Taking Advice, Compromising and Doing Your Own Thing for Your Wedding

It's your wedding day, right? Sometimes when it comes to planning it doesn't always seem that way. If you're lucky you have lots of people who love and support you and want to help. That's great. But there's also a line that has to be drawn and let me tell you, the earlier it's drawn the better, because well, things can get out of hand. Take for example my wedding.

When my now husband proposed to me I was overjoyed. All the world was right, we were getting married. I loved his family, he loved mine and our families loved each other. Everything was perfect. Or so we thought.

We had an eighteen month long engagement so we could get ourselves settled and truly prepared and I am very glad that we did take the time to do that. Unlike most brides-to-be I wasn't jumping into planning right away. In fact I told everyone I didn't really care that much about all the little details, I just wanted a nice place and for everyone to be there and celebrate with us.

To me it wasn't about whether the place cards matched the linens or the floral arrangements were all real roses. To me, it was about he and I standing before all our friends and family and making a commitment. Then of course, a big party! That's all I cared about. But as I started sorting through some of basic details I found myself actually enjoying the planning process.

I was never the type of girl who has been dreaming about the perfect wedding day since she was a little girl. That just wasn't me. So I was surprised when I found myself having fun with all the planning aspects.

Overall I still didn't care too much about the little details. By four months until the wedding I had chosen the colors, the flowers, hired the photographer, DJ and videographers and of course, selected the ceremony and reception site. I was a little behind and it was at this point that outside influences began really making their opinions known.

For our wedding both my parents and my husband's parents gave us an equal amount of money. We also contributed a good deal of money as well. We had almost two hundred and fifty people at the ceremony and reception so it wasn't a little party by any means. The opinions started as little random comments more like suggestions, you could do this or you might think about doing that.

Harmless comments. But soon as I began investigating my own options and it became clear that I wasn't sticking to the "suggestions" on every point the comments turned into more so of demands.

"You need to do this" and "you have to have that". I didn't want to was the thing. Also, I couldn't. Some of these points that were made were out of our budget. I couldn't afford to spend six dollars per favor and another two dollars per place card. I spent about two bucks for a favor that doubled as a place card instead. And instead of real flower arrangements as the centerpiece for over twenty tables I opted for fake topiaries with fake flowers and ribbons on them. They were gorgeous.

But of course, real flowers would have been better I was told. I gave into several things. Whenever my mother-in-law would tell me or my husband that we "had to" do something we would talk it over and decide what to do. Give in, compromise, or say no that one is untouchable. But it didn't matter.

I couldn't do anything right. Even the things I changed to suit my mother-in-law's desires wasn't good enough or was overlooked entirely. In fact one item, the dress my husband's sister was to wear as a dove releaser was not only overlooked as having been a compromise but it was then brought back to attention as something I had done in spite.

Yes, I had never wanted my sister-in-law in the same dress as my bridesmaid, because well, she wasn't a bridesmaid. We've never gotten along and she and my husband have never gotten along either, so she was in charge of releasing a white dove on our wedding day, not being a bridesmaid.

Anyways, the point is my husband and I wanted her to wear a pretty sundress, not the same dress as my bridesmaids - that was a direct manipulation on my mother-in-law's part - a way of getting her daughter where she wanted her in the wedding. Back to the story, my mother-in-law became very upset a week and a half before the wedding and came over to our home to have "a talk."

Basically she told us we were the most selfish people she had ever encountered and would show up at the wedding and smile and talk pictures and everything, but that she wouldn't be happy. Nice, I know. Then she proceeded to say that our wedding had been a set-up to embarrass his sister because she was going to be wearing the same dress as the bridesmaids but not be sitting at the head table. She would be so embarrassed my mother-in-law claimed, because everyone would be asking her why she wasn't sitting with at the head table. Oh my!

I was so distraught - I was miserable for days and cried on end because my mother-in-law of whom I loved and adored had suddenly turned into a snotty, selfish little child who threw a hissy fit because she didn't get her way. She proceeded to be a grump at the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

Our rehearsal was three days before our wedding. So, after seeing her behavior at these events over a week later since she had blown up on us, I said heck with it. She wasn't worth being so upset over. I had done everything I could to make her happy throughout the wedding process and it still wasn't enough. My husband wrote her off completely. He said he would never again go out of his way to make her happy, it wasn't worth it.

So the point of all this is you have to do what you have to do, no matter what. Giving in to some things and making compromises will simplify the process for sure, but you can only do so much. It's your day. You're the one who will be staring at the pictures years from now. You're the one who will be saying "on my wedding day..." And when everything was said and done our wedding day was wonderful. And my mother-in-law, she was happy, despite her threats. Did I or my husband ever receive an apology for the things she said? No. And we never will. But that's another issue for another day. Make your wedding yours and enjoy every moment of that day and each day after.