Amazing relationship technique

This is a technique used by many marriage counselors and by folks who have what I call a "high emotional intelligence." Many of us use this technique in a work setting without realizing it and without translating the skill to our personal life.

It goes like this:

Bride: "YOU DIDN'T CALL THE LIMO COMPANY? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? We're a MONTH away from the wedding and I asked you to do this 11 MONTHS AGO?"

Let's process the reaction they're going to get. The groom is going to be extremely defensive, right? He's also likely to be pissed that he's getting yelled at. However he responses with those emotions varies from guy to guy. Some guys are going to just walk out the door. Some guys will get defensive, attack the bride back, or try to ignore the tension completely. She's going to take her current state of emotions and they'll jump 100x more forceful in response to his reaction.


Now let's think through our brides emotions, and simply shift our word choice, and our tone. Instead of freaking out about HIM and what HE DIDN'T DO, let's focus on the only thing she can honestly talk about: her feelings.

What is she feeling? Probably scared there will be no limos left for her wedding day. Vulnerable to the fact that she can't control everything. Frustrated and feeling distrustful that when her groom agreed to do something, he didn't. That leads to feeling helpless. If he can't even do something he agreed to, then she's really got to take over and that makes her feel sad and powerless.

Notice all those are about HER, not him? So let's change the conversation around.

"We don't have a limo? Oh my gosh. That makes me so scared there won't be any left. I'm feeling so helpless right now that I get a promise from you and it didn't happen. I need to you know that I'm SERIOUSLY FREAKING OUT NOW and feeling let down that you promised and didn't follow through."

Then STOP. That is the magic. Express yourself. Then STOP. Wait for his response. Don't keep the verbal diarhea going.

Now he's going to respond to your VULNERABILITY. He's going to hear you're scared, you're feeling let down, you're feeling helpess. This gives him an opening to express his vulnerability. He probably feels like a total jerk. He probably feels like a loser for forgetting or procrastinating. He might also be extremely frustrated that he had no idea limos book up and that he was supposed to do this months ago. And he might also now feel COMPLETELY HELPLESS on what to do and how to manage your emotions, plus his.

Once you hear his side, you've all put your eggs on the table and can work together, as a team, to figure out where to put your emotions and how to get the limo fixed. And hopefully in the process you've realized by never attacking, even if it's extremely tempting, you are guarenteed to get better results.

If you have tried this, or find you have the same fights over and over, reward yourself with some premarital counseling (or marriage therapy). We have fantastic counselors all over the nation that love to help strenthen the bond between two commited individuals. We also have books and an online inventory to help you two lay out your strengths and areas of growth opportunity. See our premarital counseling page.

Keeping the Romance Alive while Wedding Planning

We have a romance expert to share some of her thoughts on romance, particularly during wedding planning season. It's such a tough balance, between jobs, errands, life, trying to still date, and then spending many hours getting details in order for the big day.

One thing that often surprises couples is how the wedding starts to take a toil on their relationship. Before being engaged, a date was just about the two of you. After being engaged, the date may come with sticky conversations about difficult parents, or jealous siblings, or a mismatch in expectations for the wedding. The relationship is in the adolescent phase. You're not married yet, but you're not just single. It's a tricky situation to be in, no matter how long you've been together.

I can say, a few years into marriage with two kids, those dates you have will stick in your memory, even if you have less time to do them. There were many times my husband and I would walk around the local lakes, only for my low blood pressure to cause me problems and we'd have to find a bench. Annoying at the time, but pretty funny how we could never quite manage to walk all the way around a lake without a pause. It became part of the expectation of those dates, which were sometimes quite stressful as we tried to talk through the Stuff of Married Life. But they were important conversations and we moved forward in our relationship because of them. (For more conversations, we have an amazing self-guided premarital counseling book designed for date/conversations. Check it out.)

