How to Keep Your Friendships Intact While Wedding Planning - The New York Times

Weddings have a way of bringing pre-existing issues with friends or family members to the surface. Take a peek in any wedding nook of TikTok or Instagram, and you are likely to encounter horror stories of wedding party members experiencing “the maid of honor curse” or watching a friend turn into a “bridezilla” or “groomzilla” during the planning process.

“The incredible thing about weddings is they are such a marker of time, in our personal narrative, in our family history,” said Kara Ghassabeh, a life coach and therapist based in Bethesda, Md., just outside Washington. “But it’s also such a high-pressure situation.”

The stresses are felt by both the couple, whose lives are about to change, and their close friends involved in the wedding.

The friends, said Ms. Ghassabeh, who specializes in counseling women preparing to marry, “are feeling confused, like, where do I fit in?”

She continued: “There are so many sides to it and it’s a very fragile, tender time, especially in female friendships. People panic and get their feelings really hurt.”

Even if the planning process reveals that a friendship has run its course, does the split have to be especially painful? We checked in with experts involved in the wedding process, as well as former bridesmaids and people who’ve been married about steps that can help lessen the likelihood of a relationship deteriorating or, even worse, ending on bad terms.

Be Clear About Expectations

Couples need to have conversations with their friends and family members about their objectives. This helps lay the foundation for a positive experience for everyone. The goal, said Amy Nichols, who runs her namesake special events business in greater Santa Barbara, Calif., is to give people adequate time and information to determine whether they have the interest and capacity — financially, emotionally and within their schedules — to comfortably say yes to joining a wedding party.

“The couple planning the wedding also needs to have realistic expectations,” Ms. Nichols added. “While a wedding focuses on a couple, there are other people involved who have jobs and lives and children and other things going on.”

Certain requests are generally understood to be inappropriate, such as asking wedding attendants to alter their appearance via weight loss or hair dye for a desired aesthetic. But some gray areas may involve wedding party duties that are viewed as tradition.

“Planning an elaborate bachelor or bachelorette party may not be feasible for every person, whether it’s the time away from work, time away from their family or the financial commitment of those types of gatherings,” Ms. Nichols said.

Those asked to join a wedding party should be upfront. “Saying something like, ‘I really appreciate you asking me, I’m honored and grateful and I’d like to chat more about what this will entail before I give you my response, just to make it fair for both of us,’ can be a great starting point,” said Jen Glantz, the founder of Bridesmaid for Hire. Ms. Glantz, who lives in Brooklyn, has been a professional bridesmaid in more than 100 weddings over the last decade.

Friendship issues between men can look a bit different, said Dustin Sitar, the managing editor of The Groom Club, a website dedicated to grooms. There may be disagreements over what is an acceptable bachelor party, for example, and how much partying is too much. But here, too, communication is key.

Mr. Sitar, who started his website two years ago after feeling unprepared during his own wedding journey, suggested “being upfront and honest with your friends about the role they’re going to play, your expectations, and let them know that you’re going to be flexible.”

Groomsmen “have to lean into being a friend,” he added. “You have to talk to the groom like, ‘Hey, how can I help out?’ Understand during that day there will be plenty of time, of course, to have fun but that you have responsibilities along the way.”

Talk Honestly About Money (Even if It’s Awkward)

Money can be a major point of contention during wedding planning and is often a difficult subject to bring up. While you may readily dive into the nitty-gritty of work challenges, romantic life and familial issues with your dearest friends, having an honest conversation about money with those same people can feel unbearably awkward. But it needs to take place.

“A couple may have a vision of the vibe of their wedding, and that vibe may be a bit more than what their friends can afford,” said Chanda Daniels, who oversees wedding planning at her namesake company based in Oakland, Calif.

If only one friend in the wedding party has an issue with the costs, it may feel embarrassing or isolating for that person to speak up. “It creates this sense of not wanting to disappoint,” Ms. Daniels said, “but it’s also extremely stressful when you add up the cost of being in the wedding party.”

Those unable to be in a bridal party, Ms. Daniels said, might say something like: “‘Hey, I can’t show up this way, what’s another way I can be there for you?’”

Casandra Ramsey, 27, of San Diego, said being a bridesmaid three times in the last three years had helped her prepare for her own upcoming wedding.

“The first thing I did when I asked everybody to be a bridesmaid is I made a Google question form and I sent it to everybody,” said Ms. Ramsey, who works in sales. “It asked their budget for everything. I made it clear to them, be honest with me and I told them if you cannot come to anything, if you can’t even come to the wedding, tell me and I won’t be mad.”

Ms. Ramsey said she also provided average hotel rates for the area of the wedding destination. She also created a color scheme for the wedding party rather than specific designs or labels to ensure that her bridesmaids could select an outfit that they’re likely to wear again.

Scale Down

Ms. Daniels said that some of her clients have decided to forgo a wedding party altogether. “Sometimes it’s just a little overwhelming — it can be emotional,” she said, noting the stress of choosing a select number of people from a large group of friends and tasking them with various duties and expenses.

“Really think about why you are having a wedding party,” Ms. Daniels said. “Do you feel like it’s something that you have to do because you’ve seen it or is it something you truly want to do?”

For Meredith Lynch, a Los Angeles-based writer and comedian, not having a bridal party for her wedding, in 2018, felt like the right decision, especially because she was dealing with sadness from her mother’s absence during the festivities. Ms. Lynch’s mother died in 2002 after a breast cancer diagnosis.

“The day of my wedding, I still got ready with my sisters and we had a lot of fun,” Ms. Lynch said. “I planned my own bachelorette party, which a lot of people gave me grief about, but I found it really easy. It’s about having an experience that feels really intrinsic to you.”

Open Up About Tough Emotions

Weddings can stir up many feelings. A bridesmaid may find it difficult to observe a father-daughter dance because her own father died or because of an estrangement. In other cases, a groomsman might be grieving a divorce or have had a tough run in his romantic life, so he may not have the capacity to show up for the couple in the way that’s ideal for them.

Danielle Stanislaus, 32, a crisis-counseling supervisor from Glendale, Ariz., outside Phoenix, learned this lesson after falling out with a longtime close friend who was set to be her maid of honor. When Ms. Stanislaus’s friend started becoming increasingly distant and missing wedding party rehearsals and group meetings, Ms. Stanislaus knew something was up.

“It actually came out while we were all drinking that she didn’t want to support our relationship because it made her think about her failed relationship,” she said. “My husband and her ex-partner were friends. We were all in the same group initially.”

The experience was hurtful and shocking, Ms. Stanislaus said, and it was the last time the two friends would see each other.

Going Separate Ways

Friendships often are for seasons in our lives and sometimes come to a natural end. This may happen during the wedding-planning process. But it doesn’t mean that either person has necessarily done anything wrong.

“Just because Susie and I decided we’d be each other’s bridesmaids when we were 12 and now at 34 it doesn’t quite fit or make sense, nothing’s gone wrong, everything’s OK,” Ms. Ghassabeh, the life coach in Maryland, said. “It doesn’t mean we were wrong at 12 or at 34, there’s room for all of it.”

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