What’s more wonderful than a wedding? Unfortunately, if you ask the people who have had one, some of them will say “just about anything”.That’s because, in addition to all the good stuff, your wedding can be one of the most stressful experiences that you ever have in your life.

Surely, you’ve heard horror stories from brides who have had to slap together last-minute ceremonies after disaster struck. Unfortunately, those disasters are as common as they are creative – vendors who don’t show up, deliveries of the wrong items in the wrong colors, venues that aren’t ready, and guests who have no idea where they are supposed to be.

All of that can happen, even in one wedding! However, there are many steps you can take to protect yourself from a most stressful wedding.

Start the planning more than a year in advance

You’ve been dreaming of your wedding your entire life. You probably have had some of the details memorized since your age was in the single digits. In that way, you’ve been planning it forever. But, what about the real planning? What about making reservations, putting down deposits, and buying the items you’ll need at their best seasonal prices?

If you care about protecting yourself from stress, you need to make sure you start the real planning as far in advance as possible. A year might be a stretch, assuming your engagement is even that long, but that’s a great amount of time to save for yourself if you don’t want the planning process to be stressful.

For one, plenty of top venues in every area are booked for a year in advance or more. Two, a lot can happen to a wedding venue between the time of booking and the wedding. If it’s going to do something like go out of business, you want to know that as soon as possible.

Do your homework on the locations and vendors

Except for the guests, no one causes more drama than the vendors and venues. They’ll fight with you over the bills, over the schedules — there are even stories of them fighting with the guests! Of course, you don’t have to be one of the people with these stories to tell, as long as you are willing to do some homework on your locations and vendors.

To avoid potentially involving dozens of stressful events, make sure you fiercely vet any vendors you want to hire for your wedding. Check online to find reviews of their behavior with their other clients. If they offer you a list of their past clients to call, take advantage of it!

Keep the guest list under control

A wedding should be a celebration, but the more people you invite, the more “experiences” you’re going to be responsible for. Huge weddings are impressive, but they aren’t always as easy to enjoy and be “in the moment” when you have so many operations going on around you. If you want to remember your wedding as being a less stressful event, consider going smaller.

If you have a family that tends towards drama, make sure that you respect your right to keep people who stress you out, well, out. If you invite someone you know is going to kick up personal issues with you or other guests, you have no one else to blame when it leads to a stressful wedding.

Take the support your friends want to give

One of the biggest and most stressful mistakes is thinking that the whole wedding has to be on you. A wedding is a celebration that many people in your family and friends circle will be looking forward to, and you should let them give you the support that you need.

Don’t let yourself get too possessive over small details. There’s a magic in getting exactly the wedding details you want, but there’s also a magic in seeing what the people who love you make for you. By giving up a little management and letting your friends or parents handle some details they enjoy, you save yourself a lot of stress.

Let go!

Even after you’ve done your planning, scoped out vendors you can trust, and found some support in a (maybe smaller) guest list, there’s still one thing you can change — you.

The truth is that something will almost certainly go wrong during your wedding, possibly several things, and that’s the case even if you planned everything just perfectly. How you choose to react to these things is going to have the biggest impact on whether you remember your wedding as peaceful or stressful. So, let go! Accept that you can’t stop every problem, and resolve to not let it stop you.