Five years ago this January, my parents decided to divorce. Suffice it to say that the divorce was not amicable (there was Another Woman involved), and although my parents have tried hard to get along better in recent years, there are a lot of residual resentments and hurt feelings hiding just below the surface.
The wedding, as weddings do, has brought those resentments to the forefront. My dad threw a hissy fit over two guests my mom wanted to invite; they used to be his friends too but he feels they “betrayed” him during the divorce. When I saw that our invitations designer had ignored my instructions and put my mother's name on the return address of the envelopes, I was briefly terrified that my father would somehow see that as a slight. My brother is appalled that we’re inviting The Other Woman (whom he hates). My mom is mostly low-key and supportive, but has hinted that she wants to make sure there are posed photos that don’t involve my dad, since she doesn’t want to frame any photos that include him.
I’m a bit jealous of Econo Boy’s family, truth be told – his parents are still happily married and are wonderful together. No demands for separate photos there. But I think I’m finally at peace with the reality of my family situation. When my parental drama pops up, I try not to let myself get upset or obsess about how I think things “should” be in an ideal world. Do I wish that my parents got along well enough to agree on a guest list and pose for photos without arguments and accusations of favoritism? Of course. But that’s not going to happen, unless I drug them up with Valium or trade them in for better parents (which I’m told is not an option). They are the only parents I’ve got, and they’re not perfect but I love them. So my only option is to call them on the bullshit when I can, smile through a slightly longer photo list, accept that there’s going to be some tension, and try not to let it ruin the day.
Another one of my coping strategies has been, strangely enough, the bridal party. In retrospect I’m not that attached to the idea of dressing my pals in identical outfits and I probably could have gone another way. But I want my friends there in the dressing room to hug me if my family stresses me out, and as protective covering – somehow I feel like their presence will help dissuade my parents from throwing their drama on me (in my family, you Do Not Make a Scene In Front of Strangers). They’re sort of like emotional bodyguards, clad in navy and carrying bouquets.
I know for a fact that I’m not the only one with less than perfect parents. So how do you guys cope?
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
I need a drink, and possibly a hug
This week, I had a freak-out, and I think I need to write about it.
This year has been a very busy one for Econo Boy – he’s been job-hunting and teaching a fairly heavy course load. As a result, I’ve been taking on a larger share of the household chores every now and then. More of the meal planning, more of the shopping, more of the cleaning, and almost all of the cooking. I was happy to do it – he was busy and I wanted to support him, since the outcome of his job hunt was huge for us as a couple.
But this week, as Econo Boy buried himself in a giant pile of final exams to grade and I buried myself in a stack of dirty dishes, I started to wonder if this was a pattern, if I had inadvertently become the “little woman,” cooking and cleaning and being sweetly non-demanding because her man has big important work-type things to do. All of this built up to a panic attack, in which I saw myself in 20 years, earning $2000 a course in a crappy part-time adjunct position that I’d accepted in order to be the one responsible for doing all the cooking and shopping and chauffeuring the kids to and from school, piano lessons, and sports practice, while Econo Boy basked in his tenured glory, came home at 6:30 to dinner on the table, and never noticed that I was pulling the day-to-day weight of keeping the family fed and organized. In other words, the same pattern from my parents’ marriage (although my mom actually did like her job) – the pattern that led my father to idiotically declare that my mom "never did anything to help this family" because her job wasn't a major source of income. (I know. Don’t even get me started. That’s a whole other post.)
That scenario terrifies me, and not just because my parents' marriage ended in a very bitter divorce. I like my work and I think I’m good at it, and I want to be in a job where the work I do is valued and compensated appropriately (i.e. not adjunct teaching). I’m willing to make career sacrifices, or even change jobs for our relationship and for our family, but I’m not willing to give up working, or to take a job that makes me miserable just because that’s easier for everyone else in the family. Whatever my future career and future household responsibilities look like, I want my role to be a choice I made, a choice I was happy to make, rather than something I slowly slid into without even realizing it until I resented it.
Thankfully, I’m not the only one having a bit of a freak-out about marriage and the future at the two-month mark (Meg, thanks for another spot-on post!), which makes me feel much less crazy. And I’ve talked to Econo Boy about my frustrations and we’ve both talked about how to avoid falling into gender traps in our relationship. Unfortunately I think it’s really easy for even the most driven women in heterosexual relationships to accidentally find themselves taking the supporting role, because that was the model a lot of us grew up with, the model that Western society still sells us, ever so subtly, every day.
