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Our darling daughter has become quite unreasonable, obsessive and demanding in making plans for her wedding. We’ve asked her to make compromises but she is acting out a sense of entitlement that we hadn’t noticed before. She thinks that because she is the “good” child (did the best in school and has a few degrees, unlike her siblings, and never got in trouble like her siblings), she is entitled to having her wedding her way.

      The reality is that we can’t afford the impractical wedding she wants and we’re not going into debt because of her highfalutin ideas. Help?

Your daughter has entered the bridezilla bubble and it needs to be popped. Tell her that if she wants things her way, she will need to enlist her fiancé into pitching in substantially to the cost of the wedding. If you’ve said these things already, reiterate over a cozy lunch of just the two of you.

• You’re not going into debt over her wedding.
• In all fairness to her siblings, they will be allotted the same amount for their weddings, and state that amount.
• Suggest that she get a grip on her values and think about having her bridal registry benefit her favorite charity or cause. Help her take the emphasis off of material goods by talking about how grateful she should be for even having a wedding, unlike most people in the world her age who can’t afford one. She should show appreciation toward her family for what they can do for her by giving back. 
• To show gratitude the wedding couple could designate a small amount of money, the cost of the wedding favor, to a charity in the wedding guest’s name. For instance, Zankyou.com allows guests to choose the charity gift that they want to donate towards and part of that gift goes to UNICEF, Oxfam or Save the Children and the wedding couple donate for their guests, directly through Zankyou.com, as a party favor.
• Register their wedding present to benefit a designated charity.
• After all, wedded bliss isn’t going to be determined by the fact that you can only afford a DJ, and not a seven-piece band.

      Practical ways to reduce wedding costs:

• Do not encourage plus ones. Friends can’t invite friends to your daughter’s wedding.
• Eliminate leaving gift bags in guests’ hotel rooms and party favors at each wedding reception place setting.
• Second hand wedding dresses are very chic.
• A seated dinner can be less expensive than a buffet.
• Use paperless post evites for all wedding festivities, the tracking system is helpful and you save a lot of money.
• Have numbered table cards, but eliminate place setting cards with individual guest names.

      Nowadays, wedding couples expect to negotiate a marriage that fills both of their needs. Few wedding couples in the past have had so many conscious decisions to make about the kind of marriage they will have – let alone the kind of wedding.

      If your daughter is obsessed by getting every detail right in an effort to reflect the uniqueness of their relationship, she may have a fear that once they’re married they might not get it right.