How to avoid awkward wedding situations

With planning comes complications, and difference points of view. You may not always see eye to eye with certain people, they could be wedding planners, family members or your in-laws, wouldn’t life be easier if everyone just agreed to disagree? In a perfect world yes maybe!

But below are some common awkward moments you could face while planning your special day, and my solutions on how to navigate through them without breaking a sweat, or ruining relationships.

The In Laws:

Of course nobody wants to cause friction with their soon to be mother-in-law, but you also don’t want to completely change your wedding plans to make her happy.

Solution: Take her ideas on board, have a calm and understanding conversation with your mother in law, most importantly be honest. Tell her how you feel, and what you envisioned your big day would be like, after all she is a women, and understands how important weddings can be.

You can possibly give her aspects of your day to plan, for example ask her opinion on flowers, or table seating. As long as you make her feel included, she will appreciate the thought. In other cases, she may be contributing towards the cost of the wedding, and you may find it slightly awkward refusing her ideas. Regardless whether she is or not make sure you tell her how grateful you and your partner are for all of her support and input.

Then, pick your battles, consider letting her “win” on what you would consider minor or less important on your big day, in order not to make any drastic changes. If you’re still butting heads, ask your fiance to step in and talk to her. After all, her son may be way more successful at getting her to understand.

Limited spaces in your wedding party:

You have chosen your bridesmaids, and feel as if others took it more personal than you thought. Maybe you were someone else’s maid of honor/bridesmaid, but now you don’t feel that close anymore, or your ceremony will be too intimate to justify making every single girlfriend a bridesmaid.

Whatever the case, it’s always difficult to tell a friend who’s expecting to be in the wedding party that, well, she’s not.

Solution: There is no easy way of handling this kind of situation. Sometimes difficult conversations can be a true test of friendship. “Honesty is the only policy” explain your circumstances behind your decision, if you can. Stress how important your relationship is and how excited you are to have her at the wedding.
If she is not going to be a bridesmaid, this does not mean you can’t involve her in other aspects of your wedding, i.e invite your friend to the bachelorette party, ask her to put a playlist together, or she can even be apart of your ceremony by giving a speech or passing out programs.

It’s a No!

I find it rather annoying when guests automatically assume they can bring whoever they wish to a wedding. If I may say this is the most common glitches that you will face during the planning process. You and your future spouse worked hard to include the nearest and dearest in your special day. But there is this one guest who seems to think they can have plus 3 rather than a plus 1.

Solution: As simple as the header sounds, it’s a NO! be honest, and explain why a last minute addition isn’t possible. It’s ok to tell your guests that you have reached your max capacity with the venue, or that either you or your future spouse have a limited number of invites. If you are having a pre wedding party, then you can have your guests invite their plus 2’s and 3’s to that.

Adults only:

Children are great, really but you’re going for a sophisticated, adults-only event. Just be ready for pushback from parents who may not relish the idea of dropping cash for a sitter, or even realize that their brood isn’t welcome.

Solution: Even though marking the invitations as adults only would make things a lot easier, try to avoid doing so, since it may offend certain guests. Instead address the invitations accordingly i.e “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” rather than “The Smith Family”.

This will subtly inform your guests that the wedding is not a family affair, but you’ll probably still end up fielding questions. In that case, keep your answer short and sweet: Explain apologetically that you can’t include all the guests you’d like to due to “budget constraints.” Even if that’s not the case, it’s a response that tends to work wonders for nipping complaints in the bud.