T
Tommy999
Guest
Hello all,
Our youngest son is getting married in March. He is 25 and so is his fiancé. They both live in another city about 100 miles away. He has a good job and she is also employed, so they are financially and otherwise independent from us. They are both Christians and met at a Bible study at their church.
Issue causing concern:
My wife gets upset at times at being shut out of the wedding preparation plans for the most part, even though we are helping financially with some of it. We offered to help lower their financial burden and they accepted – no strings attached. Her family is more financially challenged than we are, according to our son, so we wanted to do that for them as a wedding gift.
I am not bothered by the lack of involvement because our son and his fiancé are both adults and they have the right to plan their wedding and reception as they see fit, as far as I am concerned. The way I see it, if they ask for my advice, I will give it to them. If not, I will keep quiet and stay out of it. However, my wife sees it differently. She sees how the wedding turns out to be a reflection on her, at least to a certain extent.
She considers certain things more important than they do. For example, she is big on having boutonnieres and corsages for the bridesmaids and groomsmen, where they weren’t planning on having them as a cost saving measure, except for her wedding bouquet.
Another thing was my wife asked our son’s fiancé if she could have her hair stylist double check my wife’s hair before the wedding and our son’s finance said her stylist would be focusing on her and her bridesmaids and mother and asked if my wife could find someone else to do her hair. That upset my wife a little. She felt slighted by that, but luckily my wife’s best friend has a niece who lives in that city who agreed to do my wife’s hair on the wedding day.
When our son calls us once or twice a week just to say hi and see how we are doing, my wife will often offer unsolicited advice to him, which sometimes prompts polite disagreements. Recent topics of discussion included seating arrangements for our relatives at the reception dinner and things that I consider to be so minor that i don’t even think about them. I plan on walking around and greeting people a lot during the reception so I truly don’t care where they seat me to start off with, but those kind of things matter more to my wife.
Do you have any advice on how to help my wife feel respected and honored although she can’t participate as much as she would like in my son’s wedding plans?
For me, this whole thing is starting to take some of the joy out of what is supposed to be a special and joyous time in our lives. I want our son and his future wife to look back on their wedding day as a time of joy and celebration, and not as a time of disagreement on how the wedding details should be handled. Any advice would be appreciated.
Our youngest son is getting married in March. He is 25 and so is his fiancé. They both live in another city about 100 miles away. He has a good job and she is also employed, so they are financially and otherwise independent from us. They are both Christians and met at a Bible study at their church.
Issue causing concern:
My wife gets upset at times at being shut out of the wedding preparation plans for the most part, even though we are helping financially with some of it. We offered to help lower their financial burden and they accepted – no strings attached. Her family is more financially challenged than we are, according to our son, so we wanted to do that for them as a wedding gift.
I am not bothered by the lack of involvement because our son and his fiancé are both adults and they have the right to plan their wedding and reception as they see fit, as far as I am concerned. The way I see it, if they ask for my advice, I will give it to them. If not, I will keep quiet and stay out of it. However, my wife sees it differently. She sees how the wedding turns out to be a reflection on her, at least to a certain extent.
She considers certain things more important than they do. For example, she is big on having boutonnieres and corsages for the bridesmaids and groomsmen, where they weren’t planning on having them as a cost saving measure, except for her wedding bouquet.
Another thing was my wife asked our son’s fiancé if she could have her hair stylist double check my wife’s hair before the wedding and our son’s finance said her stylist would be focusing on her and her bridesmaids and mother and asked if my wife could find someone else to do her hair. That upset my wife a little. She felt slighted by that, but luckily my wife’s best friend has a niece who lives in that city who agreed to do my wife’s hair on the wedding day.
When our son calls us once or twice a week just to say hi and see how we are doing, my wife will often offer unsolicited advice to him, which sometimes prompts polite disagreements. Recent topics of discussion included seating arrangements for our relatives at the reception dinner and things that I consider to be so minor that i don’t even think about them. I plan on walking around and greeting people a lot during the reception so I truly don’t care where they seat me to start off with, but those kind of things matter more to my wife.
Do you have any advice on how to help my wife feel respected and honored although she can’t participate as much as she would like in my son’s wedding plans?
For me, this whole thing is starting to take some of the joy out of what is supposed to be a special and joyous time in our lives. I want our son and his future wife to look back on their wedding day as a time of joy and celebration, and not as a time of disagreement on how the wedding details should be handled. Any advice would be appreciated.