Those little moments of life are always grander than the big plans. Hopefully your wedding is amazing, but it is just one day of many, many romantic days you should plan for! If you haven't yet set your honeymoon plans, check out our interactive guide to get the two of you on the same page for what exactly you want from the honeymoon (and we don't just mean THAT....)

Enjoy our great questions and answers on romance during wedding planning from a romance expert! May her wisdom instill the passion in you to keep your love alive.

Wedding Tuxedos

Women often race to the wedding dress shops as soon as they get engaged. Men on the other hand? The tuxedo shopping may be exciting or it may be one of the most dreary tasks since it not only involves him but his bestman, groomsmen, and trying on clothes.

We asked a tuxedo rental company for some advice and got some great answers! They mentioned the tuxedo shop being the meeting place before the rehearsal dinner and that is exactly right! It was wild to go to my local mall and run into our wedding party (the men, anyway), as they were walking to and out of, the tux rental shop. They were all out of towners, so it was an extra stress that they had been fitted properly, planes were on time, and they could get to the shop before it closed.

I remember not having many opinions at all and being glad I wasn't a man. I knew I wanted my groom in a tux and fortunately he wanted one as well. All those details of a suit were lost on me, but I was lucky that he cared. In fact it was a bit of a role reversal - not really wanting to be there for long, bored, wishing I could be anywhere else.

Hope the Q&A on wedding tuxedo rentals on our website is as interesting to you as it was to me. Enjoy!

How weddings are like jeans

I am down to one last pair of jeans. I've either worn them out, my husband got paint all over one pair, and somehow, here I am. The jean shopping experience is again in my future. Fortunately I have a few months of summer left.

Jeans are a great analogy to weddings because of all the diversity, viewpoints, and pressures, both social and financial, to chose one type or another.

On the one hand, jean shopping, like weddings, should be very rational. Find your budget, figure out your requirements, match your budget and requirements, and out come the right jeans, or the "wedding you should have."

But we know it's never that simple. Sometimes the options you first see are either priced wrong, or don't "excite you". You know there must be more! Then often you find something gasp inducing in its glory. Maybe it's The Jean With All Your Requirements. Or it's the exact wedding invites you've been looking for, down to the type font, exact shade of paper color and size.

At this point either the price tag makes you gasp again and rethink your original requirements, or you mention your discovery to a friend who has an instant opinion. "Ooh, you have GOT to check out this!" Or I found the best deal here (regardless of whether that place has what you're actually looking for.)

You are often educated on all the options you didn't know exist and the benefits thereof (sure the jeans are crazy expensive but not only will they look amazing on you but they'll last so much longer!) Or instead of one flavor of cake, go with three separate tiers with a flavor each (thereby tripling the discussions, confusion and potential cost, though adding the ever-desired ability to make everyone happy.) You hadn't thought about three flavors before! You didn't really think about the long lasting wear of a high quality jean.

The next stage is usually over saturation of options, prices, requirement questioning, and sometimes, as is often the case for me, the desire to wax poetic about "the old fashioned days" where you could go to the store and just buy A PAIR OF JEANS. You didn't have 120 choices of cut, style, waist fit, zipper or button, shade, pocket placement.

When you're at this stage there is nowhere to turn. Your best bud is not over saturated and is quick to give you her opinion. The sales person just wants to make a sale and has all the ways to talk you out of competing opinions. Your fiance or spouse has never cared that much, or at this point only cares that you SHUT UP already and make a decision. That of courses ticks you off and now you've just notched up your stress.

Some of us will then grab the first thing we have time to get, whether it fits our requirements or price. Others of us will just stop altogether and return to the task some time in the future when we're not so uncertain. And others of us will do what we always do - focus on price (whether that is the frugal price or the highest price because we believe price always reflects quality.) And still others of us will let the sales person convince us and with exhaustion, hand over the credit card because we just don't care anymore.

The "I Don't Care" Blues

This blog is dedicated to all the potential, current, or past fights you have had as an engaged couple around wedding planning. The most common way this goes is like this.


bride, "OK honey, next action item is to figure out flowers. What do you think?"



groom, "I don't care."



