Your Sticky Situations--Solved!

Your mom, your sister or your best friend may be your closest confidante, but she may not always be the one who can give you the best advice for handling wedding-planning dilemmas. In fact, she may even be creating a few of your headaches—or simply may not be interested in listening to your planning woes! For this reason, some brides today are turning to bridal, or wedding, coaches for help in navigating what is often an emotionally bumpy road on the way to the big day. These coaches will work with an engaged woman to help her overcome stress and put wedding planning into proper perspective. "As your wedding plans unfold, you start dealing with conflicting egos, in-laws and too many cooks in your kitchen," says Jeri Kadison, a New York City-based bridal coach. "You may find yourself feeling anxious, tired and self-doubting."

Sound familiar? To help you deal with some typical emotional obstacles, here's advice from top wedding coaches.

Problem: "At first I was so excited about planning my wedding. But as the day gets closer, I've started to feel stressed out and overwhelmed. I love my fiancé, but sometimes I even fantasize about calling off the wedding! What's going on?"

Solution: Sounds like a case of pre-wedding jitters. At the beginning of the process, a bride may be so preoccupied with the details of planning that she forgets she's making one of the most momentous decisions of her life. Then it hits her. "It isn't necessarily a sense of doubt about the man you're marrying, but about the choice you've made to get married," says Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway, an interfaith minister and cofacilitator of the Bridal Survival Club in New York City. Rev. Brockway believes that you need to be able to name your fears. She suggests brides ask themselves: Am I afraid my fiancé's not the right guy for me, or am I scared of the way my life will change after I'm married?

"If a bride tells me, ‘I love this guy and feel in my heart he's the right person, but I'm so afraid I'm going to lose my independence,' I can work with her on constructive ways to look at and overcome that fear," Rev. Brockway says. It helps to know that many engaged women share this concern, and that usually they find ways to blend their personal autonomy with their new role as a wife.