Been There, Done That: Your Child's Wedding
Planning your child’s wedding may be months away or decades away, depending upon your stage of life. One thing is for sure: It is an occasion full of emotion, opinions and expectations. I don’t think it is ever too early to begin to have a healthy perspective on this special day. As a mom, you can add to the tension or the celebration of the occasion. May each of us keep God’s perspective on such a milestone.Kendall’s Wedding Wisdom…
1. Keep the main thing the main thing.This is a day to celebrate what God has done in the lives of two people and how He has bought them together to live life as a couple. All the details are secondary.
2. Help your daughter to be a considerate bride.One discussion I had with each of my girls was to be considerate of family and friends. "Yes, this is your special day and I want you to feel special. But this is also about family.” No bridezillas!
3. Give some financial guidelines.We started by giving our daughters a budget. The girls then decided what was most important to them and listed those things in order of importance, so we put the money into the things that they valued. (Pictures, the church, the dress, kind of reception, the food, invitations, etc…)
4. Get organized.After establishing the budget, we next set out a schedule of what needed to be accomplished, in what order, and by what date. This eliminated much of the stress. One of my daughters got engaged in April and married in August. We did not have time for her to order a dress, so she had to choose one off the rack and have it altered.
5. Mum’s the word for Mom.I tried not to give my opinion unless it was asked for. One of my daughters knew exactly what she wanted and one wanted me to help her decide almost everything!
6. Give your child’s spouse’s family room for their own decisions.When my daughters married, we took the opinion that the reception was our party and the rehearsal dinner was his family’s. We wanted to be mindful of any opinions the groom had for the reception, but we were careful not to impose our opinions on his party.
When my sons married, we did the opposite and assumed no say in how the reception would be planned. My children took on the role of communicator between the two families. This was to ensure that the in-laws felt comfortable with the plans and that my child was the one approving the details.
7. Be quick to extend grace.One thing I learned is that something is inevitably going to happen that upsets someone in this whole thing. I wanted our family to be the ones who were quick to extend grace. I may not have to deal with the in-laws again, but my child will probably have a lifetime of it. I tried to be careful to make that as easy as possible by not saying anything derogatory about the other family. You must never say anything negative about your child's spouse, starting from day one. This is part of what God has joined together, so let no man put asunder.
It is fun to allow your little girl to dream about her wedding day. At the same time, never forsake establishing the need for wisdom, consideration and stewardship as you have conversations about “one day.” As believers, we want to make sure that what our sons and daughters are most excited about is seeing God’s provision in a godly spouse.Great advice, Kendall. Thank you!Join us on Thursday when we’ll be looking at the subject of “In-laws”…