Social Anxiety Can Sorta Be a Nightmare When You're Getting Married
Social anxiety describes an experience in which one becomes excessively fearful of social interactions due to anticipation of being judged or negatively evaluated by others, producing feelings of embarrassment, insecurity, inadequacy, and shame. Social anxiety is not merely being nervous or shy; rather, it creates intense emotional pain and can lead to depression, panic attacks, and avoidance of otherwise health-promoting experiences. So, this is a pretty rough thing for anyone to suffer through….for engaged folx, it can be an utter nightmare. Being the center of attention, speaking in front of large groups, being teased (looking at you, awkward father-of-the-bride speech), meeting “important” people, are all triggers for social anxiety yet seem part and parcel of the wedding experience. And the manifestations of social anxiety can be incredibly physical, including racing heart, dry mouth, trembling, hives, blushing or redness, all of which would sort of be a bummer, amiright?
There are 2 related sets of strategies that you might employ if you’re a bride-to-be/groom-to-be/spouse-to-be who suffers with social anxiety. Both are important, and we recommend you find ways to incorporate aspects of each set into your plan:
Work on your social anxiety, duh! This will help you not only for your wedding, but for, ya know, your whole life.
Therapy is great. A therapist can help to uncover insight and understanding around how social anxiety might have taken root in childhood, and support you to work through these old feelings of shame, inadequacy, and the pressure for perfection.
Group therapy or process groups are amazing for social anxiety, as they are opportunities to get comfortable meeting and interacting with new people, practice interpersonal skills that are difficult, like talking in front of a group, and regulating emotions while doing all of this.
Cultivate a daily relaxation practice, through yoga, breathwork, mindfulness, or any other practice that works for you. This will empower you with the skill and confidence to have some control over regulating your nervous system, and will contribute to lowering your baseline anxiety levels.
Practice tolerating horrible feelings. You will absolutely need to have started working on the previous tip, as you’ll need some relaxation technique or distress tolerance skill to do this successfully. This involves actually putting yourself in a situation that is a little anxiety-provoking, and planning in advance to use the skill you’ve been practicing. So, yes, I am indeed suggesting that you do the thing that sounds horrible, and feel the feelings that are horrible. It’s important to know that the goal of all this work is not to make the social anxiety disappear forever, but rather to get more comfortable with the anxious feelings and know you can tolerate them.
Be practical about how you can customize your wedding day for your maximum enjoyment. Ordinarily we would not recommend totally avoiding the things that cause anxiety, especially when those things could be positive. We would work with them over time to support them to do the things that cause anxiety, rather than eliminating those things. However, I am just being realistic here. That work might take awhile -- longer than you have until your wedding day. So, while you can and should begin some of the abovementioned work on your social anxiety, you also can and should take control of the elements of your ceremony and celebration that you can to reduce your discomfort.
If reciting vows in front of one hundred guests is nauseating to you, don’t do it! You can say your vows to each other privately, or create an untraditional ceremony that works for you. I have known couples for whom this piece was anxiety-provoking, so they crafted a beautiful, personalized ceremony in which they eliminated the whole standing up all-eyes-on-you thing and instead were seated and enjoyed listening to their friends and family, who spontaneously offered their love and words of wisdom.
Have a go-to friend or family member who can be on social anxiety support. You can prep them in advance that when you are feeling the bad feels, you will tap them to support you, perhaps by coaching you through one of the relaxation skills you’ve been working on.
You got this!!