You have all this love in your life – your mother, your sisters, your mother-in-law, your aunties, all those amazing people who have always wanted nothing but the best for you. I know that feeling – everyone is so excited to see you walk down the aisle, they want to do whatever they can to make your day perfect. They want to help you. They want to feel connected to you. They want to feel useful, because that’s what your “village” has always done – in times of crisis and celebration, you come together and support one another. And everyone keeps asking, hinting, mentioning “What can I help with?” You might be getting the funny feeling that you’re going to need some ways of involving extended family in your wedding day.
But as we well know, your wedding is no simple feat. You have a lot of professionals working together, there are a zillion moving parts and sometimes, the fewer hands in the cookie jar, the better. So how can you let your family know you appreciate all their love without blowing them off? Like all love, it’s tricky, it’s complex and it requires an open heart and mind but rest assured, there are ways of involving extended family in your wedding day.
The trick, of course, is to keep your own sanity (and your planners sanity!). If you’re looking for some easy and relatively non-invasive ways to of involving extended family in your wedding day that doesn’t involve putting too much pressure on them (or you!), here are a few ideas to get you started.
A fest for the eyes and tummy!
When your wedding day arrives, there will be more gatherings and parties than you can shake a fist at. As family and friends fly in from around the country, there will be impromptu dinners and lunches, more socializing than you’ll know what to do with! A great task for family members? Have them help with food. They can bake for welcome goodies for out of town guests, they can bring potluck meals for late lunches or sandwiches and salads for set up day. Cooking is one the easiest ways to the heart – they can even make cookies as favours!
Decor Prep
Have a 100 mason jars to spray paint? Adding lace to 25 burlap table runners? Monogramming 250 napkins? Now these are perfect tasks for family to take a crack at! Minimal instruction, little room for error, this is an awesome way to satisfy people’s wedding excitement!
Simple Set Up Help
I know this will make some of our planning professionals cringe, but a nice way to involve family is to let them help with some simple set up. Folding napkins, draping linens, alphabetizing seating cards – simple things that will actually help (not hinder!). Especially if you don’t have a wedding planner organizing your set up, assigning tasks to family will help make set up fly by. Just make sure your day is ultra-organized, and that everyone who comes out to help is given a task (as you don’t want people standing around feeling useless).
Shuttle Bugs
You need to be here, there, everywhere. You can’t take care of everything, so let your relatives help. They can pick up and drop off essentials, rentals, guests from the airport or even, if they plan on staying sober at your wedding, help shuttle guests back to their hotels after the party’s over. And as awful as this sounds, having people in charge of errands give you a little extra space from the chaos.
These are just a few ways to help get your extended family involved in your big day – do you have any ideas you could add to this list?