Bride is then left with a few emotions, sometimes conflicting. These might include:

• Relief - one thing she doesn't have to coordinate his schedule and get his time to do!


• Annoyance - she also DOES NOT CARE about flowers, but apparently she has to care because he's said (or so she thinks...) that he wants nothing to do with them.


• Relief AND annoyance because she loves flowers but this yet ANOTHER thing he "doesn't care about" and she wonders if he'll have any opinion on anything??

So where does the problem arise? I will never forget the holiday party with my coworker who was there with her fiance. The groom was The Classic Groom who cared about nothing. Especially the flowers. Until the FLOWER COLOR meant his bride wanted him to wear a pink vest with his tuxedo. Then he REALLY cared. And she was at the end of planning, had the entire color scheme and vision set months prior. He felt that she had no right to make him wear a feminine pink color. She felt that because he said he didn't care, he had no right to ruin her color theme. He felt that he had at least SOME say because this was HIS outfit, not hers. He left her alone for her dress, why does she have a right to control his clothes? She didn't see the big deal and was annoyed at his "childishness."

What was going on? He had no idea what the flower decision related to that he MIGHT care about. She had no idea that he might care about things related to the flower choices she made. Perhaps neither knew at the beginning that the color thing would play itself out.

What can you do instead of accept an "I don't care?"

1. Be honest with yourself. If you are carrying the wedding planning burden, consider each task and what you want and need. If you really want your fiance to be involved with something you know they likely don't care about, then you need to express yourself and figure out what is reasonable. Afterall, if he really could care less, is dragging him to 4 florists, spending 4 weekends really going to help you, him, your wedding and your relatinoship? Probably not. But what if you're just wanting some validation on your ideas? Then you might say something like, "Honey, I'm thinking about keeping the flowers in the season of our wedding... this will keep costs down. When I've figured out what I think I like, I would really like to bring you to the florist to show you. I know you may not really care, but it will make me feel better having your 5 minute participation and nod of approval."

He gets a very concrete action plan and the reason. Go to the florist. Approve flowers. Easy, easy! She didn't ask if he cared and won't come back to get angry that he isn't helping out. This is a very groom-friendly conversation.

2. Research, ask the vendor (florist, baker, etc) what other decisions are impacted by this decision. Your vendor will really help you figure out what your groom might care about. Examples might be:

photography - depending on how expensive yours is, it may limit photo time or impact whether you two see each other before your ceremony. your groom likely has SOME opinion on seeing hsi bride before the ceremony.

baker - grooms may often just care about the flavor, or may have an opinion on saving the top layer for the one year anniversary and maybe don't care about WHICH baker. Or maybe he loves cake and wants to get taste testings from EVERY baker. :)

bridesmaids dresses - may only impact the vests of the best man and groosmen. the groom may hate the color or not want his buddies to be in pink (see story above!)

save the dates - the groom may not care if or how the STD's are done but may have an opinion on WHEN they're sent out. He may know his friends need a huge forewarning because they are always busy, or make travel plans during your wedding season. He may also need to fully understand what an STD is - it is basically an INVITATION, set well in advance, and there is no turning back, no uninviting those people. And for friends who didn't get a STD, if there are shared friends, your groom needs to know NOW that it may be a bit ackward when friends talk and some are invited and some aren't. He may just have no clue about any of that.

3. If neither of you care, find out of any other person cares - a parent, a best friend, perhaps a good friend who isn't in the wedding party but LOVES, say, flowers, and would love nothing more than figuring out some great options and researching vendors and prices. You never know!

4. If neither of you care and nobody else cares, then TOGETHER figure out how to make a decision. Brides should never be the "default planner" if she is equally as uninterested as the groom. This leads to her resenting the groom or worse, resenting the wedding itself. There are many other future issues in your marriage that neither of you are going to want to do (garbage pick up?!) but it has to get done. You might as well figure out how to navigate the "neither of us care" problem in the wedding itself. Perhaps you wheel and deal - he takes three things neither of you care about but you then don't complain if he takes a more expensive bachelor party weekend than you're doing for your bachelorette party. Or you divide the "don't care" list in half. Or one of you is good at researching and the other is great at making decisions. Maybe you split the "dont care" list this way... one researches, the other decides and signs the contrats. Get creative.

