now then we were the day we said I do. It has not all been sunshine and roses, and we almost divorced more then once. We survived sick kids, affairs, depression, and even a brain tumor. We turned to counseling when we saw the end of our relationship and fought to save it. We grew together, learned together, and changed together. I couldn't imagine sharing this crazy journey with anyone else.

But I do think there is a difference between being nervous and scared about the changes coming, and having that true gut feeling that something just is not right. I have learned to listen to my gut if it is insistent that something is wrong.

We have been married 20 years coming up this year. We got our apartment together 8 months or so before the wedding, we've known each other 24 years and been together 23 of those years.
The only anxiety I had was for the ceremony itself. Making sure everything turned out OK, making last minute emergency changes when our singer got laryngitis the day before the wedding etc. Making sure the area next to the lake where I wanted the ceremony was claimed in time as it wasn't part of the reserved area for the rest and was first come first serve. I was still very flexible on how things could happen in the grand scheme of things.
I never had a single doubt or concern that I wanted to get married to the love of my life. I would have been just as happy if we didn't go through the whole pomp and circumstance, all I wanted to do was to get married and live the rest of my life with him. We are still in love, still happy, still put up with each others quirks and encourages each others interests. We have so much in common! He is my best friend!

If you're having huge anxiety about getting married I would rethink things. Is it that you don't want to deal with the stress of the day, the wedding itself or is it the person themselves.

wow! i have second guessed all sorts of important decisions to the point of misery (buyer's remorse over this little farm, whether to struggle on or terminate my business, homeschooling x 2) but whether or not to be with the ol' man was never a question of backing out.
well, i can't say that 100%. we went through a rocky phase during the tiny-kids too-many-jobs period where we wondered if we'd make it together. but i never doubted marrying him in the first place.
i'd much rather cope with a failed wedding than a failed marriage. there are all sorts of scenarios, though. IF the maid of honor is a sensible sort, and IF the bride is a dithery weathervane, it could have been a good move. but in a broad sense i'd say that if the bride needs to be coaxed onto the aisle, it means the whole shebang needs to be re-thought.
khairete
S.

Morning
We dated for ten years prior to getting married and have will now have been married for 20 this summer. I didn't have anxiety about getting married and although I was nervous leading up to it in terms of pulling off a big wedding with 200 invitees, once we reached the day, I felt relatively calm. However, I do think there is a difference between anxiety about the overall function versus just getting married in and of itself. IF a person has a deep-seeded feeling that something just doesn't feel it, then that is cause for alarm. Also, sadly, many people think that marriage and or having a baby will bring a couple closer together. While that might happen initially, if there are problems, in time, they WILL rear their ugly head.. Getting married, I think it a huge decision.... If your mind, body or soul is saying.. DONT DO IT!!! I think one should listen and at least consider not going for it right away and instead consider why you are having these feelings of doubt...

We had a huge blowup a couple of months before our wedding, when I unexpectedly got pregnant. We wanted more kids (I already had a son and he already had a daughter), but thought we'd have them later. Anyway, he reacted really poorly and I ended up delaying sending out the invites because I didn't know if he was going to bail. Things calmed down and we proceeded as planned. I wasn't nervous or anxious per se, but definitely didn't feel on solid footing leading up to and going through with it. It was more stressful than blissful. We've been married 11+ difficult years and I'm consulting with divorce attorneys and mediators on an exit strategy.

I was nervous but I get nervous about all big decisions. Which college should I go to? Should I buy this house /have kids /etc. All these things made me worried. Heck, I test drove 7 cars (some models multiple times) before choosing one.

But I knew myself well enough to know that my nerves about getting married were of the usual kind for me and not a red flag that I was ignoring.

Now I've been happily married for more than 15 years.

I didn't sleep well the night before the wedding - but it wasn't HUGE anxiety.
We courted for 9 years, knew each other well and were ready.
We've been married 25 years (it'll be 26 this Aug) and we've been very happy.

My husband's first marriage was full of second, third and fourth thoughts. He was going to walk out when his bride was over 2 hours late without any call or anything (pre-cell phone) but his brother stopped him. I gave him valid reasons why I thought this marriage would be a bad idea. He couldn't listen to me. Ten years later when she filed for divorce, everyone that was at that wedding told him they knew it wasn't going to work.

Fast forward to 5 years after the divorce we got married and there were no hesitations on either side. I confidently walked (but wanted to run) down the isle to my waiting husband was was teary eyed and a teary eyed pastor because both were just so full of joy. My eyes couldn't be teary because I was wearing non water proof mascara but I was still full of joy.

I still am 5 years later and I've known this man for 27 years. Well worth the wait on both sides.