How to avoid seeing red about color coordination

Ms. Maven's response to the bride in www.examiner.com/x-18522-NY-Jewish-Bridal-Examiner~y2009m12d30-Too-much-concern-for-color-coordination-will-have-you-seeing-red

First of all, mazel tov on your engagement. You seem to have most of the planning set, which, certainly, has its advantages. But there is a downside to having your vision fixed in place, and that is a lack of flexibility. Have you considered what will happen if the florist fails to obtain blooms in persimmon perfection for your wedding day? Unless you have an order for silk flowers, it may be impossible for your florist to conjure up the flowers specified just when you need them. If cost is not issue to you, or rather to the parents of the groom who usually pay for the flowers, it is possible to have flowers flown in from the other side of the world. But they still have to be living on a plant somewhere on the globe. If they are not, you could insist on dyeing flowers to match your swatch. But a call for such drastic measures just to sustain a uniform color theme does seem to be excessive.

While your guests may be impressed by your coordination, they will not likely enjoy the simcha one jot more for being surrounded by persimmon perfection. The wedding guest would enjoy the beautiful of your floral arrangements even if they do not match your invitation envelopes. Those who will sit down to dinner will appreciate your caterer’s efforts if they like the food, regardless color of the table linens. The real harmony of a simcha is to be found not in music or in the perfection of the color scheme but in the affability of the hosts and guests. Of course, you want everything at your wedding to look nice, but that does not mean that you must take the stance of persimmon perfection or bust. You can have a lovely simcha without enforced color matching.

What is not lovely is forcing people to satisfy your whims at their own expense. Your sisters have already ordered their gowns in the color specified, along with your mother, because your parents are footing the bill, as they are for your wedding gown and veil, the caterer, invitations, and other wedding related purchases. Your chasson’s sister is likely to have her gown paid for by his parents who regard as just another one of the obligatory wedding expenses like the flowers, liquor, music, and photography. However, it is more than likely that your fiance’s parents do not feel they have to purchasetheir daughter-in-law’s gown. That would not indicate any particular meanness on their part, just the fact that one living outside their household is on her own for such purchases.

The way she sees it, she already is in possession of one gown that she only had the opportunity to wear once; consequently, she is not particularly inclined to obtain a new gown to wear only once, especially as it is just a variation on the shade of gown she already owns. If money is tight for this young couple, as it is for so many these days, she may feel that she cannot afford to shell out the amount of money that she would spend on a season’s wardrobe for a dress to be worn only one day. As she saw that you were not receptive to her suggestion, she offered what she saw as a possible solution, borrowing a gown in a neutral color. Had you allowed for more flexibility on the gown colors, she may have been able to pick something within the range from a gmach or a friend, but because you insist on persimmon perfection and nothing else but that exact shade, that option is not open to her. She is not trying to sabotage your vision for your wedding but to save a few hundred dollars that she may not be able to spare just so that you can a photograph of yourself completely framed by women all attired in the same color.

Your future sister-in-law may even prefer not to have the honor of being among the gowned; often sisters-in-law only wear street length dresses for such weddings. But if you want her to add to your retinue and insist that you simply cannot accept a deviation from your color scheme, you can offer to pay for the gown in the required shade yourself. If saving money suddenly occurs to you as a result of the offer, you can consult with a seamstress about devising an overlay or a sash of persimmon perfection. But you cannot undertake to offer to have your parents pay for the gown unless they really do have the funds to spare. Being the bride does not grant you the right to spend other people’s money for them.

A better approach to solving such problems, not just for your wedding but for dealing with the various bumps on the road you’ll encounter throughout life, is to be more flexible. Think about the fact that in the grand scheme of things, it really matters very little if not everyone wears gowns of the same color. While you may believe it will look good in pictures, the effect of such forced coordination can actually look contrived. When all are dressed alike, the gowns seem more like costumes than dresses. Brides who fancy themselves as such costume directors are infamous for forcing their friends and family into dresses no woman would ever choose to wear if she were not compelled to by the dictator in white. If you fancy yourself in the role of a bridezilla, then go ahead and dictate. But be prepared with your own wallet to put your money where your mouth. However, you would save yourself and others a lot of unnecessary expense if you learn that what matters more than the perfect color is having family and friends participate in your simcha because you value who they are more than what they wear. Then your wedding may be an occasion for true harmony, which is far more essential to a happy marriage than color coordination.