Marriage is a huge step for any of us, and in the Indian cultural context, especially for women.

Marriage for Indian women comes with a tidal wave of life changes, new roles and responsibilities, and most of all, so many expectations.

Managing our own emotions while trying to meet these expectations and navigate the demands of everyone around us can be overwhelming, to say the least.

Bride Woes is a supportive space for brides to be, where they can come and share their pre wedding experiences, fears and anxieties about their life after marriage or simply just vent out their frustrations.

I am a bride to be myself, and have been having all these novel experiences and emotions surrounding marriage, my fiance, my in-laws and even seeing a whole new side to my own family.

Not having many female friends who have been through or are going through similar experiences left me feeling lost, without a space to share and be understood.

This is why I wanted to create a space where women in this chapter of their life can come and bear the hearts out.

This is a brand new group, I hope that I can contribute and create a supportive environment for my participants.

I’ve been thinking about creating this group for a while and finally have taken a step towards it. So far, it has been only me and one close friend on the marriage journey who have been each others sounding board. I am excited to meet more women and learn about their diverse experiences.

Cis-het women who are in the 12 months leading upto their marriage. The group is specifically a space for Indian women to come and share their pre marriage experiences.

My approach in this group is to encourage reflective listening and facilitate the sharing of different perspectives without offering any direct advice.

We will also discuss strategies for anxiety and stress management through the lens of CBT and existential psychology.

I have a list of trusted therapists I can refer my participants to if I observe anyone having the need for further support.

Since the group agenda is not related to overall mental health, there won’t be any interventions I would offer during the group meeting itself, but I will be observing participants and would be available to provide further support outside of the group meeting if and when required.

We will want to keep the conversation about wedding related stress/feelings but as a trained mental health professional I am equipped to handle conversations about more intense/serious topics as mentioned above.

If any participant raises a concern related to the above mentioned topics, I will gently guide the conversation back, but I will surely address the individuals concerns outside of the group, by providing them the required references.

Interested individuals can fill in my registration form post which I will add them to the Whatsapp group, where we would share the meeting links and agenda.

For every session it will be topic based, or if there is a participant going through a particularly stressful period we would allow them to have the floor for the first part of the session.

1. Use respectful language even when talking about your personal issues
2. Refer to fellow participants respectfully using their preferred names
3. Don’t interrupt/speak over fellow participants while they are sharing
4. Do not offer any direct advice or opinion to a fellow participant.

After a session, I hope that participants will leave with a feeling of being heard, seen and understood, and realise that they are not alone in their struggles.