I recently asked my Facebook fans what their biggest worries were about getting hitched, and oh my goodness, do you lot have a LOT of things on your mind! Here are the five main stress factors I saw pop up again and again, plus some practical ways you can overcome them.

“I’m worried about looking and feeling my best”

Us women can be hard on ourselves and our appearance at the best of times. Throw in being the centre of attention on one of the biggest days of your life in the mix and it’s a recipe for self-deprecation overload! I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had brides tell me they feel like they’re not going to feel pretty on the day. They’re worried about everything from feeling fat to their make-up smearing, and from getting sweat patches to having cankles! We really are super hard on ourselves aren’t we?

First of all, you ARE going to look amazing on your wedding day! If you choose a dress that flatters you, you get a great make up artist and you pick a good deodorant like Sure Maximum Protection, you’ll have nothing to fret about! Twice as strong as the leading antiperspirant, Sure Maximum Protection Stress Control offers unrivalled protection against sweat and odour so it won’t let you down on your big day. Just remember you’re marrying someone that thinks you’re gorgeous each and every day. You could turn up in your PJs and they’d still think you looked amazing!

“Our families don’t get on!”

Family politics are a tricky one, but unless they’re complete arseholes, it’s unlikely that they’re going to purposely cause a scene at your wedding. However if you are worried, I would advise that you to have a quiet word with the potential perpetrators ahead of time and voice your concerns. Remember, they love you and hopefully (!) want your day to be a pleasant one.

Divorced parents can be tricky too, so how about instead of having a top table you have each parent ‘host’ separate ones and the two of you have a sweetheart table instead? Who says you have to go traditional if you’re family dynamics are anything but!? 

“I just want everyone to have a good time”

For most people good food + alcohol + friends + dance floor = a damn good time. The best weddings I’ve been to have actually been very light on the forced entertainment. It can be tempting to want to have lots of things for people to do so they aren’t bored, but honestly, most of your guests will be perfectly happy mingling and catching up with old friends.

At our wedding we had a few simple, optional things laid out as entertainment. I’ve also been to weddings where they’d had a close up magician or caricaturist, large lawn games or a photo booth. The latter ALWAYS goes down a treat by the way, especially once the booze starts to take effect!

One thing I would say is if you have a lot of children at the wedding you should definitely put something on for them to do, even if it’s as simple as an arts and crafts table. I can’t tell you how many weddings I’ve been to where the kids are bored out of their brains.

“I’m worried about tripping up as I walk down the aisle!”

The likelihood is that this will not happen. Of all the weddings I’ve been to and all the thousands of wedding reports I’ve read, I have never – NOT ONCE – seen or heard of a bride falling over as she walked down the aisle.

Make sure your shoes are comfortable and not too high, practice beforehand and walk SLOOOOWLY! I know when I got married I practically sprinted down the aisle I was so nervous, so taking things at a leisurely pace and having a moment to absorb everything that is going on around you is actually a really nice thing to do.

“I don’t think our wedding will be cool enough”

I hear this a lot actually and I think wedding blogs just like this one need to accept a lot of the blame! While I understand the pressures that many of you might feel to compete with the ‘cool’ weddings you see online, remember this: Your wedding is not a competition. Also realise that you are seeing a teeny tiny snippet of their wedding and just hearing the really nice stories. No-one ever had their wedding published and spoke about all the things that went wrong!

But really, who cares if something you like has ‘been done’? Who gives a hoot if your idea isn’t 100% unique? Being cool is not a benchmark to a successful wedding – and even more importantly – a successful marriage.

A few years down the line, the kind of wedding that you had won’t matter at all. You won’t care if you were featured on a blog or in a magazine and you’ll soon forget why you were so worried about what other people thought.

“It just all costs so much money!”

There’s no escaping the fact that weddings are expensive. I mean, even if you take the word ‘wedding’ away, if you were to plan just a simple party for 100 of your family and friends it’s still going to cost bomb.

If you are on a budget my main piece of advice for would be to sit down with your fiancé, figure out what’s most important to you, and ditch the rest. A wedding is still a wedding without flowers, a big white dress and a 5-tiered wedding cake. Remember, there are a million ways you can save money on your wedding.

In England and Wales you can get married for £119 (it costs £35 each when you give notice, £45 to register the marriage afterwards, and £4 to purchase the marriage certificate which you will need to prove your marital status in the future) Everything else is just accessorising. Remember, none of that other stuff is mandatory.

I hope this article helps alleviate some of your pre-wedding wobbles. Remember, even if the day is a complete disaster, everybody fights or you fall over and break your leg, you’ll still be married at the end of it. That’s what you’re doing all this for anyway. And hey, wouldn’t that make for damn good story to tell your grandchildren?!

This post was made possible by Sure Maximum Protection. When the pressure is on, their two new variants, Stress Control (with calming lavender and white flower scents) and Sport Strength (with a vibrant citrus fragrance), will keep you cool and prepared for anything your wedding planning can to throw at you. All opinions are entirely my own.