Thursday, January 27, 2011

Step 4 for Involving Your Parents in Your LGBT Wedding


This is part four in my series about getting your parents excited about your gay wedding....

OK, you've been patient, you've expressed your own natural enthusiasm, and you've asked them fairly generic and random questions.

Step four: Invite your parents' participation with more emotional details. They may feel like your wedding plans are a runaway train. They may feel like you got engaged out of the blue, are furiously planning a big gay wedding (and they don't know what a gay wedding looks or feels like) and they’re left at the station wondering what the heck just happened.

I believe that excitement is contagious. If you are excited about your wedding, eventually your parents will be. Now is the time to recruit them to be actively involved – and if you are a bride who wants to wear a dress, there is no greater opportunity than dress shopping with your mother. If you are not wearing a dress or are a gay groom, ask for their help on choosing someone to do a reading during the wedding ceremony or ask your mom about her favorite flower or cake flavor. Invite their input and get excited over their responses.

This is the step where Jen’s parents boarded the Coveney-Smith wedding train. Jen’s mom came to town and they went dress shopping. Jen started talking about the bridal shower. During her visit, Jen's mom visited the place where we were to marry and loved it. And when she went back home, she was filled with excitement and then Jen’s dad got excited - because it's contagious.

Photo by Cheryl Levine

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