Bridezilla!

I just read a very excellent "wedding undergraduate" post over on A Practical Wedding. It articulated something I've seen on the internet and run up against only occasionally in my own wedding planning where you suggest wanting something (maybe a backyard pig roast BBQ, instead of a buffet reception) and the response sounds like, "Oh no! That's doesn't feel like a wedding! It's kind of...hick, isn't it?"

It's well intentioned, assuming, I suppose, that it's not coming from a wedding industry professional insisting that going with the white standard table cloth is cheap so she can try to upsell you the colored overlays for an additional $50 a table. When it comes from a relative or (dare I suggest we don't always agree?) Fiance, I believe the intention is really to create a beautiful day that everyone will remember forever.

While the post made me feel a sense of support for making unconventional wedding choices, it made me think a little more about the other people involved in the wedding planning process.

Take the parents, for example. My parents have been great about the whole thing. Mom dealt with me wanting non-matching bridesmaids, compromised with me on the dinner service, has left pretty much every decor decision up to me and has generally supported every choice I've made thus far.

Other brides get this:
"it finally struck me this weekend that the only parts of the wedding she's [Mom] happy with are the parts she's been 100% involved in. Any decision my fiance and i have made together, ourselves - she has already decided will be a disaster. anyone involved with the wedding that she doesn't know, will be a failure."

And I thought, "seriously? Your daughter and her fiance are grown people! Trust them already!"

Brett and I watch Bridezillas sometimes and love feeling superior to the poor people on the show. Being tuned into the bridal blog world makes me look at the show and see women who are one week out from what society has told them should be the most important day of their adult lives. So often they scream in tears at their fiances, "this wedding isn't about you! It's all about me! And those table cloths have to match the bridesmaids shoes exactly or the WHOLE DAY WILL BE RUINED!" It's easy to laugh at that and call her a crazy Bridezilla, but honestly, that's exactly how she's been told to feel, and can you really blame her if she's not dealing with that particularly well? The wedding day is supposed to be a reflection of the bride: her taste and class and her value as a female member of society. She's supposed to throw the best, most luxurious party possible. The event of the season that everyone will still be talking about in a year.

A) That's stupid.
B) I know how that feels as a bride, but I honestly (I'm ashamed to say) hadn't thought how that pressure translates to Mom and Dad until I read this comment, "I think, in respect to our parents, many of them still think we are/want us to be 12 years old, not actual, full-fledged adults. Or, if we're going to go and be full-fledged adults instead of 12-year-olds, by golly we better look like extensions of them!"

It was like the clouds parted and I realized that while it's probably not always true, it is a really good thing to keep in mind that Mom and Dad are as invested in my wedding as I am.

Their parents will be there, their friends and co workers and of course they want to be comfortable with the big decisions (in a church, not a pasture) and want to have input in the little ones (bridesmaids attire). I get that. It makes sense.

So I will try to understand where the desire to input is coming from and I will try to be more receptive to compromise. I've gotten everything important to me so far and there's no reason to be difficult about the things that are important to my parents.

Love you Mom and Dad.