Before we dive in, I’d like to start with this disclaimer: I’m not a licensed family therapist. However, I am a bit like an Allstate insurance agent when it comes to wedding family conflict—I know a thing or two because I’ve seen a thing or two.
In addition to witnessing my own family weddings full of divorced parents, sibling weddings with divorced parents, and the second and third marriages of my own parents, I’ve photographed nearly 200 wedding days.
All of them complicated, none of them impossible to navigate.
Wedding Day Misconceptions
One of the biggest misconceptions about wedding planning is that everyone who loves you will suddenly start getting along because you’re getting married—as though saying “I do” is some magical serum that fixes years of complicated family history, but I have news: there is no magic serum.
They will not suddenly get along, and even if everyone deserves an Oscar for their magnificent acting and remarkable self-control, the dynamics may still feel… weird.
Weddings have a funny way of magnifying every family dynamic that already exists. Whether it’s the divorced parents who haven’t spoken in years, the sibling who tends to make everything about themselves, the aunt whose opinion is made known every other minute, the family member who never shows up, or the family member who probably shouldn’t have shown up… your wedding doesn’t create these dynamics. It simply gives them a brighter spotlight.
The good news?
You don’t have to carry everyone else’s emotional baggage down the aisle.Your wedding is not responsible for healing your family’s trauma. And while, on some level, you probably already know that, on another level you may wish it weren’t true. It’s okay to accept that repairing relationships that don’t involve you is outside your control. It’s okay to grieve the space between how things are and how you wish they were. It’s okay to have a moment of reckoning with reality because when you can see your family’s dynamics clearly, you can also see your relationship clearly—and begin taking responsibility only for what actually belongs to you.
Let’s talk about your wedding day mindset because, I’m going to hold your hand when I say this: You don’t owe everyone equal access to your peace.
In fact, your peace is yours to protect. What do I mean by that?
I’m going to answer with a decision making strategy my stepmom once gave me.
She’d tell me to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths that filled up my belly—breaths that put life back into my cells. Then she’d tell me to imagine a moment in the future. To walk through it. To interact with it in my imagination.
What felt good about that moment?
What bothered me?
Then, plan accordingly.
Imagine getting ready on your wedding day.
Who’s in the room with you?
What’s playing through the speakers?
What do you smell?
What are you tasting?
How do you want your body to feel?
Then… build that space. Build that future. Add anything that gives you peace. Subtract anything that doesn’t. Create healthy boundaries–healthy wedding boundaries. At the end of the day, boundaries are less about what you say “no” to and much more about what you intentionally say “yes” to. An intentional wedding day is the perfect place to remain simple, kind, and firm as you choose the kind of experience you want to have complete with emotional presence.
Ask yourself:
Who makes you and your partner feel safe?
Who helps regulate your nervous system?
Who makes you laugh until your stomach hurts?
Who reminds you of who you are?
Spend time imagining the moments you want to experience because, as a documentary photographer capturing authentic wedding days, those are exactly the moments I’ll be looking for.
The cousin who pulled you onto your feet for a pre-ceremony dance party because they knew laughter was exactly what you needed.
The trusted brother walking behind you, holding your wedding dress while quietly carrying juice packs in his jacket pocket in case your blood sugar dropped.
The best friend who caught your eye and gently intercepted your crazy uncle before he wandered into your sacred getting-ready space.
Your father’s lifelong best friend tearfully walking you down the aisle in his eternal absence.
What is Love?
These moments—and hundreds more just like them—can and do happen during wedding days that might otherwise seem incredibly complicated. The beautiful moments aren’t found because every relationship suddenly became easy or because your wedding day family dynamics just *poof* got better. They’re found because the people who love you stepped into the spaces that mattered most. The families that look the most peaceful in photographs aren’t always the families without conflict. More often than not, they’re the families who decided that love was going to be louder than the conflict for one day.
Your wedding day isn’t a test of how well you can keep everyone else happy. It’s the beginning of a marriage. If you spend the day protecting everyone else’s emotions while abandoning your own, you’ve missed the point.
Protect your peace.
Choose each other.
Keep choosing each other.
Everything else can wait.
This is a big topic, and you might want to read more about navigating family conflict, healthy boundaries, intentional wedding planning and more. Enjoy a few journals I’ve written and a few links to research-backed tools you might want to have in your tool belt.
- How to Include Your Parents on Your Wedding Day (In Ways That Actually Feel Meaningful)
- How to Prioritize Togetherness on Your Wedding Day
- What I’ve Noticed About Couples Who Deeply Enjoyed Their Wedding Day
- Codependent No More by Melody Beattie
- Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend
- Wedding Planning and Mental Health: What Nobody Warns You About by Daniel Wethington, L.P.C
