I need a giant rant about anxiety/breakdown around my wedding.

Anyone out there - I just need someone to validate this experience. It’s a long rant - sorry.

So I planned my interstate wedding alone during the back end of the pandemic. All family on both sides live in two different states to us. We got married in a different state to where we live. Planning was a beautiful nightmare. I was so alone and unsupported throughout the engagement except of course by my now husband. My mum isn’t in the picture and her absence was noted. All my family (except father and sibling) live overseas also and didn’t come.

We had left a toxic community and a bridesmaid stabbed me in the back big time which resulted in me having a mental breakdown three weeks before the wedding. (she didn’t even come due to covid, to add insult to injury). I had to quit my job leaving us totally penniless with $3k left to pay. Despite it all, I went ahead and didn’t end up in debt.

I was so highly strung getting ready. The two days before, everyone flew in and bombarded me with questions blasting my phone every 5 minutes and made me cry. I was so desperate to get it all right and people weren’t supporting me. The day went well, but I can’t believe how much my breakdown anxiety manifested itself. I hardly feel like I was a blushing bride but more a bloody wreck, despite what my family say. I was just trying desperately to keep my anxiety at bay. Also, I had my period. So there’s that.

Since the wedding, I cannot let it go. The day itself went well, and I was happy. My dad cried when he saw me as did my now husband. Everyone is beaming in the videos and photos.

But I cannot rest, I can’t let it go. I remember on the day thinking everyone hated me. Before walking into the church I snapped at someone - I think it was my dad - and was so desperate to get down the aisle. My MOH had said I’d feel better when I saw my husband and I did, instantly. But it didn’t stop me Feeling like I ruined things because I was a bit snappy and stressed in the morning. Small details I missed, the photographer missing a few photos, not having photos with friends, choosing the wrong bridesmaids. I had almost 4/5 bridesmaids complain at me 12 WEEKS LATER telling me I was snappy in the morning and it “hurt their feelings”. I WAS snappy in the morning from pure stress and feeling isolated, missing my mum, missing my family and getting ready in an air Bnb not my childhood home, but despite everything I was feeling I duly apologised for hurting their feelings. My bridesmaids left me alone to get my makeup done when I said I didn’t want to be alone while they giggled next door. They didn’t fan out my veil or dress properly for the pictures and weren’t switched on all day. Off with the fairies - none of them had been married.

I practically starved myself in the months before the wedding and made myself sick, lost 10kg, only to still have a tummy and felt like I looked pregnant. I’m Christian and couldn’t wait to cross the 3 month married mark so people would know I wasn’t pregnant. The pressure to be your most beautiful is crazy. It ate me alive. I was scared I looked fat in all my photos despite being an 8-10. I had this fear that I’d “glow up” after my wedding and look better than I did at my wedding, making all my bridal photos somehow stupidly redundant. What a vain sentiment.

My sibling is getting married soon and the overseas family is coming over for their wedding, and it’s killing me even though restrictions were in place at my wedding. It’s worse bc my sibling didn’t grow up with me, they were estranged, so the family that all saw me grow up didn’t witness this pivotal moment in my life except online. But they’ll see my sibling’s. How is that fair? the pandemic robbed me of my university graduation too. why? why did this have to happen?

It all just is a sobering reminder of how alone and unsupported I felt the entire engagement, and pivotal moments in my life as a first generation in this country being marked by loneliness. not to mention the damn pandemic robbing every man and his dog of key moments.

I see all the things I would’ve got right if my mum was there, if MY family was there. I see everything I can’t change, everything I would’ve done differently had I known better. Everyone is telling me I need to let it go but I cannot for the life of me go easy on myself. I just want to go back in time and slap myself in the face. Weddings are all over social media too - more flashy, more sparkly, different dresses, all these venues. I had a beautiful wedding but damn - it wasn’t like half of what I’m seeing. I had to make so many compromises on what I really really wanted. Maybe that’s just being an adult. But it sucks.

Anyway I need to say this because I’m driving my friends nuts bringing it up because they’re telling me it’s just my anxiety but I hate people telling me to let it go! YOU try planning a pandemic wedding interstate on the back of a breakdown and then tell me to let it go.