Or how to prepare your smile for your wedding and minimise the stress.

Our Pembroke Dental Ballsbridge practice manager shares what she’s learned about planning your dental treatment before your wedding so that the preparations are spread out and completed in plenty of time for your big day, minimising the stress and hassle.

How many engagements were made on Valentine’s Day just gone? How many girls took the opportunity to propose to their other halves on 29^th February? It seems everyone I know is getting married, so I’m learning lots about how to organise weddings! Here’s how my last Sunday just went:

1. Morning: chat on the phone with a school friend who’s getting married next month about accommodation at the venue so she can try to confirm numbers;
2. Rest of Morning: spent 3 hours making place settings for my cousin’s daughter’s wedding (‘volunteered’ by my mum, 50 down, 150 to go!);
3. Lunch: chat with a friend about how her sister’s boyfriend’s cousin was on ‘Don’t Tell The Bride’ the other week;
4. Evening: exchange frantic Facebook messages with another friend who lives in Spain but who’s trying to organise her July Dublin wedding from Barcelona (can anyone recommend a make-up artist?!).

Let’s face it: there are enough things to stress about when organising a wedding without adding the perfect smile to the list. Especially when a beautiful smile is totally achievable, no matter what your timeline, once you put in a little planning.

Kudos to One Fab Day for their very clever Wedding Beauty Timeline. They’ve even included teeth whitening at the four-months-to-go stage. But what if your dental treatment needs are a little more involved than whitening? Here’s my suggestion for what your wedding dental timeline should look like.

6 Months Before (at least!)

Both the bride-to-be and groom-to-be should attend the dentist for a full dental exam, x-ray (if one is due) and scale & polish (cleaning). The best way of ensuring a healthy smile is to maintain your dental health.

If your dentist recommends any treatment plan at this stage, whether it’s something as straightforward as fillings or a bit more involved like a root canal treatment or a crown, you have plenty of time to schedule this and get it completed before the big day.

You’ll have more than a few other expenses over the next few months, so it may be helpful to be able to spread out these costs in the quieter ones. Don’t forget, if you have dental insurance (Vhi Dental or DeCare Dental) we can submit your treatment plan to your insurer and you’ll find your costs are reduced further. Plus you can claim back tax relief on some of the bigger treatments.

This is also the best time to discuss with your dentist any cosmetic treatments that you might be considering for the big day. Tell your dentist what you don’t like about your smile and what you’d like to change, and he or she will give you a comprehensive treatment plan with costings so you can decide what you’d like to do. Two of the most common in-surgery cosmetic treatments we get asked about before weddings at Pembroke Dental Ballsbridge are short-term orthodontics and veneers (or componeers).

Many patients dismiss orthodontics before their wedding as they think it will take a year or more to get a good outcome. However, it’s possible to achieve fantastic orthodontic results in as little as three or four months with adult braces. Read more about Inman Aligners, Six Month Smiles and Invisible Aligners on our website. And remember, payments can be spread over the course of the treatment with interest free finance, which can make them more manageable. Our recent blog post with before and after photos shows the fantastic results you can achieve in very little time with short-term braces.

Veneers are a very quick solution which result in a dramatically improved appearance in just one or two visits. Again, take a look at some of the before and after photos on our website which show just how dramatic the improvement can be with direct bonding, componeers and porcelain veneers. With the different options available there’s a solution to suit every budget.

4 Months Before

At this stage the stress levels may be rising and you find you don’t have a spare minute in the day. As a result, some of your habits may have changed. Have you been skipping brushing and flossing and just flopping into bed exhausted after a weekend of checking out bands and tasting menus? Have you been waking up with sore jaws, earaches or headaches? Are your gums bleeding more frequently than before? Have your grumbling wisdom teeth flared up into full-blown agony? Ah yes, STRESS!

Stress can lead to a number of changes in your mouth and even if you’re normally really good at keeping up with dental care at home and visiting your dentist regularly, it can play havoc! If any of the above symptoms sound familiar, then you should pop back to the dentist for a quick check-up. To minimise the stress, we have early morning, late evening and lunchtime appointments available at Pembroke Dental Ballsbridge so you can pop in before or after work, or on your lunch break. If you live or work in Dublin 4 it couldn’t be handier.

Being run down and missing a few brushings and flossings can allow oral bacteria to multiply, putting you at risk of gingivitis (red, inflamed and sore gums – not a good look!), and infections. Visit our hygienist Lorraine Doyle for a professional cleaning. Get back on top of you dental health – and your glowing smile – with a scale & polish.

Stress may be causing you to clench and grind your teeth at night when you’re asleep. This can result in sore jaws, headaches and even broken teeth. A bite splint is a simple device that fits over your teeth to protect them while you sleep.

While now might not be the best time to consider wisdom tooth extraction, keeping an eye on them in the run-up to the wedding is a good idea and any infection or flare-up can be quickly controlled using antibiotics, so that they don’t ruin the big day.

Now is a good time to begin teeth whitening. It’s a very simple – and at just €295 very cost effective – treatment that can produce quite dramatic results. We don’t recommend leaving it until just before the wedding (as you’ll have enough on your plate at that stage!) but by doing it now, with perhaps a top-up treatment just before the big day, you’ll have a beautiful white smile to match your white dress (or your blushing bride’s white dress!) In one quick visit with the dentist we can prepare bespoke trays which are ready to collect the next day, which you use at home to get the result you want. Everyone is different, so the dentist will advise you on what you need to do to get the effect you desire.

Whitening is an essential treatment that we provide at Pembroke Dental Ballsbridge before we undertake any cosmetic dental treatment. We can then match the new shade of your teeth to any new restoration that we provide whether that be composite direct bonding, porcelain veneers or componeers.

1 Month Before

If you haven’t already, now is a good time to come and see the dentist or dental hygienist at Pembroke Dental Ballsbridge for that final scale & polish before the big day to remove any staining and have your teeth looking their best.

Any pre-wedding short-term adult orthodontics should be planned to finish up around now as well, so that any retainers needed can be fitted in time to let you get used to them before the main event.

If it’s needed, a whitening top-up should be done around now as well so that you’re not trying to remember to do it in the hectic few days before the wedding.

So, you can see with a little pre-planning it’s easy to have the perfect smile on your wedding day with Pembroke Dental Ballsbridge. Call 01 668 3242 or email info@pembrokedentist.ie today to schedule a check-up and treatment planning appointment with Dr Keenan to see what can be achieved before your special day.