I don’t have any easy answers for how to avoid it, except this: avoid it. Every single day, avoid it. Pay attention to the choices we make, and make them deliberately and consciously, knowing the implications for our careers, our family, and our future happiness. Appreciate each others' contributions, no matter how day-to-day and mundane. And above all, avoid becoming my parents!
This year has been a very busy one for Econo Boy – he’s been job-hunting and teaching a fairly heavy course load. As a result, I’ve been taking on a larger share of the household chores every now and then. More of the meal planning, more of the shopping, more of the cleaning, and almost all of the cooking. I was happy to do it – he was busy and I wanted to support him, since the outcome of his job hunt was huge for us as a couple.
But this week, as Econo Boy buried himself in a giant pile of final exams to grade and I buried myself in a stack of dirty dishes, I started to wonder if this was a pattern, if I had inadvertently become the “little woman,” cooking and cleaning and being sweetly non-demanding because her man has big important work-type things to do. All of this built up to a panic attack, in which I saw myself in 20 years, earning $2000 a course in a crappy part-time adjunct position that I’d accepted in order to be the one responsible for doing all the cooking and shopping and chauffeuring the kids to and from school, piano lessons, and sports practice, while Econo Boy basked in his tenured glory, came home at 6:30 to dinner on the table, and never noticed that I was pulling the day-to-day weight of keeping the family fed and organized. In other words, the same pattern from my parents’ marriage (although my mom actually did like her job) – the pattern that led my father to idiotically declare that my mom "never did anything to help this family" because her job wasn't a major source of income. (I know. Don’t even get me started. That’s a whole other post.)
That scenario terrifies me, and not just because my parents' marriage ended in a very bitter divorce. I like my work and I think I’m good at it, and I want to be in a job where the work I do is valued and compensated appropriately (i.e. not adjunct teaching). I’m willing to make career sacrifices, or even change jobs for our relationship and for our family, but I’m not willing to give up working, or to take a job that makes me miserable just because that’s easier for everyone else in the family. Whatever my future career and future household responsibilities look like, I want my role to be a choice I made, a choice I was happy to make, rather than something I slowly slid into without even realizing it until I resented it.
Thankfully, I’m not the only one having a bit of a freak-out about marriage and the future at the two-month mark (Meg, thanks for another spot-on post!), which makes me feel much less crazy. And I’ve talked to Econo Boy about my frustrations and we’ve both talked about how to avoid falling into gender traps in our relationship. Unfortunately I think it’s really easy for even the most driven women in heterosexual relationships to accidentally find themselves taking the supporting role, because that was the model a lot of us grew up with, the model that Western society still sells us, ever so subtly, every day.
I don’t have any easy answers for how to avoid it, except this: avoid it. Every single day, avoid it. Pay attention to the choices we make, and make them deliberately and consciously, knowing the implications for our careers, our family, and our future happiness. Appreciate each others' contributions, no matter how day-to-day and mundane. And above all, avoid becoming my parents!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Culture, family, and us
Lately, Sweet T has been musing on culture, inheritance, and the ways those concepts can come into play when planning a wedding. Like many white Americans, I have only vague notions of any cultural identity. The names in my family tree are mysteriously generic, giving little hint as to whether my forebearers were Swiss, Irish, German, French, or something else entirely, and I've been able to trace only one ancestor back to his country of origin (England).
So if I had to name my family's racial and cultural background, I'd say WASP, in the literal sense of the acronym (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant -- although the Anglo-Saxon is just my best guess). Same for Econo Boy's family. In most ways, our background and upbringing was very, very similar. We grew up 20 minutes from each other, in friendly neighborhoods where block parties were a regular occurrence. We each have one younger sibling. Our parents were big believers in academic excellence and playing outside, and we both wound up as PhD students at the same university. I'm happy to say that we really love each others' families, and the feeling seems to be mutual all 'round.
But wedding planning has brought some very subtle differences between our families to the surface -- not in a bad way, just in a "gee, that's really interesting" way.
My parents (who are now divorced, but that's a whole 'nother post) are middle-class Midwestern WASPs. My dad is from a farming town where his middle school teacher's idea of a great field trip was a tour of the local slaughterhouse. (My dad, who has fainted at the sight of blood, attributes his determination to pursue higher education to this field trip.) Both of my grandfathers worked in factories. Both of my parents attended the local state university. When they tied the knot, my mom wore a knee-length pink dress, and they followed their ceremony with cake and punch for 25 in the church's Fellowship Hall.