Feel free to share your "don't care" story!

Top Ways People CREATE Wedding Stress

#10 - Make all major wedding planning decisions without consulting anyone - not your spouse-to-be, not your parents, or anyone else involved, until AFTER you've signed the papers and made the deposits

#9 - When you ask your spouse-to-be to do a particular wedding related task, be sure not to clarify what the task is supposed to accomplish, don't give a timeline, don't give an explaination of why the task and timeline is important...make sure they're left in the dark to ensure maximum fight potential

#8 - Assume everyone knows what is on your mind and why you are doing what you're doing. It's best to keep people in the dark to ensure maximum wedding stress

Read the rest at The First Dance!

Ackward Conversations, Avoiding Wedding Drama

One of the greatest things about being the daughter of a marriage and family therapist (who also TEACHES the subject at a university) is I've been given many tools in my life toolbox-of-ackward-conversations.

This tip works for weddings, business, friends, for vendors. The big word is "contextualizing" and what that means is instead of simply blurting out your stress, worry, or trying to figure out how to bring up something ackward, CONTEXTUALIZE it and you'll immediately be able to talk more calmly, feel less stupid, and avoid a lot of potential drama now and in the future.

So let's say you have chosen your wedding party but realize you have no idea what their role really is, or you're at the point where Ackwardness Begins, because you don't really want to burden them, or you have started to get push back from them and are feeling hurt! (They never have time for dress shopping, show no interest in searching for vendors, etc.)

A sample dialogue, ideally in person or on the phone may go as follows:

"Hey guys, I wanted to get together this coming week if we can arrange our schedules. I have been reading about all the wedding drama around wedding parties, and I want to avoid all that if I can so you guys don't resent me or I don't go bridezilla on you without knowing it."

You get together, and it could go something like this:

"Thanks for getting together! I'm sooooo excited that you guys are going to be in my wedding! In all my excitement I realize I never figured out what a wedding party is supposed to do, or what you guys even WANT to do. So, I thought I'd lay out a few traditional things and tell you what I'm feeling and get your feedback. I want this to be exciting and fun, not something you guys dread. I hope by being honest, you guys will be too so we can keep this fun but real... no pretending to be happy when we're miserable."

Then it's your turn to have researched what *YOU* hope, what you expect, and to be open, but vulnerable with them so they can be open and vulnerable with you. For example, "I really want you guys to go dress shopping with me, but I know it may not be that fun for you, or you are so busy the next month and I want to get this done soon. So, if you're able to squeeze in some time, I'd love it, but I also understand if you're busy and can find some other friends who may want to help out... what do you guys think? Is the dress shopping something you'd like to join me in or maybe you'd rather help with something later?"

The key is to not open the guilt trip, but get their HONEST answer! I feel so much pain for brides when their bridesmaids agree to go dress shopping and either cancel at the last minute, or just NO-SHOW! It's so much unnecessary pain if you had just found out your friends were so extremely stressed with work and have no real interest in the dress... then you could make other plans, or at least not personalize their lack of interest as being "anti-you"...

Don't take ANYTHING for granted... always "contextualize" your conversations so they are depersonalized and open up some honest discussions. A bad example would be to announce your dress plans, then be hurt they can't make it. Or to have them agree because you don't give them room to say they can't/don't want to, then get super hurt when they cancel or no-show. There could be a thousand other things going on that have nothing to do with you, and wouldn't you rather be honest and find people who honestly are excited for the dress even if they aren't in the wedding party?

