Post wedding blues?

I heard this was a possibility and planned a LOT of stuff in the weeks after our wedding. We dove headfirst into remodeling a room in our house, spending time with friends, inviting people over for dinner, catching up on work -- changing my name and writing thank you notes took a fair amount of time too.

I can't imagine not being near family or friends after being surrounded by so much love, I think that may be worse than the lull after planning.

It's very common from what I've heard. Know that you aren't alone. I'm very concerned about this for me since my depression tends to spike after big events. Is is possible to start planning a trip to visit some of family or friends? Or maybe start a date night with FH where you learn new things? Or start up or pick back up a hobby?

I start classes two weeks after the wedding. Until then, I will continue to work as much overtime as they let me. I imagine I will get that "lost" feeling next June when school is done and wedding stuff is long gone. Then again, I might just sleep for a week!

This seems to be a common feeling when there is nothing that follows the wedding. I even get a feeling of being lost when I don't have a project to get done because I am waiting for supplies to be delivered or I am done the last project so I can image I will feel similarly. The best idea I can think of is to find something to focus on, a hobby or something. I used to love writing, but wedding planning is taking up ALL of my spare time so I look forward to trying to do that again. When it comes to family and friends the one thing I can say is that I know real life gets in the way, but try to find some time to reach out to them, this isn't even about the wedding it is also about life in general, knowing that we live once and it is important to work so you can live, not live so you can work. If you ever need people to talk to this community is always here. Good luck and enjoy the next adventure -hugs-

I am not leaving right after the wedding for the honeymoon since the week after is thanksgiving and one of my friends made this Friends reference lol! I'm sure it's every common!

Yes! I felt this way a lot during the first week after we got back from our wedding and honeymoon. All my spare time had gone into planning. We got back from Europe right as the intense desert summer started and I had nothing to occupy my time and it was (and still is!) too hot to do much of anything. I missed having something big to occupy me.

On top of that, all my family and close friends live in other states, so I felt really down knowing that it's going to be awhile before I see any of them again. DH and I currently have different work schedules and different days off, so I didn't even have him there to spend much time with.

I snapped out of it after the first week, but to be honest I still have a moment here or there of feeling a little down. I'm trying to find new things to focus on such as looking forward to DH's days off switching next month to be the same as mine.

@futuremrsboling, that friends reference is so accurate! I always tell DH that I think we are like Chandler and Monica, and that just proves it even more!

I'm so afraid of this happening... We're not going on a honeymoon - just a weekend trip in january- and he has to hop right back into 12 hour days at work after the wedding... I work from home, so I'm thinking it will be particularly lonely.

This is a very common form of depression that follows big events. Your brain gets "addicted" to the rush you get during planning and daydreaming, that it goes through literal withdrawal. It usually dissipates in 2-4 weeks.

What follows the wedding is real life. Three weeks after your wedding, you'll be sitting in traffic on the way to work, and once you get there, you'll be back to the same day to day routine you had before you were married.

I really wish some Ph.Ds or mental health experts would do a serious study on this issue -- post wedding blues. I wonder how much modern culture has contributed to something that your grandmothers didn't experience. Decades ago, brides were busy adjusting to a completely new life with their husbands following their weddings. Granted, life was very different, and their weddings were far simpler (although just as lovely, but not as opulent) as today's weddings. There just seems to be so much more pressure on you ladies to meet some prescribed, unbelievably expensive wedding standard. Weddings in the past had a timeline that would seem accelerated to modern day brides, so there wasn't the time or the need to spend countless hours and months planning, negotiating, and stressing about vendors and details (i.e., Save the Dates, sundae bars, multiple dessert options, coordinated candy bars, groom's cakes, linens, BMs gifts, hair extensions, signage, grand exits, uplighting, photo booths, personalized favors, wedding hash tags...ad infinitum). Plus, brides from the past (prior to the 1980's) tended to live at home until marriage, and her parents often paid for the wedding -- in part, if not in whole. Those brides had a real incentive to keep the timeline moving along. They wanted to be with their future husbands, day and night, and a lot of the post-wedding period was spent enjoying what the newly married couple could enjoy without having to sneak away from their parents.

Contrast that with today's bride; she might be living with her FH before she is engaged to him. She might be the mother of his child/children before she is engaged to him. That's a massive change from what your grandmothers experienced.

Today, the engagement is the beginning of a long road filled with wedding plans and photos shoots to Vistaprint back to photoshoots . Weddings today are very expensive and complicated affairs (if you want to have everything the wedding industry and wedding TV tells you is a must). So, you start planning. You keep planning, and planning, and planning. At the end of two years, you've invested in the equivalent of a part-time job -- for your wedding.

Suddenly, in 24 hours, it's over. It was magnificent. However, it's not a slow introduction back into the weddingless world -- it's immediate (unless you have a honeymoon, which only delays the inevitable by two weeks, or so). Remember, for several years, your head has been wedding oriented -- visions of you in your gown (in multiple incarnations), walking the aisle accompanied to romantic music you spent weeks selecting, the way you thought the two of you would look as you danced your first dance together at the reception (and your hope that there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house). It's magical, and it does happen. But then, it's over.