Econo Boy's parents, on the other hand, are High WASPs. His dad is an Ivy League grad; his mom attended an elite East Coast women's college. When they were married, the bride wore a Priscilla of Boston gown and the wedding was announced in the New York Times.
The place where the difference in our family backgrounds has become most evident is the registry. In my family (3/4 Iowa farmers' descendents, with one High WASP grandmother who ran away with a WWII vet she met in Boston thrown in the mix), registries should be practical. You do not ask for more than you need; that would be crass. Also, the best gift is almost always cash.
After Econo Boy and I compiled our small registry, I told my mom that if her family wanted to give us anything and inquired about what we really wanted, she should tell them that money for moving and setting up our new apartment would be much appreciated. My mom's response: "Perfect. They usually give cash anyway."
When I suggested this to Econo Boy's mother, however, she turned completely white and quietly said that she didn't feel comfortable telling people that we wanted money. I quickly learned that in their social and family circle, money is absolutely not an acceptable topic of conversation, no matter the circumstance. She pushed for us to expand the registry to include the kinds of higher-end items that her family and friends would want to give us, and we eventually registered for some solid, durable stoneware dishes and nice pewter serving pieces.
Now, a difference of opinion on the appropriate size for a wedding registry barely registers on the scale of wedding culture clashes. But when you're bringing two families together, as you do when planning a wedding, it's almost impossible not to run across some differences of taste or style or etiquette. Finding out about your partner's family background and family traditions can be one of the most interesting and rewarding parts of planning, but it can also be one of the most stressful. I have tremendous respect for couples who are dealing with much wider cultural divides, like Mrs. Hot Cocoa and accordionsandlace.
This is a rather odd and rambly post, please forgive me for that. But it's all been jumbled up in my head for a while and I thought I'd better get it out of there somehow!
What kinds of family differences have come into play in your wedding? How do you compromise between different ideas and different priorities?
So if I had to name my family's racial and cultural background, I'd say WASP, in the literal sense of the acronym (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant -- although the Anglo-Saxon is just my best guess). Same for Econo Boy's family. In most ways, our background and upbringing was very, very similar. We grew up 20 minutes from each other, in friendly neighborhoods where block parties were a regular occurrence. We each have one younger sibling. Our parents were big believers in academic excellence and playing outside, and we both wound up as PhD students at the same university. I'm happy to say that we really love each others' families, and the feeling seems to be mutual all 'round.
But wedding planning has brought some very subtle differences between our families to the surface -- not in a bad way, just in a "gee, that's really interesting" way.
My parents (who are now divorced, but that's a whole 'nother post) are middle-class Midwestern WASPs. My dad is from a farming town where his middle school teacher's idea of a great field trip was a tour of the local slaughterhouse. (My dad, who has fainted at the sight of blood, attributes his determination to pursue higher education to this field trip.) Both of my grandfathers worked in factories. Both of my parents attended the local state university. When they tied the knot, my mom wore a knee-length pink dress, and they followed their ceremony with cake and punch for 25 in the church's Fellowship Hall.
Econo Boy's parents, on the other hand, are High WASPs. His dad is an Ivy League grad; his mom attended an elite East Coast women's college. When they were married, the bride wore a Priscilla of Boston gown and the wedding was announced in the New York Times.
The place where the difference in our family backgrounds has become most evident is the registry. In my family (3/4 Iowa farmers' descendents, with one High WASP grandmother who ran away with a WWII vet she met in Boston thrown in the mix), registries should be practical. You do not ask for more than you need; that would be crass. Also, the best gift is almost always cash.
After Econo Boy and I compiled our small registry, I told my mom that if her family wanted to give us anything and inquired about what we really wanted, she should tell them that money for moving and setting up our new apartment would be much appreciated. My mom's response: "Perfect. They usually give cash anyway."
When I suggested this to Econo Boy's mother, however, she turned completely white and quietly said that she didn't feel comfortable telling people that we wanted money. I quickly learned that in their social and family circle, money is absolutely not an acceptable topic of conversation, no matter the circumstance. She pushed for us to expand the registry to include the kinds of higher-end items that her family and friends would want to give us, and we eventually registered for some solid, durable stoneware dishes and nice pewter serving pieces.
Now, a difference of opinion on the appropriate size for a wedding registry barely registers on the scale of wedding culture clashes. But when you're bringing two families together, as you do when planning a wedding, it's almost impossible not to run across some differences of taste or style or etiquette. Finding out about your partner's family background and family traditions can be one of the most interesting and rewarding parts of planning, but it can also be one of the most stressful. I have tremendous respect for couples who are dealing with much wider cultural divides, like Mrs. Hot Cocoa and accordionsandlace.
