Emotionally Engaged
617-935-3362
  • Free Consult
  • Unhappy Bride
  • Brides
    • Why???
    • What Brides Say
    • Could This Be You?
    • Post-Wedding
    • FAQs
    • Book
  • Grooms
  • Parents
  • Cold Feet
  • About
    • Media Appearances
  • Blog

From "fetal position" to the happiest wedding day: One bride's very successful bridal counseling experience

10/21/2016

0 Comments

 
Here's the very successful story of Erin, a 27-year-old bride-to-be, who I helped get married this summer.
​
Do you see yourself in her story?

Before meeting with Allison, I felt terrified, isolated, and confused.

I was so scared that what I was feeling wasn't "normal."  

Scared that seeing Allison meant I had somehow failed at being a bride-to-be. 
​
Scared that I was making the wrong decision in choosing to marry my fiancé. 

Read More
0 Comments

Once Panicked, Now Peaceful: This Bride is SO Ready to Get Married

6/25/2014

0 Comments

 
From Panicked to Peaceful: This Bride is SO Ready to Get Married
Last November,Ashley found me by Googling "cold feet about getting married."  

She often tells me that she sobbed when she read my website -- that finally, someone understood what she was going through. 

We met on Skype the next day, and she sobbed basically through the entire free 15-minute consultation.

And so began our 6-month journey of bridal counseling


Read More
0 Comments

Cold Feet Before the Wedding: A Bride's Journey From Panicked To Peaceful

3/12/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
"Eight months before my wedding, I completely freaked out," wrote Ashley, a bride-to-be I'm working with right now. Her experience in bridal counseling has been so powerful that she wanted to share her story with brides everywhere.  She writes:

"Whenever anyone mentioned the wedding or my fiancé, my throat tightened. I'd get short of breath. My heart raced. I was scared.

Four months earlier, I happily said "yes!" to a wonderful man who understood me inside and out and was perfect on paper.  Before becoming engaged, I loved my relationship with my fiancé.  I loved him, felt lucky to be with him, and that we had such a special and magical relationship.

Now, I was questioning my decision to get married because I was no longer attracted to my fiance.  I felt we had lost our spark, and I was trying to talk myself into marrying him.   

I was so confused.  

I never imagined I'd have cold feet.  I thought cold feet only happened right before your wedding. 

Read More
0 Comments

Help for uncertain brides: Google Hangout March 12

3/10/2014

0 Comments

 
It's normal for brides-to-be to experience times of uncertainty during their engagements.  Uncertainty about the relationship, the wedding, the guy.
Picture
It's normal, yes, but it's really upsetting and difficult, especially when everyone's expecting you to be only confident, sure, and 100% certain.

What can you do with your feelings of uncertainty?

Picture
This is what we'll discuss at this Wednesday's Google Hangout for Brides:  what uncertainty might mean, what it's purpose is and how to work through it.

9-10pm EST: I will moderate the conversation, keeping it focused on managing uncertainty.  I'll also lead you all in an exercise to help you deepen your understanding of what's going on.

Watch 1:37 video on Google Hangouts for Brides

Read More
0 Comments

The Stories of 7 Brides

9/16/2013

2 Comments

 
7 of the brides I worked with got married. 

 I thought it would be interesting for you to hear a little about the issues we worked on.
  • K., who didn't feel emotionally close enough to her fiance  
  • M., who had to negotiate a new relationship with her controlling father
  • F., who was reluctant to move out of her own condo and into her fiance's house
  • I., who was anxious about getting "financially naked" with her fiance
  • A., who was grieving the loss of a close relative ...while planning a wedding
  • R., who really had a hard time letting go of her single identity and the end of her single life
  • C., who was fearful about how marriage might impact her career goals

Picture
Photo courtesy HomeandWeddings on Etsy
These brides contacted me because they felt anxious and alone in their struggles.

Anxious and alone because the world expected them to be only "brides" -- only excited, only happy, only thinking about dresses and shoes and aisle runners.  

