Surviving Very Knotty Business of Tying the Knot

With the family politics, painstaking preparations and steep prices that confront most couples planning weddings today, it’s a wonder that any bride and groom are still on speaking terms by the time they’re called upon to say “I do.”

The process of planning a wedding can be so rigorous that it’s like going through a prenuptial boot camp for many couples: Those who make it to the altar are survivors who have been toughened up for whatever marital challenges lie ahead.

Although the engagement period is a time when couples expect love to be all-consuming, romance has a way of receding as their attention turns to such practical--and often sensitive--matters as which names should be cut from the oversize guest list, who should be included in the bridal party and which relatives should get VIP seats at the reception.

Technical quandaries are often accompanied by pre-wedding jitters, which can cause even the most committed couples to feel like their relationship is falling apart at the time when they most need to feel sure about it.

If you have always wanted a fairy-tale wedding, there may be only one way to make sure that your fantasy is intact when the big day arrives: Play Sleeping Beauty and have your prince awaken you with a kiss just in time for the ceremony.

That would have spared Sue Church a lot of aggravation during the last few weeks before her wedding three years ago. She was furious with her then-husband-to-be, Jeff, because he hadn’t followed through on his promise to make arrangements for a honeymoon trip to Australia.

“It was really aggravating,” she says, noting that Jeff seemed to become increasingly dysfunctional as the wedding date neared. “He was frozen. He couldn’t make any decisions or go into action.” Meanwhile, she was having “panic attacks” about the honeymoon, worrying that it wouldn’t happen at all if Jeff didn’t act quickly.

Finally, with two weeks to go, he made the reservations for Australia--and restored harmony with his bride-to-be. But it wasn’t a lasting peace.

Soon after the honeymoon battle was resolved, Jeff’s mother arrived from Florida. Sue was preoccupied with last-minute wedding preparations when she first met her future mother-in-law, and their relationship got off to a shaky start.

Sue made the mistake of sharing her initial impressions with a friend when she thought no one else could hear, but her less-than-flattering remarks were overheard by both Jeff and his mother. Result: a heated argument between the bridal pair on the night before their wedding.

Fortunately, they were able to clear the air so they could speak with conviction when they exchanged wedding vows the next day. And once the stress of the wedding was over, Sue and her mother-in-law became friends.

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Christine Stieber, the Fullerton event planner who helped Sue and Jeff make their wedding arrangements, says couples shouldn’t panic if they find themselves hating each other when they’re about to make a lifetime commitment. During her classes on how to make a wedding affordable, she points out that prenuptial planning is always a challenge and often becomes the first real test of a couple’s ability to communicate--and compromise.

There are so many decisions to be made, so many people to please and so many different expectations to consider that conflicts are inevitable--especially if the wedding is to be as elaborate as a David Wolper production. (The average amount spent on a wedding today is $15,000 nationwide, $20,000 in California, according to Stieber.)

Glenda Pfeiffer, an event planner in Costa Mesa, agrees that wedding-bound couples are almost certain to clash as they head to the altar. She says the blowups often relate to the efforts of grooms’ mothers to elbow their way into the decision-making process. “They’re in an awkward position. They want to help, but they don’t know how.”

Pfeiffer often serves as a sounding board for brides-to-be who are getting unwelcome advice from their future mother-in-law and are afraid to insist on doing things their own way. “I tell them to blame me for everything,” she says.

Stieber says it’s easier for couples to resist outside pressure when they have a clear picture of what they want. She advises her clients to make a list of what’s most important to them, then discuss ways of compromising in the areas where they’re not in sync.

It’s important to consider the parents’ wishes--especially if they are picking up the tab--but if this special occasion is to be remembered as it should be, the bridal couple’s preferences must prevail, Stieber stresses.

Pfeiffer notes that conflicts may arise even when parents aren’t in the picture because, with more couples planning and paying for their own weddings, grooms are showing greater interest in such details as the guest list, the choice of music and the menu. “Some have very specific ideas about what they want, and brides are taken aback by that,” Pfeiffer says.

Paul Etheredge, a 46-year-old Trabuco Canyon resident, took part in every stage of planning for his wedding, which he and his bride, Cindy, paid for themselves. There were times when they had differences of opinion, but they didn’t fight over these issues because Paul was usually willing to bow to Cindy’s wishes.

“My wife had always wanted to have a Cinderella wedding, and it was important to me that she have it,” he explains.

Besides, he added, when they started planning the wedding that took place a year ago, “we were both determined that we weren’t going to allow any conflicts to take away the joy.”