This is a rather odd and rambly post, please forgive me for that. But it's all been jumbled up in my head for a while and I thought I'd better get it out of there somehow!
What kinds of family differences have come into play in your wedding? How do you compromise between different ideas and different priorities?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Random wedding dislikes
When planning a wedding, you are bound to run into at least a few trends and traditions that just make you want to scream and run away, often for reasons you can't quite identify. Here are 5 wedding things that make me go "ick." I have no real reason to dislike any of the things on this list (with the possible exception of #4) -- it's more a knee-jerk reaction. But I'm feeling a bit punchy today, so I might as well vent :-)
5. Wedding favors
Image from anythingbridal.com
2. The Tiffany blue-and-brown color combo
I know it's cool, I know it's stylish, but for some reason I can't stand seeing these colors next to each other. I think it looks like a mistake, like someone dropped a Tiffany's box in the mud and decided to make the best of it. (In general, I'm not a big fan of brown, so maybe that's my problem.) And am I the only one who finds it a little scary that Tiffany's has achieved the level of brand awareness where they have a color named after their company?
Image from weddingbycolor.com
1. "The Bridal Chorus" by Wagner (a.k.a. "Here Comes the Bride")
Maybe it was that time I heard a "Bridal Chorus" ring tone on someone's cell phone in a NYC coffee shop. Maybe it was learning that in Wagner's opera Lohengrin, the source of the famous "Bridal Chorus," the bride betrays her husband and ends up dead. Maybe it was all that time I spent as a child singing "Here comes the bride, big, fat and wide," with my friends as we married the Barbie with no hair to that Ken doll whose head kept falling off. (Our Barbies lived rather Shakespearean lives -- everyone either ended up married or dead.)
But I hate this song. I mean, I HATE it. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me. I'd rather walk down the aisle to "Muskrat Love." (Kidding ... sort of.)
What are your random wedding dislikes? Do you love anything on my list and think I'm a nut? Let me know!
5. Wedding favors
The perfect storm of emotional blackmail and WIC salesmanship -- "but if you don't give favors, how will you thank your guests for coming?" I also hate that every time I see a picture of a table setting with those adorable little favor boxes, I flirt with the idea of giving out favors just because the boxes would look so cute on the tables! Clearly, I have a problem.
4. People who obsess over what their family members are wearing to the wedding
If I run across one more bride on a message board throwing a fit over the color of her fiance's mother's dress, I will scream, and then possibly set the living room on fire. News flash: if you told your aunt to find a baby pink dress and she sent you photos of a coral dress, this is not a crisis. Not even close. And don't start wailing about how the pictures will be ruuuuuuuined if your family members aren't color-coordinated. No, they won't. I have tons of great group shots of friends and family that look fantastic despite the fact that no one told us what colors to wear. Some of us clash. So what? We look happy, we're all wearing outfits we like, and the pictures are great because they contain people I care about.
If your family members *ask* you what color they should wear, by all means, give them some ideas. But otherwise, stop mailing fabric swatches out to your aunts, uncles and cousins and let them dress themselves like grown-ups.
3. Pickup skirts
Heavy, poofy, princessy -- everything I wanted to avoid in a wedding dress.
4. People who obsess over what their family members are wearing to the wedding
If I run across one more bride on a message board throwing a fit over the color of her fiance's mother's dress, I will scream, and then possibly set the living room on fire. News flash: if you told your aunt to find a baby pink dress and she sent you photos of a coral dress, this is not a crisis. Not even close. And don't start wailing about how the pictures will be ruuuuuuuined if your family members aren't color-coordinated. No, they won't. I have tons of great group shots of friends and family that look fantastic despite the fact that no one told us what colors to wear. Some of us clash. So what? We look happy, we're all wearing outfits we like, and the pictures are great because they contain people I care about.
If your family members *ask* you what color they should wear, by all means, give them some ideas. But otherwise, stop mailing fabric swatches out to your aunts, uncles and cousins and let them dress themselves like grown-ups.
3. Pickup skirts
Heavy, poofy, princessy -- everything I wanted to avoid in a wedding dress.
Image from anythingbridal.comI know it's cool, I know it's stylish, but for some reason I can't stand seeing these colors next to each other. I think it looks like a mistake, like someone dropped a Tiffany's box in the mud and decided to make the best of it. (In general, I'm not a big fan of brown, so maybe that's my problem.) And am I the only one who finds it a little scary that Tiffany's has achieved the level of brand awareness where they have a color named after their company?
