THE GROOM'S PARENTS

A marriage is a union between two families. However, depending what you read, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it's only the Bride's parents who have any impact and influence on the day - but this is far from the case.

The Mother and Father of the Groom will be just as excited, just as emotional and can be just as involved as anybody else when it comes to the Wedding and don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Traditionally the Groom’s parents will have taken more of a back seat when it comes down to Wedding responsibilities, but these days, as Wedding planning becomes more of a full time job than a ten minute exercise, responsibilities are being farmed out to all of the Wedding party in an attempt to reduce workload and minimise stress for the Bride and Groom. Depending upon the wishes of the Bride and Groom, it may well be the case that the Bride’s future in-laws are just as involved as the Bride’s family in preparing for the Big Day, but we cannot stress enough, it is ‘depending upon the wishes of the Bride and Groom’.

Let’s first of all take a look at the couple of responsibilities that traditionally will come your way:

• Liaising with the Bride and Groom to see how they wish to go about funding the Wedding and offering to pay for the items that traditionally the Groom’s parents pay for (yes, it isn’t just the Bride’s parents that have to fork out!).
• Standing in the receiving line to greet the guests.
• As part of the ‘first dance’, dancing together when invited onto the floor.
• At some stage during the evening, dance with the Groom (Mother’s only, unless it really takes the Father’s fancy!).