Your little girl is all grown up and getting married – and before you know it, you find yourself Mother of the bride. Your role is a big one. Anybody close to the planning of a wedding knows how easily tender feelings can be trodden on totally unintentionally within the blinking of an eyelid.
Back in Time
Back in time, as Mother of the Bride, you would have done most of the planning, but things have changed a lot over the last 10 years . Now prospective brides very much take the driver's seat. The groom is more often than not the co-driver and you're in the back seat even if you are paying for all or part of the wedding. That doesn't make your role any less important though because she needs you to help her skilfully navigate the course to her big day. Your number one task is to be her biggest source of encouragement and support and make your contacts available to help speed things along if it helps.
How to Help Your Daughter?
There are some wonderful guides and checklists online. What they'll tell you is on top of the practical things to attend to like the need to discuss and stick to an overall budget and working out how much money you are prepared to put towards the wedding, there is a lot to do. Starting with finding the dress of her dreams, there's the wedding venue to book, then your dress to find, the need to liaise with the mother of the groom on this so she tones in for the photos, and working out what relatives to invite from your side of the family.
Then there's more personal things to potentially help your daughter attend to like the wording of the wedding invitations, any public notices, booking the church or celebrant, sorting out the cake – and thinking about what kind of speech you want to make while ensuring the bride stays sane. It's a wonderful, whirling time, in which the days turn to weeks and months in a flash and your role is a pivotal one in including de-stressing events to ensure the lead up to the wedding is as enjoyable as it can be.
For a more traditional list of tasks to alter to suit, have a look here. These links will also be helpful:
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