Image from weddingbycolor.com 1. "The Bridal Chorus" by Wagner (a.k.a. "Here Comes the Bride")
Maybe it was that time I heard a "Bridal Chorus" ring tone on someone's cell phone in a NYC coffee shop. Maybe it was learning that in Wagner's opera Lohengrin, the source of the famous "Bridal Chorus," the bride betrays her husband and ends up dead. Maybe it was all that time I spent as a child singing "Here comes the bride, big, fat and wide," with my friends as we married the Barbie with no hair to that Ken doll whose head kept falling off. (Our Barbies lived rather Shakespearean lives -- everyone either ended up married or dead.)
But I hate this song. I mean, I HATE it. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me. I'd rather walk down the aisle to "Muskrat Love." (Kidding ... sort of.)
What are your random wedding dislikes? Do you love anything on my list and think I'm a nut? Let me know!
Friday, January 30, 2009
Weddings, money, and family: Advice to parents
There is no shortage of books, magazines, and websites aimed at brides. There are even a few aimed at grooms. But what about the parents of the happy couple -- also known as "the people likely to be footing at least part of the bill"?
After composing my last post, I realized there was an unexplored flip side: advice to parents who may or may not be paying for the wedding. So here is my attempt to address that group, with Bride in Exile's Tips for Parents on (Relatively) Stress-Free Wedding Planning. (Note: I've written this largely as if it's directed to the mother of the bride and the couple is heterosexual, but I think the advice could apply to all parents and step-parents of any couple getting married.)
If you are helping to pay, make your expectations -- and your intended contribution -- clear at the beginning.
Think about the aspects of the wedding that are important to you, the things you consider “non-negotiable” given that you are paying for this shindig, and make sure the bride and groom know about them. Do you want to be able to invite your entire extended family, including third cousins the couple has never met? Tell the bride and groom up front, before they fall in love with a reception site that has a 50-person maximum. Do you hate buffet receptions and want a plated, seated dinner instead? Don’t spring it on the couple after they’ve signed a catering contract. When you offer financial support, tell them “We would love to contribute $x to the wedding fund, with the understanding that you will invite these people/hold the ceremony at our church/rent nice chairs for the reception [hi, Mom!].”
Small digression here: if you are not going to do much of the planning yourself, it is much better to tell the couple a dollar amount that you're comfortable with contributing than to say something vague like "just let us know what you need." What you think the wedding should cost may not line up perfectly with what the couple thinks the wedding will cost. Never be vague about money, it only leads to misunderstandings.
OK. You've decided on your contribution, and you've told the couple what you expect from them if you are going to pay. Now, here comes the hard part: if the couple doesn’t like your requirements, they may decline your financial help. That will probably sting, and you may feel rejected and cut out of the planning. That’s understandable. But try to focus on the good: this means your son or daughter is mature enough to be honest about what they want, and also mature enough to assume the cost of doing what they want. Which means you've done something right in the parenting department!
Even if you are paying, you should still be willing to compromise.
You may think you've covered all your bases up front, but other issues will almost certainly come up during the planning. For example, it may not occur to you to mention that you think hydrangeas are ugly and you don’t want to serve fish for dinner – until your daughter tells you all of the flowers will be hydrangeas and suggests menu choices of salmon and tuna.
When these little clashes of taste or style do arise, your first thought may be, “No way. It’s my money, and I don't want my friends and family sitting in a room full of hydrangeas and eating fish!” And honestly, that’s not entirely crazy. It is your money and you want some say in how it’s spent.
But wedding planning will be much smoother and more harmonious if you listen to what the couple wants too. It may be your money and you may be the hostess, but it's their wedding and they are the guests of honor at the reception. If you veto everything the couple suggests without a second thought, you will be resented, and rightfully so. Pick your battles (e.g., say "OK" to the hydrangeas but push for a different menu) and don't use your money as a weapon, unless you want the couple to call from Vegas with the announcement that they couldn't deal anymore and eloped.
Be realistic about costs.
$5,000 will pay for an absolutely lovely wedding. But in 2009, it will not get you a plated, seated dinner for 200 people at the local country club. Some of the most stressful wedding planning experiences I’ve seen involved parents turning over the planning to the couple, and then complaining that the couple’s choices were “cheap” or “not very nice” and pushing for more expensive options that simply were not in reach of the budget. If having fancier, more formal touches at your child’s wedding is incredibly important to you, be prepared to cover the additional expense.
