Crisis Talks
Well, what a month February has been. Sharon and I literally haven’t stopped! Most of the month has been spent meeting awesome couples at various wedding shows near us as part of Staggered on Tour. As such I have literally not stopped for a month. You think that’s bad, just think of the ‘Ed!’ [Quite! Hear! Hear! Etc, Ed]
To top it all off about a week ago we had a major malfunction on the relationships front. No, not Sharon and I – all is more than good there. The crisis arose with Sharon’s Mum and Dad. Now, I am taking a little bit of a risk in writing this all up here as my future father-in-law should really be reading this as any good Father of the Bride should. However, I need some catharsis and I have a responsibility to be honest with my writing.
The scene at our flat, last Sunday.
We have been very diligent in our budgeting; we have haggled our arses off and refuse to take second best. However, even with the honeymoon help from my parents, we were going to go over budget: This is the total “wedding” budget, not just the contribution from Sharon’s parents. So, realising we’d need more money wanted to ask Sharon’s Mum and Dad if they would lend us the money, to save us being at the mercy of imminent rises in interest rates etc.
I wasn’t on the call, but it sounded like there was a lot of confusion around the budget. So much so that we had to get a meeting set up to literally sit around the kitchen table and sort it out.
It’s not my place to go into details, but we were there for four hours. There were raised voices, and a few tears, but at the end of it we were all happy that everything had been resolved and things could move forwards. I just wanted to highlight that there may well come a point in your own weddings where personalities, disputes, financial worries and most importantly differing expectations have the potential to mar your wedding planning, and ultimately your big day.
So, to give you the tools you need dear readers, here is my survival guide to Crisis Talks:
- Be the United Nations.You are the extra wheel here – you do not have the benefit of the years of back story and experience the other three people at the talks have. Therefore you are going to have to be both persuader and mediator. You will have to support both sides from their perspectives because the most important thing to happen in these talks is for people to at least understand and respect the other side, even if they still don’t agree.
- Prepare your fiancée.She is likely to be emotionally charged and will want you there to support her. Realise that you can do this and still be the UN Ambassador, above. You do, however need to explain that you will have to take both sides in the discussions, and that doesn’t mean that you are not supporting her. As we all know – push comes to shove you are always going to back up your fiancée.
- Bring your ammunition.If money is at the root of the problem, come prepared. Keeping an accurate and up-to-date wedding budget is essential. You cannot argue with raw facts and figures and by going through these kinds of documents you de-personalise the discussions – making it less focussed between the personalities and more about the problem and how to address it.
- Have a contingency.If there is a chance that things are not going to go the way you want them to, and there are alternative options you can take as a couple to move the wedding forward, at least research these so that you can assure the in-laws that you still can have everything in hand and that things don’t get bitter.
- Plan for the best.Assume that all will be well. Usually I am a bit of a pessimist, but in these cases you want to think that all will be well because ultimately these people are going to be your extended family. And no one wants some kind of grudge developing. You can often rely on the fact people want this to end well.
I hope that none of you have to do this during your own weddings – it was one of the most fraught experiences I have had in a very long time. Ultimately things worked out well and I think a lot of understanding has been engendered on both sides, which can only be a good thing right?
STD
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