How to Keep Your Sex Life Hot When You’ve Got a Wedding to Plan
We’ve written about how to keep sex hot after marriage, and it certainly makes sense why you’d want to; once the wedding planning is over and marriage kicks in, life can always get in the way and derail your desires. But we realized today that that same reality can happen once you get engaged, too, so it’s crucial to continue to make sex a priority if it’s important to you. It’s easy in the beginning, when you’re riding that post-proposal high and have ALL the endorphins firing like crazy; however, once that aphrodisiacal afterglow goes away, the stress of planning a wedding has the potential to take the joy out of things you once loved. Try not to let it interfere with your sex life, because we’re telling you, you’re going to need that release to get you through the rough parts on the road to “I Do.”
If you’re recently engaged and reading this, don’t freak out, there is nothing about an engagement that automatically shuts down an active sex life. It’s more about the stressors that present when you’re planning a wedding that can make you a little too preoccupied to want to [fore]play with your partner. If you can recognize, from the start, that planning puts one or both of you in uptight places, then do your best to acknowledge it and not let it kill all your vibes.
Here are just a few wedding planning pressures and to-dos that can impact your drive to do each other…
How freakin expensive it all can be. There’s nothing like going broke to really kill a boner, arewerite? No matter how much you’re spending on your wedding, the fact that you’re dropping deposit after deposit on things you’ve probably never set aside money for before (flowers, entertainment, photography, etc.) can make you start tightening your belts… and before you know it, the pants neverrrr have a chance of coming off.
How many unsolicited opinions you’ll be getting. As soon as you get engaged, you get bombarded by a flurry of opinions, perspectives, preferences, and advice that you may have never asked for, but got. Because that’s how these things work, especially when family gets involved. That said, even though 9 times out of 10 it comes from a “I’m only trying to help” place, it gets annoying and tiring and instead of wanting to kick everyone out and get busy with bae between the sheets, you just want to kick everyone out and have complete solo serenity.
How many appointments and consultations you’ve got to go to. From touring venues to testing out various vendors, tackling guest lists to tasting everything from apps to zerts, the time that you used to have after work or on the weekends to wine and dine, Netflix and chill is now devoted to the nuptials cause. It can actually start feeling like you have ZERO time left in your life for a quickie let alone a sexy night in.
So with all the potential wedlock c***blocks out there, here’s where you need to step up to keep things steamy:
Keep one night a week open.
That’s utterly and completely wedding planning free. As in, don’t even talk about the wedding, like for a second. This is your night to avoid venue go-sees or vendor appointments and really spend time together. Doing whatever you love. If it happens to be each other, well then, 👏👏👏. Now, of course, there’s always back and forth about whether ‘scheduling’ time for intimacy is a good thing - but we’re going to come out and say that when you’re planning a wedding, and legit have no time on your calendar if you’re working full-time, then you need to pencil in that heavy petting.
Make use of all that celebratory champagne.
When you get engaged, you’re going to get lots of bottles of bubbly. Your girlfriends will be putting together Prosecco care packages with all the bridal magazines, for endless “I Do” inspiration, and your relatives will be toasting your new milestone every chance they get, with lots of extra bottles for future happy pours. So! Instead of letting all the effervescence just sit and get dusty on your bar cart, get silly and tipsy with your S.O. a few times and see where the evening takes you. Clinking glasses, followed by grabbing asses… we’ll take it!
Go off-registry with a secret wish list.
Registering for new things to bring into your marital life is fun, for sure, but it’s also one of those things that brides and grooms, alike, can find very tedious and overwhelming. A whole day in the department store or online can easily lead to exhaustion. When you find yourself hitting a wall with gifts you hope your guests will want to buy, then turn your attention to your own romantic-relationship wish list. This one will just be between the two of you 🤫, so if it gets kinky, don’t worry no one else will see it. Our advice: start up a Google Doc and add links of things you think would enliven things in the bedroom. Buy things (like lingerie, toys, etc.) for each other, too!
Turn insomnia into euphoria.
There will be sooo many occasions throughout your engagement when you or your partner will lie awake at night just thinking about what still needs to get done for your wedding, how your guests will get along, whether your choice in flowers will work for the day, how your friends will behave, what your final dress fitting will bring, seriously, it’s a total mindf**k - and only gets worse the closer you get to your wedding day. That’s why we suggest some physical distractions. Your partner certainly won’t mind getting woken up for some dirty in the dark. Plus, everyone can agree that sex is a great way to calm nerves and lull you back to sleep. It’s 100 times more productive than having to turn The Office on for the 470th time…
Make good on make-up sex.
There’s not much to elaborate on here, as much as to say that leading up to a wedding, there will be fights. It’s inevitable. Maybe the arguments stem from money matters, maybe they pop off from parental involvement in the planning process, or even more simply, maybe they just occur because two people in love are orchestrating a major event and the challenges of it all are forcing a wedge between them. Whatever the case may be, fights about the wedding are bound to happen, but if you can talk through things calmly and rationally and then make up HARD afterwards, you’ll be in a much better position to weather the soon-to-be-married storm. A fight over your wedding playlist is nothing that some Lana Del Ray, Ariana Grande, and Cardi B in the background can’t remedy. #boomboom.