Ah, weddings…

This past week, I had the incredible joy of participating in my older sister’s wedding over Spring Break, and I realized how easy it is to surrender Joy during such a joyous occasion.

You’d think it’d be easy to hold onto a positive mindset during a wedding, but once you participate (and I imagine actually have one of your own), you’ll begin to understand how quickly the enemy swoops in to steal your joy during this time.

As extended family flew in, friends we hadn’t seen in years traveled long and far, the stress of everything needing to be perfect grew. From the pressure of others’ expectations to wrestling with our own wants for the event, I found the ever increasing need to fight to keep a positive mindset.

So, here are three mindsets I discovered to help hold onto joy as you tumble through the wild and crazy day ahead of you.

1. Things Will Go Wrong; That’s Okay

If you’re one of those people where things need to be perfect all the time, I’m gonna tell you right now. You’re going to be a mess on your wedding day. A friend of mine shared this great bit of advice with me.

At least three things will go wrong. After that, you don’t really care.

The sooner we realize that things not going as planned doesn’t mean things are ‘wrong’, the sooner we can bend with each sudden shift of unexpected change around us.

2. Change Is Good, Even When It Hurts.

Sometimes, I think we can feel like we’re losing a family member. A sister or a brother. With that change, there comes grief. To gain something, we often must lose something else. It’s important to feel that grief, and process through it.

People try to help by saying things like ‘you’re not losing a daughter, you’re gaining a son!’, which, I always found to be more of a slapped on Band-Aid than actual comfort. But my dad said something incredibly wise in his speech during the dinner party.

“We aren’t witnessing the joining of two families. We’re witnessing the birth of a new one.”

Then, as an example, he took two Lego blocks, joined them together, and gave them to my sister. The start of a new family.

What an honor it is to be invited to witness such a thing!

3. In The End, It’s a Single Event.

Perhaps the second most important event in your life, but still. Just a blip in the grand scheme of things.

As my Pastor, and the officiator of the event said… Every marriage needs a wedding. A celebration. A moment of a declaration where you say “yeah, that’s the one” … But not every wedding gets a marriage. My sister and brother-in-law (woah, that’s weird to say) now get to pursue that marriage full-time. The celebration is going to be important to remember as they face the trials ahead.

I know all these points may not be the most encouraging things to hear, and it’s likely still going to be an uphill battle. But if you adopt these three mindsets when going through a wedding, Joy will be much harder for the enemy to steal from you.

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