With the excitement and pressure of wedding planning if can be easy to forget that your engagement is a once in a lifetime experience and not just the holding period between dating and married. Today I am going to walk you through creating an engagement vision board, to remind you that experiencing your engagement is just as important as planning your wedding!
Why You Want This
While there’s nothing wrong with homemade pizza and a movie on Friday night, it’s sometimes fun to think outside the “dating” box. You want to remember your engagement as an exciting time, with new experiences that add value to your relationship and set you up for the next chapter (i.e. happily ever after!)
Why You Need This
New experiences aside, an engagement vision board is a fun and creative stress buster that puts seating arrangements in perspective and gets you thinking proactively about how you want to remember your time as an engaged couple.
Instead of focusing on the minutiae of wedding planning that is causing you stress, take your mind to the bigger picture. You are so fortunate to be dealing with these issues as they mean you are experiencing one of the most happy, memorable and amazing times in your life.
How To Create An Engagement Vision Board
A vision board is a collage of images and words that represent your goals, dreams, aspirations and things that make you happy. It helps you to clarify, concentrate and feel motivated towards reaching these goals.
Vision boards can be made annually, as a guide for how you want your year ahead to play out, or for specific short term events.
This week I encourage you to make a vision board for your engagement that represents the feelings, actions and events that you want to experience during this special time.
Step One — Decide Your Engagement Aspirations
- Grab a piece of paper and your fiancé!
- Divide your paper into three columns and label them Be. Do. Have.
- In column 1 (Be) write down three ways you want to feel during your engagement. Your feelings might overlap with your fiancé’s or you might have separate but complimentary feelings. For example: I want to BE spontaneous. I want to BE thoughtful. I want to BE kind. We want to BE intimate.
- In column 2 (Do) write down what you want to experience as a couple during your engagement. For example: We want to go white water rafting. We want to take a pre-marital counseling class. We want to volunteer once a month.
- In column 3 (Have) write down what you both want to attain during your engagement. We want to save $5,000. We want to buy a house.
Step Two — Find Your Images
- For each “vision” (i.e. each single item in the Be, Do, Have categories) find an image or a word that summarizes and represents it.
Step Three — Assemble Your Board
How you display your images is totally up to you.
- You may want to maintain the separate categories of Be, Do, Have.
- You may want to divide your board into sections that represent a timeline of your engagement period and apply your visions in the order that you will achieve them.
- You may want to simply create something that appeals to you, with no particular rhyme nor reason!
Step Four — Take Action!
Each week look at your vision board and ask yourself what you can do today to reach those particular aspirations. Consider whether your actions, thoughts, emotions and experiences are corresponding with your ideal engagement vision.
Now I’d Love To Hear From You
Have you made an engagement vision board? What is one “vision” from each of the categories that you will make a reality before your wedding day. Let me know in the comments below.
Yours with love and dreams,
Jennifer Dene xoxo
By the way, if you would like to get all the benefits of managing your stress, enjoying your engagement and still becoming the bridal bombshell that were born to be I’d love for you to sign up to the mindbodybride email newsletter. Each week I send out fitness, nutrition and stress management advice for the busy bride to be.
