Manolo for the Brides

Here’s a little something I’ve never thought about before: post-wedding blues. AKA post-nuptial depression and post-bridal depression. According to relationship psychotherapist Paula Hall, one in ten new brides is so disturbed by the anticlimax of married life that they end up clinically depressed.

Many people find the early months of marriage are full of differences of opinion. Both partners want to make sure things are right from the start, and often trivial issues get blown out of proportion.

Most problems revolve around different expectations of what being married actually means. One partner might look forward to lots of cozy evenings in, while the other wants to spend more time focusing on their career.

I imagine, however, that the sense of disillusionment that some brides experience after the top of the cake has been stashed in the freezer and the wedding gifts have been put away might have something with the inevitable shift of focus. For a year or more, many brides devote themselves wholeheartedly to the wedding. The reception. The dress. The attendants. The flowers. And so on. Once all the pomp and glamour is over, real life can look kind of drab and dull.

So what’s a former bride to do? Women’s Life recommends that they:

• Know that you are not alone in your feelings and that they are a normal reaction to a huge change in your life
• Discuss your feelings of loss with your partner. Don’t feel guilty about them or try to hide them. Chances are that he feels the same as you. By being open and honest you can support one another through this transition
• Be realistic in your expectations about marriage. Building a life together takes time. Don’t try to get the same connection with your partner that your grandma and granddad have after 50 years of marriage. Nothing about married life is instant
• Don’t feel obligated to spend all of your free time with your new husband. Remember that you had your own life and interests before the marriage and your husband liked you because of this
• Start to focus your energy on something that you were interested in before the wedding, but did not get round to doing, for example taking up a new sport

Focus on something new, huh? Like having babies? KIDDING, KIDDING!

Most brides are highly conscious of how well their wedding day is turning out. As brides tend to be more involved in the planning of the matrimonial celebration than their grooms, they have a greater emotional investment. They want the ceremony to go smoothly and the trip between venues to be traffic-free and for everyone to show up where they are supposed to show up on time.

To put it another way, while a groom might stand un-phased in the face of an unexpected blemish or a spot on his collar, a bride might burst into tears. And, of course, there are lots of other things that can go wrong. Unfortunately, most wedding disaster guides deal with dress emergencies and beauty emergencies rather than vendor emergencies or what to do when the mother of the groom shows up dead drunk.

To prepare for the minor stuff (if you’re a bride or know one), you can put together an wedding day emergency kit that includes:

• Extra pantyhose
• Black socks for clueless grooms or ushers
• Stain removal swabs
• Feminine protection
• An umbrella
• Painkillers
• Sewing kit with color coordinated thread
• Mints
• Band-aids
• Hair pins
• Clear nail-polish
• Safety pins
• Antacids
• Shoe Polish
• Pocket change
• Snacks
• A cell phone
• Hair Spray

For everything else, brides and grooms just have to hope they’ve done their best to prepare for the worst. And if they are curious about worst case scenarios, they can check out Awfully Wedded : Tales of Disaster from the Big Day, a compilation of the most pathetic, heartbreaking, and embarrassing wedding stories ever.