These pressures and expectations didn't match their own inner emotional experiences, which were rich, deep, and lifechanging.  In our work together, each of these brides could be their complex, "unbridely" selves, as they made sense of the very real changes their impending marriages caused them to face.

I'm happy to say that, across the board, without exception, all 7 brides successfully worked through their issues. Each and every bride has reported back to me about the happiness and joy they felt on their wedding days.  Most couldn't believe they had traveled such a distance, emotionally, from where we first started.  At the beginning of our work, they couldn't envision a happy wedding day, they were so wrapped up in their angst and pain.  

And yet, as one bride just told me during her FREE post-wedding download session:  

"Our wedding was phenomenal. The whole thing. Emotionally, I was calmer than I expected to be -- nothing was going to get me down --  and I was surprised at how choked up I got saying my vows.  It was amazing and so satisfying to see all the million tiny details that I worked so hard on, sweated over, and fought for, come to life.  It was perfect."

If you see yourself in any of these 7 brides, or if you are feeling anxious and alone, pressured to be a "perfect bride" and not your complete, complex self, contact me for a free 15-minute Skype consultation.  For these 7 brides, working with me -- having a place in their lives to be "unbridely" -- allowed them to be real, delve deep, grow, learn and come out the other side happy and ready to be married.  

If you'd like that too, please, be in touch.

Click here for your free 15-minute video consultation

Allison Moir-Smith
2 Comments

Do You Really Want This Marriage?

4/5/2013

0 Comments

 
Early spring is always busy at Emotionally Engaged.

Big deposits are due for spring weddings, and that causes brides to fully face what they are doing with their lives.

So I'm busy. Wonderfully busy.

I have a great new group of brides from all over the globe working with me.  This week, I've been finding myself asking many of them one very simple question:

"Do you want this marriage?"

The answers are all over the map.

"No, not this relationship as it stands right now," said one bride.

"Um, I really don't know," said another. "That's why I contacted you."

"Yes, absolutely, yes," say most brides I work with.  And they quickly follow up by saying, "So why am I feeling so anxious and chaotic inside right now?  I know I want to marry him, so why do I feel like this?"

There are many reasons why some brides feel overwhelmed and anxious.  Here are some of the emotional challenges I worked with brides on this week:
  • Getting "financially naked" with your fiance -- how important it is, how vulnerable you might feel, but ultimately how much comfort it will bring knowing the facts
  • Letting go of your own apartment or home -- how sad, difficult and confusing that is, because you know you want to live with him
  • Understanding the psychology of your & his families and how it plays out in your relationship -- the marriages you both grew up in, the patterns you both learned
See?  These anxiety-causing issues aren't so much about the relationship or marriage, but about mourning the end of your single life, adjusting to the intimacy of creating a life together as a married couple, and getting to know each other on a whole new level.

There's a LOT going on inside brides just like you.

If you're struggling with an amorphous sense of worry and anxiety and want to get to the bottom of what's going on, contact me for a free 15-minute video consultation. 



Together, we can get to YOUR core issue. 

Allison Moir-Smith
0 Comments

    How to be a Happier
    ​Bride-to-Be

    Picture

    Free Consultation

    Blog Categories

    All
    Advice
    Anxiety
    Book To Blog
    Brides.com Blogs
    Brides: Feelings
    Brides: Sessions
    Brides: Success Stories
    Cold Feet
    Dear Newly Engaged Me
    Depression
    Emotionally Engaged
    Emotions
    Engagement
    Family
    Grief
    Help For Brides
    Holidays
    Love
    Mother
    Myths
    Psychology
    Real Emotions
    Relationships
    Sessions W Brides
    Wedding Day
    Wedding Planning
    Wedding Stress

    Archives

    May 2022
    April 2021
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    December 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Free Consult
Cold Feet
Contact

Helping brides & grooms feel happier, calmer and better prepared for marriage since 2002.
​