Duties of the Father of the Bride (Part II of IV-The Initial Wedding Planning)

Duties of the Father of the Bride
(Part II of IV-The Initial Wedding Planning)

The traditional duties of the Father of the Bride during the initial planning of the Wedding and the Wedding Reception include:

1. Maintaining a calm and loving tone in your home, in spite of tension, chaos, last minute pre-wedding jitters, and problem solving.
2. Your wife, daughter, and soon-to-be son-in-law may want you to be on hand to discuss to formalize the actual wedding plans. If so, be available. You may be asked to help:
a) visit, select and negotiate the location for the wedding ceremony,
b) visit, select and negotiate the venue for the wedding reception, and
c) help settle on the type or style of the wedding and reception (i.e. Will the wedding be: big or small; held at a temple, church, backyard, beach or resort?)
3. The bride, groom, and their respective families will need to narrow down the details on the costs of the wedding and decide who will pay for what.
4. Be sure and encourage your soon-to-be son-in-law to be totally involved in any details of the wedding that his bride may request. And teach him about “going s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g”. (Refer to duties of the FOB, part # 1-The announcement). This will help alleviate some possible ruffled feathers.
5. If asked, help your wife and daughter gather the names and addresses for the bride’s portion of the wedding invitation list.
6. Then, later, help your wife and daughter gather the entire list of names for the wedding invitation list.
7. Be open to help out or to go wedding invitation “s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g” with your wife, daughter, and open to anything else that your daughter may want, including helping her to select and order wedding invitations.
8. Help to make sure that the wedding and wedding reception invitations get done and mailed out six to eight weeks before the wedding.
9. Offer to help out on follow-up calls, running errands, and helping to take over your wife’s normal tasks including helping to take care of making meals, house cleaning, buying groceries, and anything that may help ease the tension for your daughter and your wife.
10. If this going to be a do-it-yourself (DIY) wedding, offer to help out by pricing and sourcing the wedding vendors or suppliers for items such as: room and table decorations, wedding reception food (at places such as Costco, Wal*Mart, or your favorite local deli), chairs, linens, flowers, and anything else that may be needed for the wedding and/or the wedding reception.
11. If the wedding is being done by professional wedding specialists at a professional wedding venue, help out to interview, price, and negotiate wedding vendor contracts with the selected wedding specialists for services for the wedding and wedding reception, such as: wedding planner, wedding venue, caterer, photographer, linen rentals, table and chair rentals, table covers and chair covers, wedding florist, music vendors, or DJ.
12. The Father of the Bride will need to be in a tuxedo or new suit for the wedding. He should help the groom make sure that men in the wedding party get fitted for tuxedos or get fitted for and purchase new suits.
13. Tux jackets styles range from a single-breasted with one button to double-breasted with six buttons. Be sure and check out the fit of the tux jacket in the mirror of the tux shop (bring your wife along for an objective opinion- wives are always good at letting you know what really looks good on you). I suggest that you also check out the tuxedo pants in the mirror with the tuxedo jacket off for proper fit.

Special note for LDS Father of the Bride

14. An LDS Father of the Bride should offer to go with his wife, daughter, soon to be son-in-law, and anyone else invited to go and visit LDS Temples to support and enable the bride and groom to select the Temple in which they will be Sealed.
15. The LDS Father of the Bride should offer to go with his wife, daughter, and future son-in-law to visit LDS Church Cultural Halls or other wedding reception locations for the wedding reception after the bride and groom are sealed in an LDS Temple Ceremony (LDS Wedding).
16. The LDS Father of the Bride should ensure that the LDS bride and LDS groom have reserved a Temple Sealing Room for their LDS Wedding (Temple Sealing) well in advance of the event, and confirm this reservation well in advance of ordering and sending the wedding invitations. You may also be asked to help decide who will be invited to the sealing and who will be invited to the reception only. Remember, a sealing room will only hold a limited amount of friends and family. Ask someone at the LDS Temple where you will be sealed for that number.
17. Support your daughter and wife in their search to find the best wedding dress from the selections of LDS Wedding Gowns. If your daughter and wife are trying to alter a modest wedding dress and turn it into a Temple worth LDS Wedding Gown, if they can find the right wedding dress in the store from all the available LDS wedding gowns.

Please also see: Duties of the Father of the Bride (Part I , III and IV)

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