Bad Wedding Advice

One reason The First Dance exists is because of the horrible wedding advice out there. If the advice were good, I would have never gone to my marriage counselor father to ask his opinion on the wedding wisdom out there. I would have never thought about all the issues couples face and how the advice in bridal land is often so pathetic! It is either not helpful or actually damaging.

So I will be flushing out more of what this "bad advice" is soon but here are two very common examples of bad advice:

1 - If your parents are bitterly divorced and never or rarely talk with each other, and you are worried about this for your wedding, they are NOT going to "behave" or "get along" if you simploy ask them or "remind them" this is "your big day." The reality is if they are capable of getting along and behaving well, they would have done so for holidays, for your birthdays, graduations, etc. This advice to "sit your parents down and explain this is your big day and you want them to get along" sounds nice but is just not the way the world operates! It can also lead to the false sense of control that you, the bride or groom, really have over others. And it can offend your parents who believe they ARE well behaved and offended you think so little of them.

2 - If your bridesmaid or maid of honor is being difficult, say, procrastinating or not getting back to you, the bad advice out there revolves around the trickiness of maintaining some sense of control while acknowledging the person can't BE controlled. There are ways to deal with someone that give you control back without giving them all the power over your plans and emotions. Wedding bridal party wisdom is flushed out in our book and website and you can read two chapters of our book, Take Back Your Wedding.