No, really, you DON'T have to be a happy bride all the time

No, really, you DON'T have to be a happy bride all the time

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Bride Courtney had a killer Downtown LA wedding that we loved ( go see it!), but there was a bit of advice that really caught our attention. She works in mental health and was especially sensitive to how heavy the pressure can be to avoid being called a "bridezilla" ( hello, sexism!).

It's as if you have to be falsely cheerful and laid-back at all times during wedding planning or everyone will pounce on your moment of melancholy and say you're like that all the time. It's a tough trope to avoid when you're spending months to years planning a big event with lots of money and emotions involved. Sometimes you'll be pissed or sad or whatever emotion, and THAT'S TOTALLY OKAY.

She also gave some advice on how to deal with gender-based conversations while wedding planning. It's real talk and something you'll likely encounter during planning. Here's what Courtney had to say about the pressure to always be a happy bride...

Jesse and I have never been or looked like a traditional couple, so in many ways we felt freed from the pressure of our wedding needing to look a certain way. That being said, I think there can be a HUGE amount of pressure for brides to be happy 100% of the time. If they're not, they're called bridezillas. Working in mental health, this expectation that I needed to feel a certain way 100% of the time immediately ground my gears. I really just tried to not let it get to me, to meet myself where I was at every day, and to make all kinds of time for self-care.

I also found it rather annoying that people would ask me about me primarily about how wedding planning was going and ask primarily Jesse how his job was going. Jesse and I both work full-time, put equal weight on our careers, and both planned the wedding equally. Hearing this constantly made us both feel thrust into very traditional gender roles. We learned how to shift these conversations so they felt more equal, and just tried to communicate the whole time we were engaged about how we were feeling, how we could relieve each other with wedding tasks, and how to best support each other.

More than anything, we constantly sought ways to just stay present and soak up all of the magic of this fleeting period in our life that we could.

Is anyone else dealing with forced cheerfulness just to keep he "bridezilla" moniker from hitting your doorstep? How are you dealing?

More "happy bride" advice:

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