The same goes for the guest list. It's a basic equation of wedding planning: more guests = more food, more chairs, more alcohol, more cake, more rentals = more money. Please do not get on the phone with the bride and tell her you're sure she can squeeze in 50 extra people if she "just budgets a little bit better," unless your intention is to drive her insane and/or goad her into attacking you with a grapefruit spoon.
If you are convinced the couple is spending their budget foolishly, ask to see their catering bids, facility contracts, and other relevant research – you may be surprised to find that food, facilities, and flowers really are that expensive, and that your son or daughter has made smart, cost-conscious choices. Or, if it turns out the couple is spending a lot of cash in areas where you think they could cut back, looking at their budget information will help you come up with constructive and specific suggestions for how you'd like to change things up, e.g., “Tina, Frank, I noticed that you chose surf and turf as the entrée. That sounds delicious, but it’s also the most expensive option on the menu. If we went with a different entree, we could afford to invite more people.”
If you are not helping to pay, do not make demands.
This applies whether your financial help was declined or you simply couldn’t afford to contribute. You can certainly ask if your cousin Mary and her children could be added to the guest list, or if the couple would be willing to add a beef option to the menu. But if the couple says “we’re sorry, we can’t afford any more guests” or “having a vegetarian reception is very important to us, we don’t want to serve beef,” thank them for considering your request and leave it at that. Do not start screaming about how you will be "humiliated" by their "ridiculous hippie reception," because that will get you nowhere. And if the couple says "we can't afford that," don't belittle them for being "cheap" or try to guilt them into spending beyond their means -- no, not even if you're doing so in the name of scoring invitations for 30 family members who "have" to be on the guest list. It's a wedding, not the last chopper off that scary island on "Lost." Your cousin's children will get over their emotional trauma if they are not invited.
What other advice should we give the parental half of the planning equation?
After composing my last post, I realized there was an unexplored flip side: advice to parents who may or may not be paying for the wedding. So here is my attempt to address that group, with Bride in Exile's Tips for Parents on (Relatively) Stress-Free Wedding Planning. (Note: I've written this largely as if it's directed to the mother of the bride and the couple is heterosexual, but I think the advice could apply to all parents and step-parents of any couple getting married.)
If you are helping to pay, make your expectations -- and your intended contribution -- clear at the beginning.
Think about the aspects of the wedding that are important to you, the things you consider “non-negotiable” given that you are paying for this shindig, and make sure the bride and groom know about them. Do you want to be able to invite your entire extended family, including third cousins the couple has never met? Tell the bride and groom up front, before they fall in love with a reception site that has a 50-person maximum. Do you hate buffet receptions and want a plated, seated dinner instead? Don’t spring it on the couple after they’ve signed a catering contract. When you offer financial support, tell them “We would love to contribute $x to the wedding fund, with the understanding that you will invite these people/hold the ceremony at our church/rent nice chairs for the reception [hi, Mom!].”
Small digression here: if you are not going to do much of the planning yourself, it is much better to tell the couple a dollar amount that you're comfortable with contributing than to say something vague like "just let us know what you need." What you think the wedding should cost may not line up perfectly with what the couple thinks the wedding will cost. Never be vague about money, it only leads to misunderstandings.
OK. You've decided on your contribution, and you've told the couple what you expect from them if you are going to pay. Now, here comes the hard part: if the couple doesn’t like your requirements, they may decline your financial help. That will probably sting, and you may feel rejected and cut out of the planning. That’s understandable. But try to focus on the good: this means your son or daughter is mature enough to be honest about what they want, and also mature enough to assume the cost of doing what they want. Which means you've done something right in the parenting department!
Even if you are paying, you should still be willing to compromise.
You may think you've covered all your bases up front, but other issues will almost certainly come up during the planning. For example, it may not occur to you to mention that you think hydrangeas are ugly and you don’t want to serve fish for dinner – until your daughter tells you all of the flowers will be hydrangeas and suggests menu choices of salmon and tuna.
When these little clashes of taste or style do arise, your first thought may be, “No way. It’s my money, and I don't want my friends and family sitting in a room full of hydrangeas and eating fish!” And honestly, that’s not entirely crazy. It is your money and you want some say in how it’s spent.
But wedding planning will be much smoother and more harmonious if you listen to what the couple wants too. It may be your money and you may be the hostess, but it's their wedding and they are the guests of honor at the reception. If you veto everything the couple suggests without a second thought, you will be resented, and rightfully so. Pick your battles (e.g., say "OK" to the hydrangeas but push for a different menu) and don't use your money as a weapon, unless you want the couple to call from Vegas with the announcement that they couldn't deal anymore and eloped.
