Parental Control!

Keeping everyone happy when planning a wedding takes no less than well honed mediation skills!  This doubles when you are mixing nationalities and thus different wedding traditions.  I have a very good friend who has just got engaged to an awesome Aussie and she herself is half English, Half Greek ( are you seeing a pattern to my friendship group!!).  As you all know I married a South African and trying to blend tree types of traditions as well as our parents expectations is a nightmare.  So I am going to give my advice on how I felt the best way to deal with the situation was.

Call a meeting early on in the planning proceedings.  In my opinion, over a nice supper with a reasonable to endless supply of wine is the best way to start this procedure off!  Now before we go on it is important to mention that you and your betrothed should have already had one of these little get together by yourselves to work out what it is you, as a couple, are looking for in your wedding.  Your expectations settled, you can go into the lions den as a united front and prepared to haggle over what the parents want. We are raised to believe that our wedding day is one of the most monumental experiences of our lives but what is failed to be mentioned is that it seems to also be monumental for the parents, more specifically, the mothers.  They need to be asked what they want and I found that if something meant a lot to my parents and I was not fazed either way, I agreed to it.   I know it sounds like a very basic piece of advice, it is also a key part in the planning running smoothly and reducing the stress levels.  If you have to have bicker the entire way through the process (don't forget you are doing all of this from a distance), it becomes very tiring and depressing.  So get all the debating out of the way early.  

Image from Annie Angelopoulou

Obviously, there are still hurdles to be crossed, things never run that smoothly.  For example, I made it very clear that being announced into the reception as Mr and Mrs or the bride and groom was a no go area for me.  My mother on the other hand had different ideas and went ahead anyway.  As you can see by the above photo, I was less than impressed!

So my advice in a nutshell. If it does not bother you either way but you parents feel very strongly about it, let them have it.  It will give you a bargaining chip when you are arguing about something that you do feel deeply about and it keeps them happy at the same time.

NY