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The father-daughter dance is just the tip of the iceberg:  Dads, Daughters, Emotions and Weddings

4/14/2014

 

Weddings are rough on our dear old Dads.

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Traditionally, they pay for our weddings.

​And they pay, emotionally, too.

Rationally, your Dad’s thrilled about your wedding

He's happy you’ve found the right guy, and he’s excited about the prospect of grandchildren.

Emotionally, your Dad may be reeling

And he may not even know it.

Weddings can ignite deep, unruly, Oedipal, raw stuff for some Dads. 

It's normal for Dads to feel really sad he’s losing you.  Engagement, as I describe in my book, can be a time of grief and loss for everyone in your family.

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When the Wedding Dress Doesn't Feel Quite Right

8/5/2013

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So glad I didn't just recycle my unread stack of Sunday NY Times because I came across this gem:  "Say No to the Dress," by Joanna Hershon, and her tale of having the ultimate aspirational wedding dress:
Picture ...the 7th floor at Bergdort Goodman. Picture the Bridal Specialist...clutching her clipboard.  Picture several Russian seamstresses with pins in their mouths...Picture the Mother -- mine -- and me: young, happy, tense.  I'm in the Dress.  

It was lovely and elegant and expensive....

I was rightfully grateful to have a mother who not only could afford to take me wedding-dress shopping at Bergdorf Goodman but who actually loved every minute of it. I wanted to make her happy.
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But the bride herself was drawn to another style of dress altogether: 
My eyes had wandered toward something more bohemian, less voluminous, but in terms of big purchases, in terms of fashion, I listened to my mother
Yet during the many subsequent fittings, the lovely, elegant and expensive dress just didn't feel right:
This dress, which cost about as much money as I'd made in the last year [as a writer] had flattered my waist and -- at least temporarily -- made me feel like dancing.  

But I couldn't see it anymore.
Between the initial purchase of the dress, when she was financially dependent on her parents as an actress and writer, and the final fitting 2 weeks before the wedding, her she sold her novel, for a lot of money.  That changed things, among them her feelings about herself AND her wedding dress:
I took off the dress that we'd chosen -- my mother and I -- when my life had looked one way. 
She tried on another dress -- "a 1930s fantasy -- silky, backless":
I felt the silk fall over my body like a sheet of cool water, I realized my life looked another way now.  I also realized that the dress was a perfect fit.

"Wow," my mother said. 
Even her Mom knew the second dress was the right dress and didn't put up a fuss with the switch.  Because the second dress more accurately reflected and represented who her daughter was and was becoming.

Have you had an experience like this during your engagement, when something you ordered or committed to at the beginning of your engagement didn't feel right as your wedding date approached?  

Did it feel off because something about you has changed in the intervening months? What was changed in you? What changed in your relationship to yourself or others?

I'd love to hear your experiences -- please share below.

Contact me for your free 15-minute consultation: click here!

Allison Moir-Smith
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Have You Entered The "Bridging" Stage?

6/11/2013

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Wedding season is upon us:  some June brides have already made that walk down the aisle, many others are preparing.  

When a bride I've worked with gets married, I celebrate their wedding days via a note on my Facebook page.  So if you want to see the many warm wishes in the weeks and months to come, please "like" Emotionally Engaged on Facebook.

What all the brides who have just married or who are preparing to marry in the next 6 weeks are doing is crossing the bridge into their new identities as married women.   
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In the Bridging stage, your new life as a married woman begins to take shape in your mind, your heart, and in your life. (With thanks to Claude Monet for his beautiful bridge at Giverney, pictured above.)
I discuss this transition from the Ending stage of being engaged to the Bridging stage at length in my book, but in a nutshell, here's what happens:

Many brides-to-be describe their transitions out of the Ending stage and into the Bridging stage like a fog finally lifting.  

For the early months of their engagement, they walked around consumed by feelings of loss and disorientation as they let go of old ways of being.  They felt that the confusion would never end.

They've been afraid that they'd be in a down, depressed funk on their wedding day, and that they'd never feel happy or excited about getting married, even though, deep down, they trusted that that was what they wanted to do.  

As the wedding approaches for these brides-to-be, however, joyful anticipation beings to creep back in.

Once you enter the Bridging stage, you will have made the internal psychological adjustments necessary to begin your new life as a married woman.  

During this stage, women who've struggled with the loss of identity as a single woman or their single-minded focus on their careers, find themselves embracing how their fiances enrich their lives.

Brides-to-be who've had difficulty letting go of their dependence on their parents discover that they can be close with their families even as they put their fiances first.

Women who mourn the end of the days as boyfriend and girlfriend begin to see the richness and depth that come with making a lifelong commitment.

In short, the confusion that accompanied all the many endings brides-to-be have faced is replaced with greater clarity, curiosity, and hope.  Your focus turns to the future.

Entering the Bridging stage doesn't, however, mean that all the gray clouds will have permanently lifted. But you'll likely find that when difficult emotions do arise, you'll no longer stay stuck in a downward spiral. Instead, you'll embrace the emotions and feel them fully, and then they will quickly move on. On the whole, your positive feelings about your future with your fiance will consistently outweigh your grief about the ending of your single life.

Bridging, then, is a time when the balance shifts, when your new life as a married woman begins to take shape in your mind, in your heart, in your life.  After all the hard work you will have done to end earlier chapters of your life, you'll begin to realize that it all had a purpose.

How far away is your wedding?  

Is it in less than 6 weeks?  If so, have you entered the Bridging stage?

Or is your wedding more than 6 weeks away?  If so, then you're probably still more connecting to the Endings.

I'd love to hear more about where you are in your engagement, and you can learn more about the 3 stages of being engaged in my book, Emotionally Engaged: A Bride's Guide to Surviving the "Happiest" Time of Her Life.

Contact me for your free 15-minute video consultation today

Allison Moir-Smith
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