You’re getting married. It’s the most wonderful day of your life! You can hardly wait ’til it gets here. And your mom has wrestled all of the authority away from you concerning your wedding day. It’s her wedding now. She’s taken control. What are you to do?
This is the time to decide exactly which things matter to you about your day, and which things don’t. In other words, choose your battles.
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Your battle plan can have a double edged sword. On the one hand, planning a wedding could have been absolutely overwhelming if your mother hadn’t stepped in to help. On the other hand, these are going to be the memories you carry with you for the rest of your life. It’s your wedding dress, this should be your color scheme and you should be leading this project.
She’s not going to let loose of the reigns easily. She’s living out a fantasy. It is your job to make perfectly clear which direction this fantasy needs to go in. If you can pull that off, having a Momzilla might not be such a bad thing after all as long as her zilla energy is used putting YOUR plans in place and making sure everyone else falls in line behind her.
Be careful how you do this. Remember, she is taking a tremendous load off of your shoulders whether you appreciate it or not right now. But the closer you get to the wedding day, the less you’re going to want to be bothered with things like whether or not the bakery got you cake right? Is the ice sculpture going to melt because they want to deliver it too soon? Where are the flowers? These are great Momzilla issues, allowing you to be the bride.
But if you burn the Momzilla bridges, you are going to be handling all of these things on your own and being a stressed out bride instead.
So, what is it that matters? Make sure she knows these things. You might be surprised to discover that she really is only trying to make this the most wonderful and special day of your life. Momzillas aren’t psychic. If you don’t voice your wants and needs, maybe more than once, than who’s to know you wanted the blue bride’s maids dresses as opposed to the purple ones?
When Momzilla is beside herself telling the assistant how much she loves the pearled wedding dress with the incredibly long train that you’re sure weighs more than you do, tell her with equal vigor how much you love the more conservative dress you tried on three dresses ago. Tell her.
She’s just excited for you. Get equally excited about the things you love and she’ll have a focus for her energy. I bet she’ll make sure you get that dress you love if she can hear that you love it just as much as she loved the other one. Think of her as an excited girlfriend while you two are trying to pull off this wedding together.
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She already knows she’s losing her baby. You’re a woman now. But let your mom help you this one last time. Keep her focused. You’ll be glad you did when it’s time for someone to be in charge of the big day. You’re not going to want to be the coordinator with all of that immense responsibility on the day you’re supposed to be the bride.
You can do this. And you might not see it now, but after it’s all over, you’ll realize how much your mother loves you.
Congratulations.
