Getting Through My Wedding Day with POTS
Ever since being diagnosed with POTS and Dysautonomia, being in (and going to) weddings has been a big source of stress for me. They are super long and have lots of standing, whether you are a guest at cocktail hour with no seating or a bridesmaid who has to stand with the bride in front of the entire church. It’s tricky because drink options are limited (especially if you are not drinking alcohol) and I don’t get to choose what food is served (and that means a purse full of snack bars and electrolytes just in case!) I love being present to celebrate my friends and family during their special day, but is a struggle nonetheless. Flash forward to my own wedding, and I was so worried about making it through without anything happening.
Just to give you a peak into my brain. Here were my thoughts while wedding planning:
I never know when I am going to flare, is it going to be the wedding day? If it is, obviously I will have to push through- but how? Hopefully I don’t have to deal with that… What about standing in front of everyone we know to actually get married? Will I get dizzy, blackout or faint? How do we make it look like everything is fine? Also, I would love to have a normal wedding ceremony. Then, standing for pictures outside in the heat- hopefully that doesn’t do me in. We need to make sure we have food for dinner I can actually eat. Am I going to be able to walk around and see everyone, will I be too tired, will I be too weak? Oh, and I really, really want to ENJOY my wedding day!
My brain is a wild place! But, now that you know just how afraid I was of everything going wrong with my body, let me tell you how it actually went and the things we did to make it as smooth as possible. First, I made sure before the actually wedding day, key people were aware of my concerns and the moments I felt I was most at risk for having something happen (like standing at the altar). My day-of coordinator, bridesmaids and pastor were all made aware, and they were so helpful working with us to create a plan. Our pastor made sure to keep the entire ceremony under 30 minutes (to hopefully not push my body too far) and he worked with us to have several planned “breaks” in the sermon where I could give him or Zach a sign that I was starting to go downhill, and he would arrange for us to sit, all while making it look like it was always planned that way. We had two chairs against the wall behind the groomsman, and the groomsman at the end of the line knew if he mentioned us sitting, to grab the chair and bring them over to us. I am happy to report I made it through the entire ceremony, while standing, without incident. We never needed the chairs, but I felt so much more at ease because if I hadn’t been able to do it, our ceremony would have still been about us and not about me almost fainting.
Next was planning how to prepare my body to handle this rollercoaster of a day. At the rehearsal dinner the night before I didn’t have any alcohol, just plenty of food and water to keep my body hydrated and full. The morning of, while we got ready, I had multiple bottles of water with electrolyte powder (Ultima of course!) and made sure to we had food in the suite that I could eat (things like microwavable oats, ready to go soup I could heat up, fruit and veggie trays, sandwiches I could deconstruct and snack bars). In retrospect, I could have eaten more, but I had so many butterflies I was forcing myself to eat the whole morning already. Before the ceremony I sat as much as possible, and made sure my wedding shoes had a big block heel to give me a solid, sturdy base to stand on. After the ceremony, we took a lot of pictures outside in the Texas summer heat and oh-my-goodness, it was SO hot. Looking back, I really should have drunk more water during photos and actually used the battery-operated fans we bought for this purpose, but I was distracted by the just-married feeling and I hadn’t told anyone to make sure I had these things available. (Tip: have someone responsible for bringing you water and cooling you off with the fan during photos). We ended up making it through photos without incident, but we were both not feeling so great by the time the reception started.
At the start of the reception I was pretty exhausted from the ceremony and heat, and wasn’t really feeling like eating. However, I ate what I could and drank a lot of water during dinner. We sat at our table for the entire dinner time, choosing not to go say hi to guests yet and just take this time to sit as much as possible. By the time dinner finished, I was starting to feel much better. We had already practiced our first dance so I knew it would be doable for me, and during speeches we sat in front of our table while everyone spoke (instead of standing off to the side) and it worked great. We were able to see most of guests later on, do some dancing, and take more sunset photos later on in the day. It really was the most special day. My only regret is once dinner finished, I did not drink anymore water the rest of the night because I was up and about and not even thinking about it. Moral of my story: make sure you have someone designated to bring you water during the day. It can be a bridesmaid, wedding planner, house party member, close friend- just someone who will remember to keep your water glass full because I guarantee you will forget!
When it was finally time to get in the car at the end of the night, I was EXHAUSTED. I was so proud of myself though; I had made it through the whole day without incident AND got to enjoy my wedding day. On the way back, I had to be honest with my husband (!) that my body was done and I needed to go to sleep (while he was ready to keep hanging out with our wedding party when they got back). We planned the start of our honeymoon assuming I would feel this way (more on that later) but we left ourselves time to sleep in the next morning and I was so grateful for that.
No matter what your struggles are, there are so many work-arounds if you get creative. Whether it’s your big day, or someone else’s (the tricks are pretty much the same), be honest with yourself about what you need to take care of you. You won’t have any fun memories if you push yourself too hard! (It is also super helpful to surround yourself with wonderful friends, and an incredible husband, who will support you taking care of yourself!)