Be realistic about costs.
$5,000 will pay for an absolutely lovely wedding. But in 2009, it will not get you a plated, seated dinner for 200 people at the local country club. Some of the most stressful wedding planning experiences I’ve seen involved parents turning over the planning to the couple, and then complaining that the couple’s choices were “cheap” or “not very nice” and pushing for more expensive options that simply were not in reach of the budget. If having fancier, more formal touches at your child’s wedding is incredibly important to you, be prepared to cover the additional expense.
The same goes for the guest list. It's a basic equation of wedding planning: more guests = more food, more chairs, more alcohol, more cake, more rentals = more money. Please do not get on the phone with the bride and tell her you're sure she can squeeze in 50 extra people if she "just budgets a little bit better," unless your intention is to drive her insane and/or goad her into attacking you with a grapefruit spoon.
If you are convinced the couple is spending their budget foolishly, ask to see their catering bids, facility contracts, and other relevant research – you may be surprised to find that food, facilities, and flowers really are that expensive, and that your son or daughter has made smart, cost-conscious choices. Or, if it turns out the couple is spending a lot of cash in areas where you think they could cut back, looking at their budget information will help you come up with constructive and specific suggestions for how you'd like to change things up, e.g., “Tina, Frank, I noticed that you chose surf and turf as the entrée. That sounds delicious, but it’s also the most expensive option on the menu. If we went with a different entree, we could afford to invite more people.”
If you are not helping to pay, do not make demands.
This applies whether your financial help was declined or you simply couldn’t afford to contribute. You can certainly ask if your cousin Mary and her children could be added to the guest list, or if the couple would be willing to add a beef option to the menu. But if the couple says “we’re sorry, we can’t afford any more guests” or “having a vegetarian reception is very important to us, we don’t want to serve beef,” thank them for considering your request and leave it at that. Do not start screaming about how you will be "humiliated" by their "ridiculous hippie reception," because that will get you nowhere. And if the couple says "we can't afford that," don't belittle them for being "cheap" or try to guilt them into spending beyond their means -- no, not even if you're doing so in the name of scoring invitations for 30 family members who "have" to be on the guest list. It's a wedding, not the last chopper off that scary island on "Lost." Your cousin's children will get over their emotional trauma if they are not invited.
What other advice should we give the parental half of the planning equation?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
But it's MY DAY!
Lately I've run across more than a few posts on various forums that read something like this.
But on the other hand, if your parents are paying for the wedding, expecting them to have no input and bow to all of your wishes seems unrealistic, even spoiled.
Here are my own thoughts on parents, money, and compromise, filtered through my own experience and those of my friends.
If your parents are paying, be prepared to let them have some input.
I’m sure there are parents out there who simply say, “here’s a giant check for your wedding. Do whatever you want.” I just haven’t met any. All of the parents I’ve known have at least one or two things they really want or really care about on their list of wedding expectations. My dad wants live ceremony music and a choice of entrees for dinner; my mom wants attractive chairs and the chance to invite her beloved cousins. A friend’s mom had only one request of the bride: “The invitations have to be from Crane’s!”
If your parents are paying for most or all of the wedding, be prepared to give way to their wishes on occasion. It is not realistic to expect that you will get to make 100% of the wedding decisions unless you are providing 100% of the wedding budget.
If you can’t compromise, be prepared to say “thanks but we’ll pay for it ourselves.”
It’s pretty easy to maintain family harmony if your parents’ requests are minor. But what if they’re demanding things that you and your fiancé are absolutely unwilling to consider – say, if you have always dreamed of getting married outside and they’re insisting they will be "humiliated" if it's not in a church?
In cases where you and your parents just don’t see eye to eye, and the thought of giving way makes you physically sick, don't lose it and start screaming "It's MY SPECIAL DAY!!" Lay out the case for what you want calmly and honestly. Tell them this is important to you, and ask if there’s any room for compromise.
If not, if they still insist on their church for the ceremony and their country club for the reception even after hearing your arguments in favor of an outdoor wedding at the park, you have a choice to make. You can either reject their money and do it your way, or take their money and do it their way. It sucks to reach this point, and in an ideal world parents would be supportive of the couple’s wishes, but the truth is that the only way you will have total control over your own wedding is to pay for it all yourselves.
Even if they’re not paying, it’s nice (and very stress-reducing) to take your family’s wishes into consideration.
