Wedding advice: handling divorced parents

If you are getting married, and your parents are divorced, it can pose a challenge. If there are tensions that still exist between divorced parents, then you will have to overcome the hurdle of keeping both of your parents happy. It can be hard not to hurt someone's feelings. My parents were about a month away from being officially divorced when I got married. In fact, about a month before my fiancé proposed, my parents announced their separation. I wasn't enjoying the irony at all, as you might imagine, but I did make it work, and our wedding day was a joyous celebration without any drama! Here are some pointers on handling divorced parents:

1. DELEGATE RESPONSIBILITIES

Neither one of your parents want to feel excluded from your wedding plans. If you don't include both of them, then you will certainly hurt someone's feelings -- they will feel snubbed and unimportant, and they will feel like you are playing favorites. Luckily, weddings come with boat loads of responsibilities and tasks, so you can easily include both of your parents in different aspects of planning. Your father might want to help to pick out the reception site. Bring him along to meet the caterer, and talk about the layout of the space and the types of foods they offer. If you are having your reception at a restaurant, you could go out to lunch there to taste the food. Your mother could go with you to pick out flowers, or to look at your gown. Your father could help pick out invitations and book your limos. Your mother can go to your trial hair and make-up appointments. Basically, just consider what aspects of the wedding would be more appealing to your mother, and which aspects would be more appealing to your father. If you are getting married at a church, you might consider asking both of them to pick out a reading for the ceremony.

2. EQUAL CONTROL OVER THE GUEST LIST

In a perfect world, the guest list would be divvied up into three parts: you and your fiancé would choose one third of the guests, your parents would choose another third, and your fiancé’s parents would pick out another third. When a divorce is involved, just make sure that you allow both of your parents to invite the same number of guests. If your parents are very recently divorced, you shouldn't feel bad about asking them not to bring a date. You don't want to have to come to grips with your parents beginning their single dating lives on your wedding day, and they should understand how that would make you feel awkward. However, if they are in relationships, then you should certainly allow them to bring their significant other.

3. SEATING

Obviously, if your parents are divorced and do not get along well, you do not want to force them to sit together and have a miserable night, and possibly an embarrassing fight. They should be seated on opposite sides of the church. Instead of having a bride side and a groom side, have somewhat free seating, except for the seats assigned to special guests. It is not written in stone that the bride's parents or the groom's parents have to sit next to each other during the ceremony. They should be able to feel relaxed and comfortable as they watch you and your future spouse exchange vows; you do not want to detract from their happiness about your wedding. At the reception, they certainly should not sit at the same table. Just seat them at tables that are somewhere near the head table, and make sure that they are both happy with the other guests that they will be seated with.

4. DANCING

At many weddings, the parents of the bride and groom will be asked to dance. Make sure that your band leader or disc jockey is well aware that your parents are divorced, and that they will not be dancing together. If you do not give him the heads-up, you could wind up with a very uncomfortable situation at the reception. They do not have to dance together... nobody will care -- they just want to see the newlyweds dance!

5. TALK ABOUT IT

These are your parents, not strangers. If you are worried that there is going to be a problem, talk to them about it. They don't want to be responsible for making your wedding unpleasant or making your engagement a bad memory. They love you, and if you tell them about your concerns, they will want to do what they can to help.