You’ve picked The One, you’ve set a date, you’ve perhaps even gotten a good deal of wedding planning under your belt at this point.  Now, it’s time for the fated meeting – your parents and his. This first meeting can be stressful for many reasons. There is a huge amount of pressure on all parties for everyone to get along well.  After all, this is a relationship that should last a lifetime, and will affect the atmosphere at most family events in your future.


Here are five tips on ways to help the first meeting go smoothly:

 

1.        Find a Good Band:  Rules for a successful first date generally apply here – when choosing the venue, look for places that facilitate conversation without putting too much pressure on it.  Restaurants are popular picks, and all the better if you can find one that features a live jazz band or other entertainment act that both sets of parents might enjoy.  Music is great for both covering up uncomfortable silences and for starting conversations.  If you can find a place that plays music that everyone likes you have already hit upon a way to talk about common ground.


2.       Sample the Goods:  If you can’t find the ideal live-entertainment setting (and depending, of course, on far along in the planning stages you are), consider a dinner at home featuring samples from your caterer.  This is a great way to bring everyone together and to gather opinions on the food you’re considering for the reception.  As an extra bonus, if the actual prepared version of these dishes is less stellar than you imagined, you might very well have volunteers on hand to help with the menu.  Speaking of volunteers …


3.       Delegate Wisely:  In most cases, parents of the newlyweds-to-be will be anxious to know what they can do to help with the wedding plans.  Delegating wedding tasks judiciously can go a long way in helping establish friendly repoire between the parents.  Make sure to consider the talents among the group, and weave in stories to highlight these where at all possible:  “Mrs. Kindare, Greg told me how you’ve always been an expert seamstress, so I was hoping I could ask for your help with the cloth napkins.”


4.       The “How We Met” Stories:  If the marrying couple has an endearing or funny memory attached to their first meetings, they should share it and encourage their parents to share their own how-we-met stories.


5.       Be a Good Toastmaster:  Open with a joke.  If you, the marrying couple, know your parents to be easy-going ones, it might set everyone’s nerves at ease to begin a nice quiet meal by announcing you’ll be eloping to Honduras.  “Just kidding!  But we have decided to get married in our backyard rather than at Saint Anne’s.”  Getting everyone laughing is a great ice breaker.