One of my best friends was not terribly excited about getting married in her husband’s family’s church – it was not the prettiest building in town. But she knew it would mean the world to her future mother-in-law. She could have decided “no, my family is paying, we’ll have it at a prettier church.” Instead, she decided to go with what her fiance’s mother really wanted. This was a gracious and classy gesture that did a lot of good for their relationship (and helped take the sting out of saying “no” to FMIL’s idea of inviting the entire church congregation).
So if non-paying family members have requests that you feel you can accommodate without compromising what you really want, why not say yes? The key there is “without compromising what you really want.” If you are planning a chic 1920s theme wedding, and your parents hate it and want something more traditional, I am certainly not suggesting that you throw away your dream wedding and bow to your parents’ wishes! But if your parents ask for a traditional wedding cake at your wedding, and you weren’t going to have one but don’t loathe the idea, it would be a lovely gesture to say “yes.”
What's your take on it? What kind of input did your family have, and what compromises did you make? Do you regret those compromises, or see them as a contribution to family harmony?
"My parents are paying for the wedding. Now they are making all kinds of demands about the food and the guest list!! Don't they know it's MY WEDDING?!"I'm always torn when I read things like this. On the one hand, I know one friend whose mother planned her entire wedding and regarded it as the mother of the bride's party, even to the point of cutting the couple's friends off the guest list so she could invite her bridge club. I think that's an unfortunate approach, in part because the couple ends up remembering their wedding day as "oh yeah, that thing my mom planned that none of our friends got invited to, somehow." (Note: my friends were able to weasel their buds back onto the guest list.) I really feel that weddings are best and most memorable when they reflect the couple that's getting married.
But on the other hand, if your parents are paying for the wedding, expecting them to have no input and bow to all of your wishes seems unrealistic, even spoiled.
Here are my own thoughts on parents, money, and compromise, filtered through my own experience and those of my friends.
If your parents are paying, be prepared to let them have some input.
I’m sure there are parents out there who simply say, “here’s a giant check for your wedding. Do whatever you want.” I just haven’t met any. All of the parents I’ve known have at least one or two things they really want or really care about on their list of wedding expectations. My dad wants live ceremony music and a choice of entrees for dinner; my mom wants attractive chairs and the chance to invite her beloved cousins. A friend’s mom had only one request of the bride: “The invitations have to be from Crane’s!”
If your parents are paying for most or all of the wedding, be prepared to give way to their wishes on occasion. It is not realistic to expect that you will get to make 100% of the wedding decisions unless you are providing 100% of the wedding budget.
If you can’t compromise, be prepared to say “thanks but we’ll pay for it ourselves.”
It’s pretty easy to maintain family harmony if your parents’ requests are minor. But what if they’re demanding things that you and your fiancé are absolutely unwilling to consider – say, if you have always dreamed of getting married outside and they’re insisting they will be "humiliated" if it's not in a church?
In cases where you and your parents just don’t see eye to eye, and the thought of giving way makes you physically sick, don't lose it and start screaming "It's MY SPECIAL DAY!!" Lay out the case for what you want calmly and honestly. Tell them this is important to you, and ask if there’s any room for compromise.
If not, if they still insist on their church for the ceremony and their country club for the reception even after hearing your arguments in favor of an outdoor wedding at the park, you have a choice to make. You can either reject their money and do it your way, or take their money and do it their way. It sucks to reach this point, and in an ideal world parents would be supportive of the couple’s wishes, but the truth is that the only way you will have total control over your own wedding is to pay for it all yourselves.
Even if they’re not paying, it’s nice (and very stress-reducing) to take your family’s wishes into consideration.
One of my best friends was not terribly excited about getting married in her husband’s family’s church – it was not the prettiest building in town. But she knew it would mean the world to her future mother-in-law. She could have decided “no, my family is paying, we’ll have it at a prettier church.” Instead, she decided to go with what her fiance’s mother really wanted. This was a gracious and classy gesture that did a lot of good for their relationship (and helped take the sting out of saying “no” to FMIL’s idea of inviting the entire church congregation).
So if non-paying family members have requests that you feel you can accommodate without compromising what you really want, why not say yes? The key there is “without compromising what you really want.” If you are planning a chic 1920s theme wedding, and your parents hate it and want something more traditional, I am certainly not suggesting that you throw away your dream wedding and bow to your parents’ wishes! But if your parents ask for a traditional wedding cake at your wedding, and you weren’t going to have one but don’t loathe the idea, it would be a lovely gesture to say “yes.”
What's your take on it? What kind of input did your family have, and what compromises did you make? Do you regret those compromises, or see them as a contribution to family harmony?
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