Wedding Vendor Quotes

Wedding Vendor Quotes

Wedding vendors and couples are in a fascinating co-dependent relationship. Without wedding vendors you don't have a wedding but without engaged couples, wedding vendors can't exist. Engaged couples are trying to maximize their savings while wedding vendors are trying to maximize their profit. Couples may or may not shop around, but wedding vendors know what people in their industry are charging and the games wedding vendors play. How do you know if your wedding vendor is trying to rip you off or is too good of a deal?

The number one complaint of wedding vendors is when engaged couples first ask, "how much do you cost?" They sometimes feel like you would feel if instead of being asked, "What do you do for a living?" you were asked, "how much do you make?" The notion that money is more important than their skills, background, or that they could even give you a fast number without knowing the details (when, where, how many people, what exactly you want from them.)

What To Know Before Getting Wedding Vendor Quotes

read more....

Wedding Vendor Complaints

One of the many things I love from where I sit in the wedding industry is that I have intimate access to everyone. Wedding vendors will share things with me that they can't share with brides directly. Brides and families share intimate things with us they can't share with just anyone.

So instead of just listening to complaints, we like to cull out wisdom to be learned from the issues underlying the complaints. For wedding vendors it's often a simple case of brides not being vendors and not being aware of all that goes into the "business of weddings." Brides have no idea that for every wedding a wedding vendor books, there may be easily 10 or more sales calls, often requiring hours and hours of time, phone calls, and emails. For every sales call, that is hours not being spent either preparing for the upcoming weddings, gaining new skills for their trade, improving or updating their offerings, or simply being able to unwind and relax!

I asked a friend of mine whose husband does photography and while it varies greatly, 23 weddings a year is a number she threw out. If there are 52 weeks in the year, and many weddings don't happen in off seasons, you can see how weekends vanish, week days are spent preparing the post-wedding photos, or dealing with pre-wedding questions, and sales for the next years wedding season.

The irony of life is that to "pursue your dreams" requires a lot of other skills to get there. So whether you're an amazing photographer, but really bad doing "sales pitches", or you're a great cake baker but not so good at marketing yourself, the end result can be frustrated brides who are left uncertain about the wedding vendor or crabby at the perceived lack of poor service.

And coming out of the world of Human Resources, I can assure you that just because YOU have never needed the HR department until you have a benefits question does not mean everyone else isn't keeping the HR people crazy busy! So while you have "one simple question" for your wedding vendor, without being aware, your "one little question" may be one of 200 emails and 15 voicemails the wedding vendor is supposed to respond to BETWEEN the sales calls and actual work of the weddings themselves. And perhaps your question is so low-priority, the wedding vendor won't say that, but the actions will show that it takes two weeks to get back to you. This is simply the wedding vendor trying to stay afloat and meed the pressing needs of immediate weddings or of signing contracts for future weddings rather than, say, responding ASAP to a simple question when your wedding isn't for another 10 months.

But of course the questions are still there and the greater understanding may build empathy but you still want your questions answered!! So how DO you appreciate the hard work of wedding vendors and get your needs met? We address that too.

I'll keep building this article and wedding vendors, please submit your complaints and I will hold them confidentially but share the wisdom you have to offer.

http://www.thefirstdance.com/weddingvendorcomplaints.php

Newly Engaged

I am excited today with the prospect of all the men (and women) out there ready to propose tonight or tomorrow. Christmas is the biggest day for engagements in the year, followed by Valentines day.

It makes sense to start the engagement surrounded by family, as you enter a new family clan and can reap the warmth of congratulations in person!

So to all the soon to be engaged, CONGRATULATIONS! We have a ton of helpful advice on our wedding relationship website.

My Stressful Wedding Registry Experience

To the "Silly arguments in wedding planning" theme, I will share my rather miserable experience in what should have been a fun evening of zapping things to our hearts content.

The back story is my husbands grandfather was in school to become a chef when he was drafted in WW2. He lucked out being able to be a cook in the Navy and there he built his cooking skills as well as kitchen management skills. When the war ended he became a restaurant supply manager and restaurant manager. This means he KNEW ABOUT KITCHENS... he knew about kitchen gear, and he raised his daughter, my mother-in-law, to be very knowledgeable. She passed this knowledge on to my husband. I affectionately call them "kitchen snobs."

