Preparing for the Big Day Four Weeks Away

I’m getting butterflies preparing for the Big Day! Since my new book Blessed Union is about mental illness and marriage, I’m wedded to the metaphor of my February 9 book publication date as my wedding day.

I checked out the Bridal Guide for advice about what to do in this exciting time leading up to the wedding day, especially the window of four weeks before the wedding. I found the tips very helpful. The main message is,”Don’t Forget Yourself”! Great advice for all of us.

Here’s the top four tips from Bridal Guide about what to do:

1. Date your fiancé. Most couples get so busy with wedding tasks, they forget to spend time together. Even a sneak-away lunch can make you feel romantic again.
   Translation: Take a night to light a candle and gaze into the eyes of your manuscript. Remember what made you fall in love with the message of the book. Why was writing this book the most important thing in the world to you?

2.Hit the spa. Along with your pre-wedding beauty treatments, throw in a massage or reflexology treatment, and you’ve got a nice just-for-you package.
Translation: create a home altar with sacred symbols and place your manuscript upon it. Offer up this labor of love to God and release it from your care. This is bigger than you and it’s not about you.

3.Go to the beach. Or the park. Or wherever you can connect with nature. You may want to bring along a parent, a sibling or a girlfriend for some calm time together.
Translation: this one needs no translation, other than to say instead of a beach, it might be the woods or the desert or the park down the street, or any patch of nature will do.

4. Pick your night-before sleeping spot carefully. If spending the night in your childhood bed feels right, do that. But if your family’s going to keep you up, forget it. Get a hotel room alone or with a bridesmaid— or forgo tradition and stay with your fiancé. The point is to find the best place to get your beauty sleep.
Translation: get some rest because your life is about to change! Just as Virginia Woolf wrote about needing a room of one’s own in the act of writing, when it comes to publishing, get a room! That night before the Big Day, make sure you enjoy a renewing night of rest.

Along with these tips to prepare for the Big Day, I’ll add one more.

5. Trust the soul’s work. Doing the work the soul must do is holy and hard. Trust it. Don’t doubt this holy and hard truth. And hold hands with it, comfort it, and treasure it within your heart. Be in the blessing of it all, the hard and the holy.