How to Get Parents Involved in Planning a Wedding

When I got engaged, my parents gladly offered their financial support, but they let me and my fiancé take charge of the wedding planning process. In the past months, we have worked long and hard to plan our wedding so it ends up going exactly how we would like, but we have found ways to involve our parents in the process as well.

Wedding Planning Tip: Receive Advice from Your Parents

The most valuable thing my fiancé and I have received from our parents as we have all worked together to plan this wedding is their advice. Our parents have not only been guests at far more weddings than we have, but they have also been on the getting married side of a wedding as well. They have been able to give us a lot of suggestions and tips about keeping the ceremony short, going on a real honeymoon instead of taking a road trip with a camper, and countless other areas. It also delights me to see how honored they feel when we actually take their advice into account.

Wedding Planning Tip: Communicate Expectations to Parents

The first thing we did when we began to plan the wedding is we let our parents know what we expected of them. Specifically, we asked them to help us with tasks as we asked them to and as they were able. We also made sure that with each assignment we gave them, we clearly defined what final product we desired from them. This helped us to avoid any miscommunications and mishaps when working with wedding vendors

Wedding Planning Tip: Have Your Parents Select a Caterer

Selecting a wedding reception caterer is a long process, with many emails, phone calls, and price quotes to obtain. I assigned this task to my mother because she is very good at this sort of thing, and she thinks of far more details to consider than I ever would. Once she selected the best caterer, she turned it back over to my fiancé and I to specify the menu within her budget. This made it significantly easier for us because we did not have to build relationships with many different caterers to try to decide between them, but rather focused our attention on the caterer my mom had selected.

Wedding Planning Tip: Have Your Parents Pick the Photographer

After briefly discussing the possibility of having an amateur friend be the photographer at our wedding, it became clear that my parents cared much more than I did about the quality of photos that were taken on the wedding day. If this is the case for you, I would recommend putting the parent who cares the most about photo quality and style in charge of finding a wedding photographer. That way, everybody is sure to be happy with the final products.

Wedding Planning Tip: Party Favors from Parents

One last job that is great for parents (and even crafty siblings) to work on is putting together the party favors for your wedding. If you are making them by hand, it can be a very long and tedious process, but it turns out that moms and sisters love doing that kind of thing, and they have much more patience for it than a stressed out bride does.