The Top 5 Etiquette Mistakes for Parents

You might be among the parents who are paying for the entire wedding, or you might be paying for part of the wedding. You might not be paying for anything, but the bride and groom have invited you to participate in the fun of picking out flowers and cakes and looking at venues. Each parent group has its own involvement level these days, but what you all have in common is the need to avoid making the most common etiquette mistakes.

This is a very important time, after all. You're not only helping with the wedding, you're setting the rules for your future relationship with the bride and groom. Mistakes made by parents right now can live on forever in the form of hurt feelings or insult taken at a comment you make to the 'other side of the family.' So be careful to practice good etiquette, keep the bride and groom's wishes above all else, phrase your wishes as requests and not demands, and avoid the top 5 etiquette mistakes for parents:

1. Assuming you'll have roles in the wedding. Weddings are vastly different than they were when you got married, so nothing goes by the old rules that you expect. Don't invite any problems by assuming that you'll get to do x, y, and z because you're the parents of the bride or groom. The couple get to decide who will do what, even if you're kicking in a percentage of the wedding costs. And even if you're kicking in a large percentage of the costs, it's good etiquette now to let the bride and groom make all the decisions anyway.