Wedding Help At Your Fingertips: Managing Your Mother

Meet Our "Real Life" Brides

Take this opportunity to meet our "real life" brides. We will be following them and blogging about their experiences from getting engaged to getting married. We will be introducing you to our brides and learning about all aspects of their wedding planning including organizing/planning, career balance and everything in between. Make sure to check back often!

AMANDA:Engaged: July 24, 2007, Wedding: Still not determined (maybe March, April or May 2008)
Goals: Create a wedding on a limited budget that doesn't look like it, Maintain a budget and savings plan, Find creative areas to cut the budget, Find a great reception site, Figure out how to delegate projects to others involved, Create a timeline and figure out how to pull together a wedding in a short amount of time, Make sure that everyone is happy along with herself.
Action items: Find a suitable reception site, Decide on the date of the wedding, Decide if a caterer is needed, Send out Save the Dates, Find a photographer, Decide on bridesmaids, Find a church, Decide on colors for overall wedding.
Planning items accomplished: Budget set, Maid of Honor decided, Decided that will go to a flower market and have bridesmaids help with the arrangements, Decided will look for dress in NC.

JUSTINE: Engaged: July 19, 2007; Wedding: September 6, 2008
Goals: Work on negotiating skills to get better deal with vendors, Work on communicating with support team on what dresses she wants them to wear and to stick to her vision, Empower herself in decision making process even when others have a different opinion or view, Find a photographer by end of November.
Action items: Speak with DJ and reduce per hour pricing for his services, Contact Church to work on original pricing quoted and to reduce it with questions and negotiating tools learned, Communicate her vision, so when dress shopping comes, there are no conflicts and everyone is on the same page, Keep Empowering herself that this is her wedding, how to say NO gracefully when appropriate, and to trust her intuition.

YVONNE: Engaged: July 12, 2007; Wedding: June 21, 2008 to be held on Isla Mujeres, Mexico.
Goals: To drop 3 dress sizes by wedding June, 2008 wedding!
Action items: Give up fried foods, Stick to exercise routine including 3 x week exercise classes, Getting in .5 to 1 hour extra exercise on the weekends.
Planning items accomplished: Budget Established, Ceremony and Reception Site Chosen, Save the Date Cards Sent Out, Wedding Party Attendants Asked Wedding Coordinator Hired, Rings Purchased, Accommodations Established, One of 2 Officiants Selected.
Biggest lesson learned so far: “Everyone has an opinion and will put in their 2 cents, so you have to do what YOU want when it comes to your wedding.”

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Managing Your Mother

For some of us, it's our mother-in-law-to-be, for others, it's our own dear sweet mum. Mothers and mother-in-laws are well intentioned (at least we hope so!) but sometimes their preferences, priorities and personalities can get in the way of our wedding day vision.

Relationships are key to wedding day success, however, they can also have a negative effect on your stress and balance during the wedding planning process. When you think about it, you really can't control what other people will do; you can only control yourself.

If you find your mother or mother-in-law-to-be involvement is becoming a challenge, here are a few tips to help you manage:

Start drawing the line early. If mom is adding up the guests who must attend and you just got engaged, a short but effective conversation can help. Example: "I really appreciate your input, but (fiance) and I are focusing on finding the venue, and when we tackle the budget and the guest list, I will be sure to ask for your input"

Keep your focus. Remember, this is YOUR wedding! That means when YOU want to get married and where is up to YOU. In addition to mom, you will probably get lots of unsolicited advice from others that can be distracting. Keeping your focus on where you are in the process will help prevent inertia and holding up important decision making

Share the load. Moms are great: they raised us, taught us life lessons, and passed along their gifts. They have great skills! Identify tasks and areas of the wedding planning that match their skills...and let them go to town. Some moms are great at organizing, others are savvy business women, and lots of moms are excellent multi-taskers. So think about how your mom or mom-in-law-to-be can best help you have an amazing wedding day!!