How to Plan a Wedding Without Going Crazy

1. He who has the gold rules, meaning that whoever is paying for your wedding will expect to have significant input if not control over the arrangements. God give you the courage to change the things you can change, the peace to accept the things you can't change, and the wisdom to know the difference -- no amount of tantrums will change this basic truth.

2. A wedding is for the bride, her mother, and maybe the groom's mother (meaning they all want to be in charge).

3. Each of the women is working from a dream and those dreams differ (meaning there will be conflicts).

4. The men in these women's lives usually love them enough to go along with those dreams, often to the point of family bankruptcy, meaning they don't want to get involved in any hen fights and will often respond with "just send the bill" and then disappear to the bathroom or golf course (if they can still hear the shouting in the bathroom).

5. You can't please everyone, meaning you can't always please the people paying the bill and yourself, so you may have to compromise on your dream at times if someone else is paying the bill.

So, the first thing you must do to assure your sanity through the wedding planning process is to keep the basic truths in mind, then establish how you're going to deal with conflicting dreams without bankrupting your family or causing long-term harm to important family relationships. If you can do this, you're probably grown-up enough to actually be contemplating marriage -- the until-death-do-us-part battle of conflicting ideas.

The very first step is to sit down with your intended and decide how you two together will deal with the potential conflicts when (I say when and not if) they come along. Now is the time to establish a united front -- the new couple against the world, or at least against the mothers, friends, and other people who want to "help."

After you've agreed on the methodology for conflict resolution, come clean with your intended about what you have in mind. (Yes, I know, these are secret dreams, but there are no secrets in marriage, or at least there shouldn't be when it comes to dreams that impact the family budget.) Tell him about the dress you want, the ceremony you want, the flowers you want, the reception you want, the music you want played at your wedding and the reception. Then, shut up, and let him tell you about his idea of a dream wedding.

Listen carefully. Don't be surprised when he says his ideal wedding is a trip to the courthouse and a week in a motel by the beach -- Galveston beach, not Tahiti.

Now, it's time to practice compromising, something you will do a lot in the years ahead.

Comprise means both parties give a little and get a lot -- a marriage to someone who cares enough to consider the wishes of their partner as carefully as their own wishes. As you negotiate, deal with the hard question -- who is paying the bill? How much can they realistically afford to spend without you practicing emotional blackmail on them? How much can you control how the bill payer spends his/her money?

For a moment, put yourself in the bill payer's shoes. Pretend you're paying all of your wedding expenses out of the money you have on hand -- the money you've saved or the money you've earned to this point in your life. That was quick. Now, pretend you are the bill-payer, paying for a daughter's wedding. What else do you have to spend that money on? If your parents are paying the bills, will they have to work until 90 (or live with you) if they blow their retirement savings on your wedding? If you're paying the bills, how much of your future are you willing to mortgage to have that dream wedding? Wouldn't you really rather put that nest egg into a down payment on the home of your dreams?

With that dose of reality, really listen to your groom's concerns. Getting married is traumatic for men. That pledge of fidelity thing scares him -- one woman and only one woman until he dies! The life-time commitment to the role of "breadwinner" for your soon-to-be family terrifies him. He can just barely support himself and now you want him to support you and the 2.3 offspring you plan to have! He's not even married yet and here you want him to go into debt so you can live out your princess bride dream.

Step back a minute and think about how much bread he is likely to win and how quickly he will win it? Is is enough for a grand wedding and the house and car and furniture of your dreams? Talk about money. Talk about realistic expectations in earning power. Disputes over money are the primary cause of divorce. If you can't agree on a wedding budget, will you be able to agree on a day-to-day family budget? If you can't agree about money at the onset, chances are you will be heading for the divorce court just as soon as that trip to the alter turns into day-to-day living.

If you can get past this step, agree together as to which of you resolves other likely conflicts when there are disagreements among family members. Take that whole wedding planning chart in hand and go down the list of items one by one. You know that you want purple as an accent color, but you also know your mother's favorite color is peach and your future mother-in-law's favorite color is blue -- shades of peach and blue that will clash with your shade of purple! The compromise might be as simple as adding tiny streamers of blue and peach to your purple ribbons. Check it out at the fabric store and decide in advance on whether that is a compromise you can offer when the color issue comes up -- it will come up.

