How to Help Your Daughter-in-Law Enjoy Her Wedding

Weddings are events loaded with emotion and sometimes overshadowed by anxiety. There's usually enough edginess to include everyone even remotely connected to the wedding event. Certainly ushers and bridesmaids are feeling twitchy just knowing they are going to be on public display before many people who they only slightly know and wearing clothes not of their own choosing. But even folks like the florist, the caterer and the photographer get a case of the "nervous nellies" because this is their livelihood and they need everything to be perfect. Most often the bride leads the anxiety parade. After all who is really looking at the groom? A wedding is very much about the bride, how she looks, how she acts, how she moves. That's why what mother- in- laws really need to discover, as a perfect wedding gift , is how to help your new daughter-in-law to enjoy her wedding.

1. Use the Engagement Period to Build a Positive Relationship - Anxiety about the wedding starts from the moment of the engagement. The bride to be has a great many concerns . Between getting the church, the minister, the hall, the caterer and all the other lesser things on her "to do" lists, the bride may be working herself into a near breakdown before she's even accustomed to her engagement ring.

Whether there is a long or short engagement period , one way to help your daughter-in-law enjoy her wedding is to take a positive attitude towards her. In this new relationship the mother-in-law clearly has the upper hand in a variety of ways. You are likely to find your daughter-in-law bending over backwards to try to impress you and gain your approval. But you have the experience of sitting where she is now. You know from your own experience as a daughter-in-law how devastating or uplifting the remarks, expressions and reactions of a mother-in-law can be.

There is some real power here and the very best thing you can do from the very beginning is to take a positive attitude to your daughter in law, her interests, her tastes, her lifestyle. This doesn't mean you have to lie or be fake. It simply means reaching out to another human being who is about to become a member of your family with a generosity of spirit and lots of human kindness. You don't have to become best friends, you both already have friends. What you can do is to begin at once to create a very special and caring relationship with the woman whom your son has chosen as his bride. It will make your life lot simpler and it will help your daughter-in-law to enjoy her wedding day

2. Share some definite one on one time. . You really don't have to plan a formal mother-in-law- daughter-in-law luncheon or a day out shopping, though if you are both comfortable with that it's fine. Nor is your one on one time necessarily an event you get dressed up for or plan way in advance, but it's all right if it is. What is important is that a month or two before your son and daughter-in-law are scheduled to be married, you and your daughter-in-law share some truly alone time.

What you decide to do isn't crucial here. The important thing is that the two of you have some quality time together. You may feel you know your daughter-in-law well.But it is more likely that you know your daughter- in-law as part of set. She is probably seen by you way too often as somewhat of a pleasant enough appendage to your son. But she is after all a person in her own right. It's important to start to get to know her and appreciate her for herself.

As much as you may not know her as an individual, she probably doesn't yet feel she knows you in that way either. Having time together even in small incidental ways like maybe just taking a walk, driving to the train station, sharing some time at the mall, can l help to make you both seem more real as people and you will begin to really relax with one another. One on one time shared will allow your daughter-in-law to begin to feel a comfort zone with you. Enough shared time can make your appearance at the wedding seem more like the arrival of a friend rather than a judgmental stranger. This is definitely one way how to help your daughter-in-law enjoy her wedding.

3. Maker Her An Offer She Can't Refuse. There are a million and one details that need attention around the time of the wedding. As the mother of the groom you really don't have lots of official functions to be concerned with. But what you can do that may help your daughter-in-law relax and enjoy her wedding is to offer some practical assistance. Listen carefully to the plans your son and his bride to be are making and look for that little opening that you can fill. Does someone need a ride to the rehearsal? Is there an odd lot aunt who needs a place to stay? Try to find some small task that will not put you in the spotlight or give the impression of you running the show. But find a task or two that need doing and help out quietly. Of course whatever you do, don't let it look like you are doing something that she should have taken care of herself.

Your daughter-in-law will be grateful,not just for your help but also for your sensitivity to her feelings and as a result will be able to better enjoy her wedding.

4. Sharing the reality. A very entertaining and fun way how to help your daughter-in-law enjoy her wedding is to find some pictures of other family weddings to share with her. As you enjoy the pictures together try to find a few stories that you can subtly share that expose the fact that your family isn't perfect. Your love of your family and the wedding events will come across clearly, but what you also have a chance to share is the fact that weddings are just large family parties. There is no right or wrong way to celebrate a wedding.

What the pictures can do is to help you to say without using words or sounding too melodramatic is that you are just happy that your son and daughter-in-law are getting married. The way the wedding all plays out is secondary. Sure you want things to go well,but the only important thing at the end of the day is that the two of them begin their married life together. The rest of what happens very quickly becomes snapshots in a book that someday she may take out and share with her daughter in law.

Sharing old family wedding pictures can allow your daughter-in-law the opportunity to pose a few questions regarding her own plans. It will definitely give you a chance to be positive in a very general way about weddings any kind of weddings, letting her know that there just is no way that you will be anything but pleased with the day. This may prove to take a load off of both of you. It really should help your daughter-in-law to enjoy her wedding.

5. The Day of the Wedding. Make a small but caring gesture before the wedding ceremony that will give your daughter-in-law a little extra confidence in your approval and help her to relax and enjoy her wedding. There are lots of possibilities here and your choice really depends upon your relationship with your daughter-in-law and the personal tastes involved.

At the rehearsal dinner you might take a moment with your daughter in law to give her something special to wear at the wedding from the possible "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue". Your selection should reflect your real caring for her and your true joy at welcoming her to your family. If it suits you, you could find a moment to give her a special poem, a small book or a recorded song that you hope will mean something to her at this milestone in her life. A nice touch can also be to send her some flowers and a short note during the week before the wedding welcoming her once again to the family .

If there is any lingering doubt about how well everything is going to come off at the wedding, these little votes of confidence along the way can help your daughter-in-law to enjoy her wedding after all.

Weddings can be fraught with nervous tension. You can't remove it all, but that doesn't mean that as the mother-in-law you shouldn't attempt to reduce the stress level for your daughter-in-law as much as you can. Don't you wish someone had done so for you?