If my family is paying for the wedding, how much say do they have?

For those couples who have families that are paying for part of or all of the wedding preparations, this can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it means that the couple has fewer monetary issues to worry about for themselves as they start their lives together, on the other hand, with financing often also come strings, and families will often try to have a louder voice in the planning of the wedding if they are paying for it.

So how do you keep everyone happy? How do you keep the wedding your own, while still honoring your families' wishes as they pay for things along the way? The answer is a combination of compromise and the perceptions of respect and control. When you and your partner are sitting down during the initial stages of the wedding planning, the two of you need to decide what aspects of the wedding are "must haves" and what aspects are more flexible for alteration or additional input from family members. The "must haves" need to be put on the table initially with the family, so that they know that these are things about the wedding that are already settled upon and final - not up for discussion. But the couple can present other aspects to the family as "open for discussion", and ask for the other family members to provide input - giving the family the perception of control, which will calm them down and help them to feel appreciated and a part of the process. Ultimately, that's all that most families want...they want to be recognized for their contribution, they want to feel appreciated for the money that they are putting up, they want to feel included in the process that they are paying for, and they want to be considered - to feel honored as a part of the process. If the wedding couple can always keep these things in mind and at the forefront of discussions with the parents, then it will help to manage the process and curb any hurt feelings.

So that sounds great, but how does does it actually work? Well....here are three examples. Just remember that these examples assume that you have already tried to rationally discuss your feelings on the subject, and continue to be met with resistance by your parents.

Mom and Dad want to invite the entire town to the wedding and everyone that you have ever known, but you and your partner want a small ceremony.
There are actually several ways to approach this dilemma. The easiest is to merely crunch the numbers for Mom and Dad. Because unless you have parents that come from unlimited finances, there will be a limit to the amount that they can spend and weddings are expensive...very expensive...and your parents don't realize just how expensive they are because they were a lot cheaper when they got married. If you and your partner sit down and figure out how much it will cost per head in addition to securing the location, the music, the flowers, the clothing, the accessories, the travel arrangements, the photos, and the little odds and ends; your parents will quickly start to feel chest pains. Most parents have no idea how expensive the non-food related costs are for the wedding, and when you factor in the food cost per head on top of those non-food costs, not to mention the cost of the cake, drinks and the champagne, they may start to cut corners which means cutting attendees...goodbye Old Aunt Martha and Mrs. White (your 4th grade teacher) and hello small wedding. For the average family, this type of financial breakdown will typically help parents put a limit on the headcount and allow you and your partner to have the small wedding that you desire.

But if this doesn't work, then a compromise is in order. You can host a small wedding and reception for close friends and family (the type that you and your partner desire) and then hold a post-wedding bash for all of the neighborhood either the following day or after you get back from the honeymoon. A great way to ensure that people's feelings aren't hurt, is to hold the smaller wedding on a weekday and the larger affair on a weekend - you can use the excuse that you didn't want to ask people to take the day off of work to attend the small ceremony that you and your partner had planned, but you wanted to share in the joy of the occasion when they were more likely to be able to attend (on a weekend). Another way to avoid hurt feelings is to make sure that the small wedding is held in a small venue so that you can again fall back on the excuse that the space was too limited for everyone to be comfortable at the wedding, so you opted for a post-wedding reception at a larger, more comfortable location that could accommodate everyone.

Another sneaky option, is to turn the wedding into a destination wedding. If you have your wedding in Fiji or Tuscany or Paris or Tahiti - in the middle of the week, the likelihood that a lot of people will be able to attend (because of timing and expense) is low. The more distant and expensive the location (to fly to and to get hotel rooms at), the less likely people will be able to attend....thus ensuring a small wedding. So you can invite everyone on your parents' list, but feel relatively certain that only a handful will be able to make the nuptials. Remember that just because it is a far off location in an expensive area, that this does not necessarily mean that it has to be an expensive wedding for you and your parents to pay for....just that the travel there is costly. You can have an inexpensive wedding anywhere in the world, it just may cost you and your family and close friends more money to fly there and sleep there than if it is in your own backyard, but it may save you money in the long run. You can even arrange to get married on a cruise ship, which again, will save you money compared to a big local affair, but typically be too costly for the average neighbor to enjoy to attend.

