Keeping Your Nuptials Nice
Kirby sent a link to this video of a very… spirited wedding that is actually a promo for Wild Roses. While this thankfully isn’t a record of some real affair ruined by feuding families, it did get me to thinking. One does hope that most brides and grooms get to enjoy idyllic weddings, but the fact is that some ceremonies and receptions will be marred by squabbles, cattiness, yelling, and the occasional punch in the eye.
Once upon a time I might have asked myself just who uses a wedding as a forum to give new life to old tensions, but that was before I ended up connected via marriage to some people with large chips on their shoulders. The long and the short of it is that weddings can bring out the worst in people — even people who are otherwise sane and balanced. Common offenders include divorced parents, siblings on the outs, former lovers, and anyone who doesn’t quite approve of the union being consecrated.
So how can you prevent a matrimonial meltdown like the one above? The key is to diffuse whatever tensions can be diffused before the big day instead of worrying impotently about what might happen on the big day. Here are just some of the ways you can prevent major big day blowouts:
- Be sensitive to (or at least pretend to be sensitive to) the concerns of feuding family and friends. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with their grievances or give in when so-and-so asks you not to invite the object of their ire, but you can provide a listening ear. Reassure everyone involved that you’re only asking that people be civil for a few hours, not that sworn enemies become fast friends. Do not, however, let yourself be manipulated into excluding people you care about from your ceremony or reception.
- Approach feuding family and friends directly to ask what they can do and what you can do to ensure a peaceful wedding ceremony and reception. Don’t be judgmental or try to downplay the issues at hand — instead, make it clear that you know about the problems they’ve had with other guests in the past and that you want them to be as comfortable as possible at your wedding. Discuss how you can work together to make that happen.
- Create a buffer zone wherever spats are likely to occur. This might mean seating divorced parents far away from one another or keeping your battling bridesmaids so busy that they don’t have time to fight. Splitting up wedding duties will also keep resentment levels at a minimum, since no one relative or friend will have more responsibility (or perks) than any other.
- Finally, if problems cross familial lines, it can help to let your fiancé(e) deal with his/her family while you deal with yours. Even though you’re joining each others’ families and it may already feel like you have, speaking out when bad blood is involved can create more bad blood. However, when you’re dealing with your own relatives, make sure they know you aren’t taking sides.
It may help to remind yourself that you ultimately cannot control what your wedding guests and attendants do. You can choose not to invite certain people and you can seat guests on the outs far from one another, but other than that, feuding family and friends are going to do what they’re going to do. Remember that their bad behavior won’t reflect badly on you and try not to stress out about what might happen because chances are that no one you care about is going to do anything to mar your happy day.
Im in a situation myself with my to be husband’s father. No one on his side of the family has anything to do with him except my man, and even he can only handle him in very small doses over very long periods of time. Apparently the last time my to-be sister in law saw him it ended in a big screaming match! Im glad i was not there, thats for sure. So i don’t know its still all up in the air.
The main reason I wanted to elope is because I didn’t want my to-be in-laws at the wedding. My family thinks my husband is great. My in-laws want to know what on earth my husband sees in my religious (I am not an atheist), political views opposite of theirs, gold-digging (marrying for the first time at 44 — what was I doing to support myself before I met him?), bad bacon eating (his dad doesn’t like the way I eat bacon I am not making this up) self. They almost granted my wish by calling my husband two weeks before the wedding to tell him not only were they not coming but he should not marry me.
Don’t let the door hit ya! I told him to tell them. Unfortunately, through a series of unfortunate events, he was able to convince them to come.
So they spent nine days with us, sleeping in our room because they cannot take stairs, complaining that my husband was not spending enough time with them, even though he had told them he was going to have to work two of the days they were here, whining that the TV was in the basement and they couldn’t watch (even though they are intellectuals so you’d think they could entertain themselves for TWO DAYS without a TV), would I get them Lactaid for their lactose intolerance (yes), oh can they eat a lot of our (we don’t get the cheap stuff so we eat if sparingly) cheese for a snack at 5:00 (where is the lactose intolerance?) because we don’t eat lunch dear, we expect a full meal at 8 and we don’t like her but why is she going to bed at 9:30?
They drank a gallon of bourbon in six days, plus at least a bottle of wine at supper every night. They were drunk at our wedding supper, but at least didn’t insult anyone in my family or my husband’s pastor (they are ardent atheists) as far as I know, although in their toast, managed to subtly insult me by omission. My brother and sister each gave a toast welcoming my husband to the family and saying how happy they were to have him. My FIL said he hoped my husband would be as happy as FIL is, which is damning with faint praise. Never mentioned me by name. Whatev.
One of my husband’s Christmas presents this year was the promise that I don’t have to go visit them at all in 2009. They’ll never come back here. Ever. And fortunately, they drink heavily and are in poor health, so. You know.
I just decided to elope instead. My mother (bless her heart) is a lovely woman, and has been very good to me, but she’s still very bitter towards my dad, and basically thinks that I should refer to my stepdad as my dad, because he’s been so good to me. But, I have a cordial relationship with my dad, and would have actually wanted him at my wedding. And my mom and sister both have a bad habit of imbibing too much at family events and either saying things that are very inappropriate, or getting into bitter, cursing fights with each other. I had only wanted a small wedding anyway, so the buffer zone idea didn’t work. So, I figured I could have gone through with it and been on tenterhooks the entire time, just waiting for one of them to start mouthing off, or I could just say “f**k it” and take off with my wonderful man and enjoy our day by ourselves, and not have to worry about any of that foolishness. We wound up having a party/reception afterwards when we got back (sans Dad — we celebrated with him separately), and it was great. I know a lot of people would disapprove, saying that weddings are all about family, but when making my lifetime commitment to the man I love, I wanted to be able to focus on THAT, not on all of these worries about family members’ behaviour.
You know, NtB, truer words were never spoken than your final paragraph.
When my brother the alpaca rancher married his lady, her family was…well, they did manage to stop slightly short of public fist fights, but that’s about as much as I can say to the good. In the end, her father made a series of demands about what the wedding needed to be like before he would consider attending, and then simply failed to show on the big day. Her mother, OTOH, did show and we sort of wished she hadn’t. I mean, who comes to her only daughters’ wedding dressed in a lacy white long dress and then deliberately scowls in every photograph?
In the end, though, both parents managed mostly to make gigantic jackasses of themselves. More than twenty years later, people see the photo album and have a good laugh at scowly mom in her demi-wedding gown. They also note daddy’s absence and tut tut a lot.
I’m sorry. I went off on a bit of a rant there. Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit in the corner and try to shut up.
Class factotum, from what you wrote, you are absolutely entitled to rant! Not that you did, but you could have. Sadly, you are obviously not alone.
However, I must admit I’m agog with curiosity – what on earth do you do? Inhale the bacon through a straw? That would actually be a pretty neat trick.
Your in-laws sound like complete and utter jerks, and I’m glad your sweetie actually knows it, and doesn’t plan to subject you to them.
Twistie, I have to say I REALLY WONDER about the mothers and mothers-in-law who turn up in white dresses at their children’s weddings. The only message I can deduce is “I want to sleep with my son!” Total ick. (And “I want to sleep with my son-in-law!” isn’t exactly an improvement.)