So while most women have pretty broad freedom to registry for anything they want because more women cook then men, or because some men just don't care even if they DO cook, I thought, naively, this would be a fun time registering for "stuff." It wasn't.

My husband and I have grown together, as all couples do, but one way that we were very different was in spontaneity. Like, hey this widget is only $5, I'm going to get it! My husband doesn't care how cheap or expensive something is. He's a very thoughtful person and automatically thinks through purchases to the point he rarely buys anything unnecessary on a whim. You can probably see where this is heading....

The myth out there is you go to a department store and have fun with the zapping gun, finding stuff you want, you need and then some fun stuff that your guests may enjoy buying for you. But if you are lucky enough to marry someone like my husband, there will be NO unnecessary zapping! He had excel spreadsheets for every room of the house, he researched, talked with his mom, we spend time thinking through our desired future lifestyle. We talked about our families and who might buy what. My family is not a Fine China family and his is - so if I had married someone differently I don't think I'd own fine china.

My husband never controlled my opinions and in fact by educating me I had more choices then I knew existed. Those fancy pans we got have two main brands. One brand is way heavier than another so he had me lift both to determine if I liked one over the other because there was a price difference. He didn't care which ones we got and wanted me to be part of the decision. (By the way, COPPER is the best pan but few people, especially my husband and me, want to maintain the metal!)

I remember asking him at one point whether it was FOOLISH to be registering for all this nice stuff since we didn't even use our crappy stuff! He said yes, that weddings are the one time you get this stuff and that we WILL use it all some day. (He was right.)

But let me tell you, trying to convince my mom we need some $50 roasting pan when her $10 worked just fine was not easy. My mom grew up on a farm and is very practical. She (nor I) know much about kitchen equipment nor do we generally put much thought into it. So there I was trying to remember why this stuff was worth the money to my mom who spent HER entire life cooking for big and small dinner parties, and never needed nor used half the stuff we were registered for.

I have a dear friend whose husband is the same way as mine so I know I'm not alone! I did get a few Registry items by fighting to zap them. One of them we didn't end up getting but the other is now the worlds greatest popcorn maker - a Whirley-Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper. We absolutely love it and will never go back to our air popcorn maker. (Hint: use a LOT less salt and seasoning on the oil popcorn because it sticks much better. We had quite the salty first round of popcorn!)

But lest you think my husband was a killjoy, we never use the napkin rings I insisted on getting, rarely use the place mats I wanted, and I have now adopted his philosophy of extreme thoughtfulness before getting even the silliest of things. Anytime I veer off it's rarely a successful purchase. I can now go to a store, "feel" myself getting pulled into some fabulous deal, 75% off! 90% off! And still say "no". Perhaps it's only because I can see my husband rolls his eyes at what I could bring home, but I think it's because I never regret nor miss any of those amazing deals I've passed up over the years.

I had no idea even the wedding registry could teach you about marriage. What felt like the most consumerist aspect of a wedding turns out to be great conversation fodder for your married life.

Check out our book, or website: www.thefirstdance.com for more musings on wedding planning and relationships!

Bride and Groom, Parents - Wedding Planning Fights

Few if any of us get through wedding planning without a SILLY FIGHT. There are real discussions and negotiations to have, but then there are just plain silly fights.

I was remembering the other day one of ours. My husband and I were working through the logistical side of marriage, combining bank accounts, all that "fun stuff". He wanted to keep his bank account with a different bank company and I wanted my bank and my account. Mind you, this had nothing to do with "my money vs his money." We both believe that marriage means everything is "ours", not his or mine. That is at least a viable argument and discussion to have since some couples do feel like it's best to have his, hers, and ours. Nope, that wasn't why we were fighting.

