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WBC: Wedding by committee

The consultants at The Linen House recently experienced a particularly painful WBC.  WBC is wedding by committee. It happens when the bride invites a handful of family members and friends to go with her to help make selections. It sounds like a fun process. Taste the cake. Coordinate the colors. Look at pretty paper. More friends and family members hear about the outings and ask to tag along. The group becomes a committee and each member believes she has a vote.  (The quiz below will help determine if you are suffering from WBC.)

 

In attendance at this most recent WBC were:

This recent consultation started out well. The bride and her mother chose a lovely ivory and gold color scheme for the reception. Then the mother of the groom jumped in to select the linens for the rehearsal dinner. She gravitated toward a chocolate colored linen with gold accents. The mother in law informed the bride she should change her reception linens because the rehearsal dinner now included gold. At the same time, the father of the bride took it upon himself to choose the linens for the Sunday farewell brunch. He chose burlap tablecloths with ivory chair sashes and coordinating napkins. His napkins were the same as the rehearsal dinner napkins but in a different color. The father of the bride informed the mother of the groom she would have to change her napkins because he didn’t want to see duplication. This easily could have deteriorated into an episode of the Jerry Springer Show.  Fortunately it did not. Everyone was much too civil and willing to start from scratch to pick new linens. In fact, they were too willing. The WBC was having so much fun. The result was a 3 hour consultation that involved very little consulting and no discernible decisions.  Rather it was an exercise in trying every possible color combination to please a group with unspoken and conflicting goals.

 

During much of this recent meeting the groom flipped through magazines, sent texts and was never once consulted. The two sisters of the bride were united in wanting pink for the reception, despite the bride rejecting every one of their many rosy suggestions.  The groom’s sister was pretty quiet until the discussion involved choosing chairs. At that point she chimed in about what color chiavari chair the bride should select, even though chiavari chairs were not in the budget. It didn’t matter. She brought it up five or six more times. The out of town friend lost interest around hour two. All in all there were several people who obviously didn’t want to be there. There were several other people who were having the time of their lives but who didn't have a legitimate role.

 

Wedding professionals walk a fine line between keeping the meeting under control while not taking on the role of disciplinarian. Keeping track of the bride’s decisions amid the chaos was difficult for this consultant. The bride herself was uncertain what she had picked by the end of the meeting. The wedding planner made a grand attempt to steer the group in the right direction, but it was much like herding cats and ultimately failed.

 

If you suspect you may be trapped in WBC mode, take the following quiz to see how badly you're afflicted and how much more difficult all your wedding decisions will be.  Warning - If you have WBC there is no known cure!  Take the quiz at your own risk.