What if my Mom wants to wear something horrible to my wedding?
I think that all couples are a little worried about what their parents might wear to their weddings, especially if they are a part of the ceremony. One of the best ways to cut this problem off at the head is to offer to rent your Dad a suit or a tux for the occasion and offer buy your Mom's dress for her....that way, it allows you to assert some control over what she wears because you will be going with her to try things on and to purchase the garment. Another way, is to give her guidelines about dress length, color options (that coordinate with your wedding party in some way), sleeves, etc. If you let her know that you are trying to coordinate her attire with the theme of your wedding, then she will feel included and still have the opportunity to wear something that expresses her personal style within the context that you set.

Your parents want you to be married by a particular person, but you and your partner have someone else in mind.
This is a hard one. It is not unusual for families to have a family pastor/minister/priest/monk/rabbi that they have in mind for the ceremony...but sometimes this is not the person that the couple has in mind to marry them. Sometimes couples move away from their faith and are no longer observant, and sometimes they have a new spiritual leader in their lives that they want to preside over the ceremony, or perhaps they wish for something less religious and more secular. The best thing to do is to think long and hard about an acceptable compromise...find a way to incorporate your families' traditions in with your own. This can be tricky, especially if you are talking about an interfaith marriage or a wedding involving contradicting traditions, but it can be done. The first step is to talk to the person who you and your partner wish to preside over the wedding and figure out a game plan for including additional "guest" officiants in the ceremony, or additional traditional elements to the ceremony itself. You can then go to your parents and let them know of your plan to honor their traditions, either by including an additional reader in the ceremony or a joint officiant, or just by conducting the ceremony in a more traditional fashion that respects their beliefs. By going to your parents with these ideas and most importantly sharing with them the notion that you really want to honor them and find a way to include your heritage in your ceremony that is still true to who you and your partner are as people, you help to put them at ease and make them feel respected even if the ceremony isn't going to be the way they had initially envisioned it to go.

Just remember that in as much as you have had dreams about how your wedding would be, so have your parents. So even though it is ultimately your day with your partner to share with your family and friends as you see fit, you don't want to alienate those same people along the way by being disrespectful of them and disregarding their feelings.

How do I get started planning my wedding?

One of the hardest things to do when planning a wedding is to actually get started. There are so many details to attend to, and so many people to consider, that the task can seem overwhelming. But don't fear...there are some very simple things that you can do to start the wedding planning process and make it easy for yourself. The first three steps need to be addressed between you and your partner, they are not unilateral decisions. There will be plenty of opportunity to put your personal stamp on the wedding, and to make it your own, but these three "biggies" definitely need to be addressed together to help the process run smoothly.

Pick a style for your wedding
The first thing that you want to do is to decide the style for your wedding. Do you want something formal, or informal, or something in between? Do you want something small or large? Do you want just a ceremony, or a ceremony and reception? Answering these questions will help guide other decisions that you make along the way. You can even get more specific if you'd like, by picking a theme to go along with the wedding (either a color scheme, or a motif - like a beach theme, or a country western theme, etc.). But picking a theme is not necessary right now, you can always do that later after you have spent some more time thinking about it and have a better idea of what both of you envision for the wedding.

Pick a general location
Do you want to have your wedding indoors or outdoors, or a combination of the two? Do you want to have the wedding locally, or in your home town, or is this going to be a destination wedding? Are you going to have a religious component to the ceremony, and if so does this need to take place in a house of worship, or can it take place anywhere? You don't have to pick the exact venue right now in terms of booking a church or a hall, that will come sooner rather than later, but you do have to have a general plan about where you'd like to hold the wedding.

Figure out your budget
Before you can go any further, you now have to sit down and really crunch the numbers and figure out how much you two have to spend on the wedding. You'll need to consider your own budgets, as well as family contributions. Some families will pay for the wedding in its entirety, and if that is the case, then you need to consult your families to figure out how much money they are willing to spend on your big day because you can't assume that just because they are willing to pay for the event that anything goes....they likely have a limit to their generosity and it helps to know what that limit is before you get started making specific plans and nailing down the details.

Once you and your partner sit down and figure out these three big steps, you are ready to go and plan your big day. There are lots of specific issues to address, pitfalls to avoid, and details to plan, but you have gotten started and put together a framework, a foundation for your wedding day event. Good luck and off you go!