Still, as the wedding day drew nearer, they did go through a spell of what Stieber calls PMS--”pre-married stuff.” At some point, almost all couples confront the “forever thing” and begin to wonder if they have made the right decision, Stieber says.

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Paul and Cindy had typical symptoms: “Both of us got antsy and nervous on several different occasions,” Paul says. “The more we got into the planning of the wedding, the more it kept getting driven home that this was a very long-term commitment.”

They began to bicker over little things and to find faults in each other that had never before been annoying, Paul says. Fortunately, no serious doubts surfaced during this period of anxiety, and the Cinderella wedding went off without a hitch.

Michelle Weil, an adjunct professor of psychology at Chapman University, says that, although getting “cold feet” can be a sign that the marriage is a mistake, even perfectly matched couples struggle with a feeling of “impending doom” as they get closer to their wedding day. It’s like the buyer’s remorse people get when they make a down payment on a house--”it’s a normal outgrowth of making a major decision,” says Weil, a psychologist who practices in Orange.

However, she adds, if couples discover major conflicts--differences in values, goals, life styles, attitudes toward children or religious beliefs, for example--it’s important to talk about them before the wedding. And some may benefit from premarital counseling aimed at sharpening their communication and problem-solving skills, Weil says.

She also notes that it’s easier to keep things in perspective when couples set aside time to be together without talking about the wedding.

“Don’t allow the planning of the wedding to consume the relationship,” she advises.

It’s particularly important during this stressful pre-wedding period for couples to take time to say “I love you,” Stieber observes. A brief note or bouquet of flowers can make a big difference between couples overwhelmed by wedding minutiae. With all the matrimonial matters that compete for their attention, “it takes a conscious decision to keep the romance alive,” Stieber adds.

It was a miracle that any romance remained between Doug and Pamela, who asked that their real names not be used, by the time they were married last year.

The young Orange County couple faced so many setbacks while planning their wedding that they began to think that their marriage had been jinxed.

At first, they decided to have a church wedding followed by a reception at a hotel. They were determined to pay for everything themselves instead of relying on Pamela’s father and stepmother because they did not want to lose control over the plans.

But when Pamela was laid off from her job and they decided to postpone the wedding for five months, they agreed to hold the reception at the home of Pamela’s father and stepmother so they could save money.

The friction between Pamela and her stepmother began as soon as they started talking about the guest list. While Pamela worried about mounting costs, her stepmother kept adding names. And she made it clear that she didn’t want Pamela’s natural mother to have any part in the wedding.

While this was going on, Pamela and Doug were trying to cope with a number of other stresses. Pamela was unable to find another job--she would be out of work for six months--and was lying awake at night worrying that she and Doug wouldn’t have enough money to go ahead with even a scaled-down wedding.

Meanwhile, Pamela’s stepfather and grandmother died, Doug’s great-grandmother had to be placed in a nursing home and a number of couples with whom they were close initiated divorce proceedings. (This made Pamela so uneasy that she asked Doug to promise that he would see a marriage counselor with her if they ever had serious problems. “He said he’d do anything.”)

With so much financial and emotional distress interfering with the wedding plans, Pamela’s father and stepmother finally offered to pay for a small ceremony and dinner in Hawaii, where the couple were planning to spend their honeymoon. They leaped at the opportunity. And then, when all the arrangements had been made and there was just a month to wait, Hurricane Aniki hit Kauai, wiping out the condos where they had planned to stay and shutting down the hotel where the reception was to be held.

Doug says he couldn’t help but wonder, “Is someone trying to tell us something?”

But the couple quickly regrouped and made plans to be married on schedule on the Big Island. They ended up having an idyllic ceremony on the beach at sunset, surrounded by their closest friends and relatives (including Pamela’s mother). A week later, there was a reception at the home of Pamela’s father and stepmother. They paid, and there were no conflicts over the arrangements because Pamela, having finally had her fairy-tale wedding, was able to let her stepmother take charge.

Pamela and Doug agree that their relationship was tested by the unusual amount of prenuptial stress that they managed to survive. “It made us stronger,” Pamela says.

They honed their communication skills, discovered the value of a sense of humor and learned that they could count on each other in a crisis.

Doug says he kept telling himself, “If we can get through this, being married will be a piece of cake.”

He and Pamela refuse to see any symbolism in the fact that on their honeymoon, when they thought nothing else could possibly go wrong, she lost her wedding ring.

“That was the end of our bad luck,” she says.