How I Planned Your Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page B

anything but be ourselves, and the same held true for the groom’s family. We came together, recognizing that our children were very likely going to be joined for life, and then it became easy to focus on the things we have in common—two adored children and high hopes for them both being the main glue to bind us.
    Eventually we discovered more random commonalities. Both moms are named Susan. They were married on June 28, 1980. We were married on June 27, 1980. The more we discovered about each other the more our hopes solidified— the cause was good.
    The key to a successful first meeting, I think, is this: don’t try too hard. Don’t set up a big social situation filled with minefields of awkwardness and opportunities for one-upmanship. And for God’s sake,don’t overshare. Trust me, you’ll do your daughter no favor at all if you talk about the existence of your husband’s third nipple or your code names for some of her former boyfriends.
    Instead, relax and above all, listen and laugh. And this bears repeating—be nice and hope for the best.
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    CHEAT SHEET
    TOO BUSY BEING BLISSFULLY ENGAGED
    TO HAVE READ THE WHOLE CHAPTER? THIS ISN’T A
    HOW-TO BOOK (I’LL LEAVE THAT TO THE EXPERTS),
    BUT SOME OF WHAT I WENT THROUGH WAS FAIRLY
    UNIVERSAL…SO HERE’S YOUR CHEAT SHEET.
Once you start telling people you’re engaged, get ready for news to spread like a virus. Make sure you tell all of the VIPs around the same time so you can avoid getting grief because your engagement popped up on Facebook before you told your family.
Introducing your families to one another is only as scary as you make it. Even if you didn’t win the in-law lottery, as I did, you can still put a little extra effort into making the first meeting pleasant and you might just be surprised by how well everyone gets along.
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3
MONEY MATTERS
    Navigating the wedding budget. This is most likely the first time you’ll consider eloping
    You can’t put a price tag on love…but don’t be surprised if your mom tries to.

ELIZABETH
    R eal talk, brides: your parents’ wedding didn’t even come close to costing as much as your wedding will. And your folks will likely exaggerate just how cheap their wedding was…a matrimonial form of “…when I was your age, I used to walk ten miles to school! In the snow! Barefoot! Carrying a set of encyclopedias!” In these cases, you could do what I did and go over your parents’ heads to grandparents or other relatives who attended their wedding. My grammy was more than happy to dispel my mom’s “$1,000 wedding” that took “one week” to plan. Still, weddings have become an industry unto themselves since our parents were putting on their love beads and getting hitched, so don’t be surprised when you have to explain that you can’t do a potluck reception at your local playground’s picnic shelter.
    A few weeks after Dave and I got engaged, I called my mom. As I picked up the phone, I didn’t anticipate that our conversation would turn toward the wedding budget, an as-yet-unbroached subject. To be honest, I don’t even recall how we even started to talk about money, which was mistake number one: Dave and I should have come up with a game plan before talking numbers with anyone else.
    See, I thought budget would be the one point of the wedding that wouldn’t cause any friction. And I had good reason (I thought). As we dipped our toes into the murky waters of wedding planning, my mom was always the one who came up with the most extravagant ideas.
    “Where do you think we should go for our honeymoon, Mommy?”
    “Oh, that’s easy. The Château Frontenac in Quebec.”
    One Google session later, I opened the hotel’s website. Except it wasn’t a hotel. The word chateau should have been a clue. It was a castle. A glistening, expansive, $400-per-night-for-a-closet-with-a-twin-bedin-it castle. Hmm, so for a ten-day honeymoon, that would be…$4,000 bucks on hotel alone. Factor in airfare, a