Thanks, Mom and Dad!
By Anna Sachse - CTW Features | posted on June 11, 2012 at 7:00am
Tips for showing your parents appreciation on your big day
From figuring out which guests should have a plus one, to determining if you must have a receiving line, modern wedding etiquette can be quite confusing. For instance, if your parents – or your fiancé’s parents – help pay for your wedding, does proper–– decorum dictate an official way to thank them?
No, says Sarah Newell, lifestyle editor for WeddingChannel.com. “But it’s always a nice gesture to give a speech thanking them in front of friends and family at the rehearsal dinner, and a personal note of thanks that they can read in private and hold onto as a heartfelt keepsake.”
If you’d like to present them with something more, Newell recommends anything from a poem you’ve written, a vintage picture frame with an engagement photo of you and your fiancé, or a personalized album of your wedding pictures, to a gift certificate for a weekend away at a bed and breakfast, or even buying a park bench in your childhood park and having your parents’ names engraved on it. “Anything’s appropriate as long as it’s personal and within your financial bounds,” says Newell. “A few days or hours before the wedding, take a moment to share some private time with your parents and present them with your gift.”
If you have a tight budget (or if you paid for the wedding yourself but still wish to honor your parents) Valarie Kirkbride, owner of Cleveland-based Kirkbrides Wedding Planning & Design, suggests any of the following:
• Listing their names and a special thank you note in the ceremony programs
• Announcing them with the bridal party at the beginning of the reception
• Asking the bride’s father to give the welcome toast at the reception
• Doing a father/daughter and mother/son dance either separate or together – make the moment extra special by asking the parent to pick the song.
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