He grocery shopped at a place that housed his bank which was one of his big arguments AND he also didn't mind paying an ATM fee to get cash. The gas station I always went to housed MY bank and I refuse to pay money to get my own money out of my bank account. Ah, the joys of marriage. :-)

So, not gaining any ground, I went down a bad path... a bad argument that I knew was bad, but I entered it anyway. I tried a trump card that is downright silly. "But, I feel like I'm already losing my identity changing my name, I deserve to at LEAST keep my bank account that I've had since I was 10!"

This was silly because I was adamant about changing my name. He was even open to changing his last name (but is the last male with the name and didn't want to end the family tree.) I wanted family unity with a shared name. So my name change had NOTHING to do with whose bank we use.

It's also silly to say getting married somehow makes me lose my identity and any internal turmoil I was having should translate into getting what I want - even if what I wanted had no rational basis.

In the end we stayed with my bank but not because I made threats or claimed using his bank would be bad for my personal identity. Those arguments really detracted from the real discussion and took us for an extra "joy ride" of fighting.

Ultimately we are both ATM cash-users, we both get gas at the same gas station company that gets us free ATM use, and we were moving into a house where we wouldn't be shopping at the grocery store that housed his bank. In the end, knowing that my bank was REALLY important to me, knowing we would save money not paying ATM fees, it was a fairly easy decision... it just wasn't as important to him and there was no reason to spend more for something less valued.

But there we go. One of many fights. I'll blog next time about our HORRENDOUS wedding registry experience. It was miserable and a great example of everything we talk about at The First Dance - managing the couple dynamics of wedding planning, of our families, our expectations, and how we view our new lives and the wedding itself.

Share your stories with us of silly wedding fights on our website.

Top ways to increase your wedding planning stress

Wondering how to make wedding planning more stressful? There is plenty (including on our wedding relationships website) on how to REDUCE the stress but there isn't a lot on how to INCREASE it! Send this snarky blog to your friends in wedding land.

Here is a short sampling of ways you can ensure more wedding stress, fights, and strained relationships throughout your wedding planning adventures.

#10 - Make all major wedding planning decisions without consulting anyone - not your spouse-to-be, not your parents, or anyone else involved, until AFTER you've signed the papers and made the deposits

#9 - When you ask your spouse-to-be to do a particular wedding related task, be sure not to clarify what the task is supposed to accomplish, don't give a timeline, don't give an explaination of why the task and timeline is important...make sure they're left in the dark to ensure maximum fight potential

#8 - Assume everyone knows what is on your mind and why you are doing what you're doing. It's best to keep people in the dark to ensure maximum wedding stress

#7 - Pick your wedding party really quickly, without any thought to their personality, to their life phase right now, or to their financial and job situation. It's also a great idea to not ask what your in-laws expect out of family being in the wedding party to maximum full family drama and stress

#6 - If a loved one disagrees with you, complain loudly that this is YOUR day and then complain loudly and frequently to everyone who will listen. It's best to give maximum mental and emotional energy to every tiny disagreement, even if it really doesn't matter to you if the other person wants something more than you

#5 - Be sure to hold back all your stress until you finally go on a date night with your spouse-to-be. Wait til the dinner is served and then rip into your family, your future-inlaws, and make the entire date turn into a huge wedding stress vent

#4 - Make sure you don't talk with your spouse-to-be before meeting with vendors to clarify what your values, wants and needs are so you get pulled into their sales pitch and agree to the most expensive package they offer. Who needs a wedding budget??

#3 - Use "I" statements with difficult people. They'll love being called a brat, impossible, insensitive, or rude, as long as you say "I feel you are a brat"

#2 - Be sure, brides, to encourage your fiance to share his wedding opinions but then be sure to shut him down or complain about how incompetent he is, or how much he's procrastinating, or how he just "doesn't understand weddings"

#1 - Make sure this wedding is ALL ABOUT YOU, even if it means creating family cut-offs, screaming at your in-laws, ruining your relationship with your spouse-to-be, or threatening your parents or in-laws that they will never get to see their future grandchildren