It’s time for our second Polka Dot Hot Spot! Today, on this cold Friday, I thought I’d talk about family dynamics. Wedding are notorious for being hothouses of emotion and I think nowhere is this more evident that with families-. There’s the joining of two families, the financial pressures, the feelings that are so easy to turn sour and the baggage that has been held close for years suddenly coming flooding out.
I think too, I’ve found the interesting dynamic with parents. While couples feel this is the first big step towards their life together as a family, often mums and dads see this as the last big project. It makes for some head on crashes!
So tell me, what family dynamic surprised you the most when it came to your wedding plans? What relationships were under strain and how did you deal with it? I’d love to learn lessons, what has helped you, what hasn’t and how wedding plans impacted your relationships.
My parents don’t talk and haven’t for nearly 15 years. My mum said the other day that she wont come to my wedding if my father is there. Seriously…. What am I meant to do in this situation!? This is about me not her or/and him! Very stressful!
Hi Kat,
Firstly thanks for being the first (I’m always a little nervous about hot spots, I’m never the type to be anything but a wallflower).
Oh parents! the most freaking insane relationship with weddings of them all. When it comes to this one? I think it’s about you Kat, you and your fiance. I presume it’s important for your dad to be there and by your mother giving you an ultimatum, she’s making it about her and her pain.
Can you catch your mum on a day where there is the emotional tension and explain how important to you it is to have both her and your father there? Have you been able to involve her in parts of the wedding so she understands how important she is to you?
Great advice.
Hi Kat
This is the one day your parents HAVE to put aside their quarrels, which after all, are between them, and are not about you. This day is about you and your fiance, and not about anyone else. I’m sure that if you could point out to your mother that you would love her to attend, because apart from your fiance, they are both the most important people in your life and you really love them equally. You would also like them both to be there and it would leave a large hole in your heart if she were not to attend, but if she really feels she can’t do it, she must make that decision herself. Sometimes freeing someone up to not attend, may cause them to re-think their decision. Really, approach it as you feel most comfortable, you are the only one who knows how far you can ‘push’ her. I hope it turns out perfectly for you.
Without delving into confidential client files — which I would never do — I am personally aware of the groom with a brother banned from attending the ceremony. Bodyguards were involved. And the groom’s mother held a mobile phone up about a metre away from her son through the whole ceremony to make it patently clear she was broadcasting the ceremony to the banned brother. Then there was the mother who told her daughter a week out from her wedding she would not be attending because it was being held in an Anglican not Catholic chapel…and this despite the fact the bride had a letter from her mother’s parish priest confirming the Catholic Church would recognise the wedding if held in the Anglican Church. I would continue but it gets too depressing. As Charles Dickens wrote, it was the best of the times, it was the worst of times…and when it comes to weddings, I cannot get my head around why it brings out the best and worst in people all at the same time! Not always. But too often.
I am so shocked… even though I know I shouldn’t be! I guess people just get so emotionally involved in these occasions to the point where they obviously can’t take a back step. My advice on this one Kat is as follows:
Your Mum, although very important to you, is a person in her own right with the ability and responsibility to make her own choices. If she thinks that the right choice for her is to not come to her daughter’s wedding then that’s something she’ll have to live with for the rest of her days. You are doing nothing wrong by wanting to have both your parents at your wedding. Their marriage is not your marriage.
Hope this helps. Best of luck!