Do the same with everything on the list of potential conflicts. Your mother wants you to wear her bridal gown that has been preserved in that box in the top of her closet for 30 years. You wouldn't be caught dead in that old thing. Promise her you'll name your first born girl child after her instead and that your daughter will wear the dress (you can renegotiate that a few years after the wedding -- when your daughter starts playing dress-up princess, send her to grandma's house and tell her where the dress is hidden).

After you've figured out your compromise position on things you know will come up, enlist allies to help with conflict resolution. Ninety percent of the conflict will be between the bride, her mother, and her future mother-in-law, so put the men in charge of conflict resolution. I know, rule number 4 above said the men don't want to get involved in a hen fight, and they will do anything, like leave town on a really long business trip, until it's over. So you've got to sucker them into the job before the hen fight starts. After they've agreed to be the conflict resolution team, do what you'll do the rest of your life as a wife -- nag them into doing what they agreed to do.

If you're putting your father in charge of keeping your mother at bay, make sure he understands this in the beginning. You've always been able to twist your father around your finger -- do it now. If your future father-in-law can help with keeping your future-mother-in-law on the straight and narrow, enlist his help.

And then be firm with the mothers. Tell them you love them (say this often because mothers need to hear it). Tell them you respect their input, but you prefer doing whatever you've decided to do another way. But please don't run yelling and screaming like a 13-year-old. It didn't work on your mother then; it won't work on her now; and, she may very well tell you, "Fine, do it your way. Your father and I are going for a cruise that week anyway and it will take all the money we have." What kind of fall-back position does that leave you?

Now as to the details of the wedding, think about your dream. It's a moment you've been seeing in your mind since you got your first bride Barbie. Then ask yourself what you most want to remember about your wedding at your 5th and 50th anniversary party? Yes remember. Dreams are the future; memories are what you have one second after the future has turned into past.

Now, open that spiral notebook you're calling your "Wedding Planning Book" and write down your answer. Ask your intended. Write down his answer too. His dreams do count, you know? This is the first step in building a life and a family together, and he may have very different ideas of how that life should look.

Before you turn the page for the next exercise, spend a moment on this wedding memory you've just envisioned. Think about when you're a wife with two young children five years down the road. What do you think you'll remember about your wedding then? The gown? The ribbons on the church pews? The reception hall table decorations? The music? The flowers? Aunt Tillie getting soused and falling down drunk? Your mother's and the groom's mother dressed in clashing colors? Or will you remember the moment you turned to your newly pronounced husband for that first married kiss?

When you're a grandmother at your 50th anniversary celebration kissing that prince who through some miracle of time has now turned into an old man, the two of you surrounded by those now grown children and their own now grown children, will you remember the gown? Will you remember the flowers? Will you remember the guest? When he looks at you 50 years in the future and kisses the old woman he once coached through the birth of children and held through all the challenges and traumas that come with living, will he remember the months of wedding planning and the bachelor party that he wishes never happened, or will he remember the kiss from his bride and the love that survived.

Now, while the tears are still in your eyes, write down the next truth: HAPPY EVER AFTER IS THE GOAL!!!

A wedding is about dreams and memories? A wedding is a few hours in one day? The memories are for a lifetime? As you go through all the other wedding planning exercises, concentrate on the memory of your wedding that you want to relive 50 years from now, concentrate on the goal. See, a simple wedding really will give you the memories you desire.

Now, you're ready to begin. Turn the page of your spiral notebook and talk about that budget. Get real with the numbers. Make a budget and stick to it, just like it's a marriage you plan on sticking with.

Lake Property Texas

Home Wedding Helper

Houston Home for Sale

Houston Writers Group

If you would like to exchange links with Purple Penelope, email webmaster@purplepenelope.com.

Texas Wedding and Party Planner

PURPLE PENELOPE

HOW TO PLAN A WEDDING

HOW TO PLAN A WEDDING WITHOUT GOING CRAZY