It's fun­ny how con­cerns be­come mag­ni­fied once one de­cides to get mar­ried. All of a sud­den, the lit­tle things a per­son does or say mean so much more. If he leaves dish­es in the sink now, does that mean he won't help me with the house­work down the line? If I don't get along with some of her fam­i­ly and friends, does that mean we'll have trou­ble at fu­ture get-to­geth­ers? Some peo­ple may call these types of thoughts pre­mar­i­tal jit­ters. Many brides- and grooms-to-be have them. So to a cer­tain ex­tent, the en­gaged cou­ple and so­ci­ety ac­cepts them, and the wed­ding goes on as planned. Some­times, how­ev­er, the jit­ters may lead to post­pone­ment or can­cel­la­tion of nup­tials.

Good vs bad anx­i­ety

A lit­tle anx­i­ety is nor­mal and healthy, says Jer­i­lyn Ross, MA, LIC­SW, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Anx­i­ety Dis­or­ders As­so­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca. "Some anx­i­ety helps us get out of harm's way," said Ross. "It helps us pre­pare, it helps us fo­cus on do­ing some­thing, to try hard­er. It forces us to take ac­tion." For in­stance, a lit­tle wor­ry about get­ting the wed­ding in­vi­ta­tions out on time can mo­ti­vate a per­son to choose the in­vi­ta­tions, or­der them, and send them out in a time­ly man­ner. "The kind of wor­ry that gets you to plan, or­gan­ise, and take con­crete steps is great," said Ross. Anx­i­ety be­comes ex­treme when a per­son be­gins to ob­sess about whether or not they are mak­ing the right de­ci­sion about some­thing, or los­es sleep over ap­pre­hen­sion that the dress or wed­ding site may not be quite right. This type of fret­ting could af­fect fam­i­ly, so­cial, and work life.

Yet ex­treme anx­i­ety isn't to­tal­ly ab­nor­mal when it comes to wed­ding plan­ning. "We see those ex­tremes all the time, be­cause get­ting mar­ried is an ex­treme sit­u­a­tion," said Ross. "It's some­thing most peo­ple do, hope­ful­ly, once in their life­time. It is a ma­jor de­ci­sion and com­mit­ment." If the wor­ry be­comes so over­whelm­ing that it paral­y­ses a per­son, it may be a sign of an anx­i­ety dis­or­der. For ex­am­ple, a per­son may ob­sess about hand print­ing every sin­gle in­vi­ta­tion and throw it out if a let­ter is im­per­fect. Oth­er signs of the dis­or­der in­clude avoid­ing or ma­nip­u­lat­ing sit­u­a­tions to avoid the anx­i­ety. For in­stance, a per­son may be so wor­ried about trip­ping while walk­ing down the aisle that he or she re­fus­es to go through with the cer­e­mo­ny. Or a per­son may sug­gest a hon­ey­moon near­by be­cause he or she is afraid of rid­ing an air­plane.

Work­ing as a team

Out­side of anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, Su­san Heitler, PhD, a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and a mar­riage and fam­i­ly ther­a­pist in Den­ver, prefers not to look at pre-wed­ding jit­ters in terms of healthy or un­healthy. Jit­ters de­serve con­sid­er­a­tion, she said. They don't just come out of the blue. "Jit­ters, which are ba­si­cal­ly anx­i­eties, come up be­cause there is some­thing go­ing on that mer­its at­ten­tion," said Heitler, who doesn't be­lieve every­one ex­pe­ri­enced such anx­i­ety. Cou­ples with strong col­lab­o­ra­tive skills tend to do fine, she said. Those who lack such skills, how­ev­er, may ex­pe­ri­ence jit­ters- even if the cou­ple re­al­ly loves each oth­er. Plan­ning a wed­ding in­volves mak­ing joint de­ci­sions, Heitler ex­plained. To re­solve dis­agree­ments, some peo­ple may bul­ly their part­ner, while oth­ers may cave in and feel re­sent­ful.

Pat­terns such as these can lead to fights and can trig­ger anx­ious feel­ings be­fore the wed­ding day.

To make mat­ters worse, the high stress in­volved in wed­ding plan­ning can make peo­ple slip in­to their worst habits. In­stead of work­ing as a team, one or both par­ties may be­come de­mand­ing. In­stead of lis­ten­ing, peo­ple can be­come de­fen­sive. To ease high-pres­sure times and de­ci­sion mak­ing, Heitler rec­om­mend­ed learn­ing ef­fec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion skills.

Sort­ing through doubts

If you're still not sure you want to go through with the wed­ding, it's best to talk to some­one. Kate Wachs, PhD, a Chica­go psy­chol­o­gist rec­om­mends talk­ing to a trust­ed fam­i­ly mem­ber, prefer­ably some­one who is mar­ried. It helps if that per­son is not nor­mal­ly crit­i­cal of you or your part­ner. Be sure that per­son is ra­tio­nal and isn't the type to make sit­u­a­tions worse. You may al­so want to dis­cuss pre­mar­i­tal mis­giv­ings with a trust­ed friend, priest, min­is­ter, rab­bi, or a ther­a­pist. Talk­ing to your part­ner is an­oth­er op­tion, but do so with cau­tion, said Wachs. Make sure your part­ner un­der­stands that your doubts do not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean you want to call off the wed­ding. If can­cel­ing or post­pon­ing nup­tials is in your mind, try to be as hon­est as pos­si­ble with your part­ner.