Dealing With (Unwanted!) Wedding Advice

People love weddings! Their romance, pageantry, and joyous nature make weddings one of everyone's favorite topics. Even strangers feel moved to offer heartfelt congratulations about an engagement. Unfortunately, folks often feel compelled to offer something else: unsolicited advice.

Weddings have a lot of formal customs, traditions, and rules of etiquette. They are all quite meaningful, if you take the time to discover their origins. Because weddings are such a part of the fabric of our society, everyone seems to have an opinion on the “right” way to do things. Brides will find themselves bombarded with all of those opinions, whether they want to hear them or not.

So what should a gracious young lady do when confronted with all this unsolicited advice? The first thing to do is take a deep breath. Take a moment to think about the motives of the speaker. The chances are that they are happy about your upcoming nuptials and are trying to be helpful. Keeping that in mind can make it easier to respond politely when someone tells you that you really “must” do this or that. A stock response to use is, “hmm... I'll think about that”.

You must also consider the source of the advice. Is it from a professional, who has worked with countless brides? In that case, the suggestion may be worthwhile, as experts in the wedding field have seen it all, including what works and what doesn't. For instance if the tent guy tells you that you should really rent a floor for your tent, your first thought might be that he is just trying to make you spend more money. But if you take the time to think about his advice, you might realize that he is really trying to save you from a swampy mess if it rains during the week of your wedding.

Opinions from family members can be more challenging to sort through. If your sister is your maid of honor, and she says that you really must give out convertibles for bridesmaid gifts, you can safely assume that her motivations are selfish. But what if you were planning to give your attendants pashminas and your sister drops a hint that your attendants wished they had pretty pearls earrings to wear at your wedding? In that case, you might decide to give jewelry as your bridesmaid gifts instead.

The stickiest situation of all is unsolicited advice that a bride receives from her future mother in law. That can be a tricky relationship to get on solid footing, and the bride won't want to risk offending her fiance's mother. This is a situation where it pays to evaluate how much it would mean to a relative if you acted on their suggestion. For example, what if your mother in law says that you really should do your first dance to the same song that she and her late husband did. The song may not be your style, but wouldn't it be worth it to follow your mother in law's suggestion if you know it would mean the world to her? On the other hand, if she recommends something that you find truly appalling (such as a money tree), you must find a tactful way to turn her down. What usually works is to quickly change the subject. Try this: “Oh, that's really interesting. Say, did you find a dress for the rehearsal dinner yet?”. Turning the topic to the other person is a good way to distract them.

During the course of your wedding, you will get advice from almost everyone that you know. When in doubt, another way to judge it's validity is tradition. If the proffered idea is based on centuries old customs, give it weight. If, on the other hand, you are told that “everyone is doing it”, so you should too – run the other way!