Don’t get me wrong, a wedding is undoubtedly a very important day, but it is not your one shot at happiness or your singular life defining moment. By that I mean, even if the day was a complete disaster and everything that could go wrong did, the actual act of getting married is just one little flash in a life full of potentially joyful occasions!

The pressure the wedding industry puts on couples is ridiculous. “Oh it’s the most important day of your life!”, “This will be the best day you’ve ever had!” they squawk. And yes, while it is undoubtedly a special day, it does not have to be the “best day of your life”.

Our wedding was was absolutely one of my top five life highlights, but I feel like claiming it was “the best” would be a bit of a lie. That’s not to say that our wedding wasn’t completely amazing, but so was buying our first house, quitting my day job to blog full time, launching my own magazine… There are many more days in my life that I’ve loved and boiling your complete happiness down to one very specific and pre-planned moment only sets you up for disappointment if things don’t go exactly to plan. It also makes you put an extreme amount of pressure on yourself to make everything utterly perfect.

Can you think of any other event in your life that you have amazing memories from that was planned to the very last second? Of course not! Most of your fondest times had a bit of spontaneity around them – those nights out you didn’t even bother to re-do your make up and ended up on a wild adventure, the time you bumped into this cute guy and ended up falling in love, when you booked a last minute holiday and had the most amazing two weeks ever! These moments of unexpected joy are rarely pre-planned to the last minute detail, and I think there’s something to be said for letting your wedding be a bit like this too.

Most of our best experiences come from letting things happen naturally, so resist the urge to schedule every second of your wedding. Not only is that a recipe for extra stress (“Oh my God, its 5.02 and dinner was supposed to start at 5pm on the dot! What’s gone wrong!?”) but it stops you enjoying it. Don’t decide how the day is supposed to go before you’ve even got there. Let things happen, have fun with it, maybe even let things get a little messy. It will definitely make for better stories to tell!

Most wedding schedules run a bit late, so instead of micromanaging the whole thing and freaking yourself out, have just the major events scheduled (ceremony start time, sitting down for food, entertainment kick off) but be a bit more loose and leisurely with the rest. Let your wedding suppliers do that they do best and for goodness sakes, CHILL! This is supposed to be fun remember!?

You’re getting married, that is an utterly amazing thing, and if you do end up having the most perfect wedding day then YAY! However before you walk down the aisle, take some time to realise that perfection is basically impossible to reach because life is far from perfect. This is not a movie wedding, this is real life, and real life sometimes throws ridiculous curve balls at us. Trust me, the best thing you can do to make sure you have the best day possible is to just make sure you enjoy it.

Your wedding day may well be the best day of your life, I really hope it is, but if it’s not that does not mean that your marriage (AKA the thing that is really important) is set up to be anything else but completely wonderful.