It's kind of like you just broke up with wedding planning (not kidding), and there's nothing else to do but push through for a few months. Every once in a while, we see a thread authored by a bride who has suddenly fixated on the things she, in hindsight, has decided ruined or marred her big day. For example, there was a bride who posted a thread today, a lovely, porcelain skinned redhead, who was married in a gorgeous green wedding gown. That was her choice from day one. She looked stunning. I couldn't comment on her post because vendors were precluded. However, she is now crying "real tears" over the fact that she didn't get married in a white gown. She thinks she missed something. With all good intentions, a few other posters (not the majority) told her to plan a vow renewal and wear white. Vow renewals are not the big pink eraser for the wedding blues. They are to celebrate milestones, not do-overs. She looked fantastic, and just because she didn't wear white, it is no reason to grieve her wedding.

As an adult, you let yourself feel the natural feelings that come with a vague sense of loss that follows such a commitment with a big payoff at the end. Then you tell yourself, life is about moving forward. Remind yourself that you had a fabulous wedding, and even if it wasn't fabulous, you had a wedding and you are married to someone you love above any other on the planet. Realize that you will probably not find yourself in such a unique spotlight again (unless it's your funeral, and you won't be there for that). Unless you achieve something remarkable and become press worthy, your accomplishments will be far less crowd laden. You may earn higher degrees -- again, amazing, but they don't warrant personal ceremonies -- it's a crowd thing. You may get promotions and begin to earn more and more money. Great, but still not the same as putting on a four-figure gown and having every eye on you while some emotional song plays in the background.

What will happen, if you are a responsible individual, is growth. If that takes the form of children, then you're in for something that trumps a wedding. Career wise, promotions will come, and with them, more income. That added income will be the gateway for you to look at larger homes, blueprints, and then you'll find yourself driving home from work thinking about the house the two of you are going to buy.. and guess what? You will gain a whole new level of appreciation for pinterest when you start boards labeled, "Dream Kictchen" or "Master Suite."

I have a wonderful friend -- 20 years older than me. When she was in college, she and her significant other skipped a class, went to the courthouse and got married. Then, they went back to their classes. That was 1967. They just celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary. He's a doctor and she's a therapist. They own a beautiful home in a NJ suburb. They own a gorgeous casita in Arizona (and she's there every winter). They have two grown sons -- an attorney and a doctor. They have a grandson. They enjoy exotic annual vacations. They have everything. What they didn't have was a big formal wedding. There is life after the wedding. Go out there and make it happen.

Weddings are designed to be memorable events. However, they are just the beginning. You'll move on...most people do.

I think this is common and I'm glad you brought it up. I remember always feeling bummed after my birthday party was over as a kid. I think its just something you have to get through. Do you have a support system where you live?

Centerpiece nailed it once again.

This is why I haven't let wedding planning become my life. I've had the luxury of taking my time over the last year and a half. It's a very special day, but ultimately, it's just a day. I will be focusing on being the best goddamn wife I can be to FH once the wedding has come and gone. This includes Super Soakers, Nerf guns, and overall epic-ness.

I miss the planning because I'm a planner type of person. I'm actually breathing a sigh of relief that the wedding is over. It was great and wonderful, but it was a lot of work.

Since I'm a planner, I'm now looking into houses and baby things, even though both of those things are over a year away. However, the wedding was over a year away, but we all still plan and Pinterest. I'm now planning and pinteresting for the next steps in my life and I think that helps a lot.

1.5 years & I still miss the planning!

FH always says he thinks this will happen to me. I absolutely love weddings and loved talking about them and helping friends planned before I got engaged so I think I might be a little sad after that it's over but now that we are getting closer more and more I feel like I'm ready for it to be here and over and to just be married. I think I will probably miss it a little but I start school a week after I get back from the honeymoon so I don't get much time to feel sad.

Centerpiece, that was beautifully written and something we all should think about. Thank you.

Luckily the Olympics start after we get back from ours.

My advice would be to find a new "project" after your wedding. I didn't really get the post-wedding blues because I jumped right into law school applications which then led to law school visits, quitting my job and a 300 mile move.

Very well said centerpiece! I have a tendency to get down after big events and vacation. I'm afraid I may feel like this. I've spent so much time and money and effort into planning this one day event. But I do have the honeymoon and vacations to plan and other projects so hopefully I'll be so occupied I won't get down. Plus it's getting to be stressful so I'm looking forward to getting my life back.

Thank you, everyone, for the thoughtful words and advice.

The last couple days before the wedding, I was ready for it to be over with, but now I miss it all. We live hundreds of miles from any of my family or friends so the wedding planning was actually a good preoccupation for my loneliness that has now returned. I think I need to find a new hobby!