Who's Dream is this Anyway?

 With money comes a price!

Believe it or not, Mom's, Dad's and Mother-in-laws (M.I.L) are unconsciously smashing their child's wedding dreams into tiny little pieces. Why you ask? Our experience has revealed that the number one reason is because the parents (of brides, grooms or both) are contributing financially to the wedding and therefore feel as if they have significant say in the decision making process.

On one specific occasion I remember sitting down in a meeting with the bride and her mother-in-law only to have the M.I.L storm out and hastily drive away (leaving the bride stranded at my office) all because we were taking the brides wishes seriously vs. the M.I.L. eagerness to literally take charge of the event. After the M.I.L. hastily left, the bride burst out into tears saying that she was torn between telling us what she really wanted, vs. the out spoken, authoritative decisions her M.I.L. was making on her behalf.

For example, the bride had always dreamed of having a custom made tent for her reception, provided pictures and we spent months getting custom quotes and getting someone to build her masterpiece. Yet in the end, her future M.I.L would only approve a basic white vinyl tent. You can't imagine how it made the bride feel!

The tent wasn't the only thing that this bride had to forgo on her wedding day, she also had to forget any dreams about having cinematography, fabric draping, custom plate-ware, specialty lighting, having her favorite centerpieces, choice of cake design, floating candles and more. At the end of the day, this event literally oozed M.I.L. and barely reflected the personality of the couple at all.

Now I can tell you, having planned thousands of weddings in Hawaii for nearly two decades one of the most important things that sets us apart from any other company is being able to completely fulfill a brides dream. Not my dream, my employees dream, or the dream of the brides best friend, mom, dad or M.I.L.. One of the reasons why we are so successful at it is because we communicate directly with the couples that are capable making all the decisions.

In a nutshell, if the bride and groom can't effectively communicate and make decisions, directly with their wedding consultant or vendors because of someone else wanting to speak and make their decisions for them then there is literally, no way to supremely orchestrate any brides dream. And that's the honest truth!

With that said we want everyone to know that we are not trying to tell parents to completely "butt out". We really do understand both the bride, groom and the parents heart felt intentions in the planning process. However, it is our job to shed some light on this unspoken topic so that couples and parents have a better understanding of the real issues they may be presented with.

Here are some simple suggestions to help families work together in order to achieve a "fairytale ending".

• Trust your children as responsible adults.
• Set the ground rules ahead of time and write them down. 
• Try and discuss who has control of what decision and whom will be the main contact person for the planner or vendors.
• Parents, set a budget for your children and allow them to manage the funds themselves as a husband and wife would do. 
• Be accountable for keeping a financial log to show your parents.
• Parents, please don't take charge of the wedding.
• Designate other important tasks to the parents. i.e. rehearsal dinner, bridal luncheon etc.

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