Like most American family these days I did not grow up in a nuclear family. I have collected siblings, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in staggering quantities. Then I also have a dear collection of ‘Aunties.’ I use this as an affectionate term to describe friends of my Mother and Grandmother that have been like mothers to me. When making wedding plans have a huge pool of female experience and opinion to draw on, or survive depending on your view.
My fiancé and I started our wedding/marriage planning years before we became engaged and opened ourselves to the cascade of well wishes and opinions. One of the things we did was read Before You Say I Do: Important Questions for Couples to Ask Before Marriage by Todd Outcalt. Not only does it give you topics to discuss with your prospective partner, it also directs you to questions you will need to ask of your family and church. We took our time feeling out what our desires for our wedding day are. Some things are important to us, others are not. Such as having a large wedding and inviting all of our family, rather than picking and choosing is important to us; a distinct and unifying color scheme, not so important. But as we went through this process we had to keep reminding ourselves and each other that our families will have opinions.
What does a bride and groom do with all the opinion and advice?
Well the same thing you do with any other advice, some you follow and some you don’t. Hopefully you can find a way to thank someone for the advice you just won’t use. But I challenge you to Just say YES to most of the wedding advice you get, especially if it comes with an offer to help. To touch on the topic I started with, I discovered that practically every woman I love wants to offer advice, opinion and even help.
Like all brides I was overwhelmed by all the work required to pull off a wedding. And being a frugal bride I had to humble myself if I wanted to survive to walk down that isle.
This happened when I realized that most of these woman have been planning and anticipating my wedding since the day I was born, my wedding day seems to belong equally to our families, myself and my Groom. I hope to share with my readers all of the innovative ways my extended family has come to my aid. And how to ask for help every step of the way.
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