Oh my God. Oh, oh, OH MY GOD. I just realized something.
My mother will be here in two weeks for my bridal shower. Guess who else will be here? The beau’s mom and dad. MY MOM IS GOING TO MEET THE BEAU’S PARENTS.* Yeah. None of my family has ever met any of his family. That’s what you get when one set of parents live in Oregon and the other set live in Virginia.
I asked my mom if she was nervous, and she seemed genuinely confused. No, of course she wasn’t nervous. Why should she be nervous? If they don’t like her, she said, oh well. Their loss.
I don’t know how she can be so cavalier. I’m terrified as hell right now. But maybe that’s because when my parents were introduced to my first long-term boyfriend’s parents, things did not go so well.**
Deep down, I’ve long had this secret fantasy that when they finally meet, his mom and my mom will instantaneously bond and become new BFFs. In reality, I know that it’s not likely that an outdoors-adventure-having, Thai-and-sushi-eating, cat-loving person and an indoors-scrapbook-making, fish-and-spicy-food-avoiding, dog-obsessed person will have much to talk about. At this point I am just crossing my fingers and hoping for civility. And dropping strong hints that perhaps the conversation should steer clear of politics.
When did your parents meet your parents-in-law? And how did THAT go over?
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* My dad is staying home for this trip. They didn’t want to have to buy two plane tickets.
** In a word: HAAAAAAAATE. In another word: DESPIIIIIIIIIISE.
I’m sure it will be fine. So long as they are both sane, they’ll get along.
I was worried about my Mum meeting the Groomie’s parents because she is really shy and they are so different. But they were total BFFs by the end of it.
I’m sure it will go great! Sending good vibes your way!
Well, they both have great kids, so that’s one thing they’ll bond over. 🙂
Yeah, that was a little cheesier than I usually choose to go. It’s true, though.
They’ll be fine. I was terrified myself for the same reasons, and seven years later, it’s still worked out. Everyone just wants you guys to be happy. And, besides? They’re only going to meet up once in a blue moon, anyway. Have fun at your bridal shower!
my parents met His dad and brother, things went pretty chill. Probably because I’ve given them all the juicy details about his family that they’ll ever need to know.
plus, my Dad declared that he wanted to be drinking buddies with His dad, but he’s too shy to actually tell him that.
That’s too cute! Drinking buddies.
To add on to Liz’s comment, they’ve not only got having kids in common, but having kids who are getting married soon. To each other! They’ll have plenty to talk about! It will go well.
The my-family-equivalent of this is happening next week when Collin’s parents meet my siblings when they’re all in town for my law school graduation. I’m totally psyched for it, because it somehow makes getting married feel more real. Like, if his parents are going to be people who I would conceivably ever call “mom” or “dad” (although they’ve given me their blessing on never having to do that, which I appreciated), they need to know what my sister and brother’s voices sound like, you know?
Oh yeah, I’m starting to get on the same page as you with “feeling more real.” While we will all never be one big happy close unit (what with the distance and all), I love the idea of the joining of families. I’m so excited to hear how the big meet-up goes for you guys!
The nervousness is understandable – but of course they’ll be nice and get along (for all the great reasons already stated). And would you really want the moms to be BFFs? I mean the gang-up potential is enormous! “Can you believe they didn’t get a cake for the wedding??”
“I knooooow, I TOLD them but did they listen? Oh, silly children” 🙂
HA HA. I didn’t think of that. Oh, goodness. They would probably gang up on all post-wedding events, too. Maybe you’re right!
Ooh. I hope it goes well for you. My ex-in-laws are of the well-heeled Republican country club set, whereas my family is of the hippie, school teacher, Peace Corps volunteer type. They all knew how to behave themselves when in the same room together, but these people were never going to be friends.
Grit your teeth, smile for the cameras, and say “thank you” a lot. You’ll get through it. On the bright side, neither set of parents lives nearby so you probably won’t have to get them together too often after the wedding is over.
And who knows? Maybe your families will actually like one another. Anything is possible, right?
Soooooo…our different sets of parents haven’t met each other yet, and we don’t have real plans for them together before the wedding although that probably would be a good idea, huh. I mean, he only met my parents officially about a year ago. I just have this tendency to want to avoid different parts of my life mixing together because everything is fine, just fine! the way it is. Since I can’t see everyone becoming true BFFs then I kind of feel why bother and risk even the small amounts of awkwardness or tension. But it’s probably the Right Thing To Do.
We’ve been really lucky with a lack of family drama so far but still I’m more worried about having to deal with the divorced parent situation on his side because while it’s better than when they were married it’s not entirely amicable for all parties. Sigh.
The Boyfriend and I were so overwhelmed by how well the “parents meet the parents” went a couple of weeks ago that we’ve spent the best part of 2 weeks reliving it; I’m not normally a gushy person but we feel so lucky to have parents who recognised the occasion for what it is: a chance to get to know each other and by doing so, get to know the future son/daughter-in-law better (by getting a better idea of their roots)…..a few friends of mine have told me that when this happened to them, their parents saw it as a competition to see who could have the best car/house/marriage/children/whatever which just made the situation stressful and awkward for everyone.
I have to say we had been quite nervous about it beforehand – The Boyfriend’s parents do not speak a word of English, and my parents don’t speak a word of his mother tongue….fortunately he and I are both bilingual so as long as we didn’t leave them unattended in each others’ company it was fine, and there was so much goodwill on both sides that it was genuinely a fun weekend for us all and we could tell that they would have been able to be friends if it were not for the language barrier (you know that way when you just get a great feeling from someone?). So we hope that this will mean that our wedding will be a bit more relaxed than it might otherwise have been, and the chances of spending holidays together in the future will not be excluded just because of the language barrier!
My advice (for what it’s worth) would be to try and make the setting as relaxed as possible….no fancy restaurants or formal clothes to make people feel like they’re on show.
Good luck – can’t wait to hear how it turns out!
I love that story! I’m glad it turned out so well, despite the language barrier. And both of your parents sound awesome. You’re giving me hope.
OMG, I’m so glad I’m not the only one who freaked out over this. My parents met his parents for the first time at my bridal shower as well. I was SO freaked over the whole thing because okay, I’m a little supersticious, and I figured that things were going so well for my fiance and me MAYBE because our parents hadn’t met yet. My parents ended up always meeting my other boyfriend’s parents fairly soon after becoming serious, for one reason or the other, and those never worked out (obviously). I was a complete wreck during my (amazing) bridal shower and my cousin kept asking me if I was okay, if I needed some food, if I needed more champagne. I thought I looked composed, but I guess not so much. Anyway, it went fine. Everyone got along and it was really pretty uneventful. And lookie here – my fiance and I are STILL OK! haha
Your parents love you, his parents love him, you and he love each other and the parents know that, so why wouldn’t they want this to work out? I think it’ll be fine.
Mind you, I kinda had it easy since my fiancee and I met when his sister married my brother… our parents had already met and approved the families haha!