Men…keep your mouth shut.

Before you think I'm being mean to the guys, hear me out. That's friendly advice in my title. The following is a recent comment I made to my sister Bonnie:

We need a Public Service Announcement that goes out to all newly engaged men which says, "If your bride asks you what type of wedding dress you envision her in the proper response... the ONLY proper response is, 'I can't even imagine. I just know that whatever you choose is going to wow me beyond words, if I'm even able to look past the sparkle in your eyes to notice what you're wearing. I only pray to God that I'll still be able to breathe.'" Perhaps we can have all diamond retailers distribute that as a temporary tattoo that only dissolves after the wedding day. And underneath it should say... "Repeat as many times as necessary."

The most hysterical part about this is… I’m only half kidding. We’ve seen seemingly harmless comments from Mr. Right go oh-so-wrong once his future Mrs. begins her gown search. “I don’t like poufy dresses” sounds like “I have to wear a mermaid dress which I hate and which I feel makes my butt look huge” in a bride’s mind. When, in all reality, all he meant was, “Please don’t show up looking like something off of ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’. I want to be in the same room as you on our wedding day.” While you want to consider your fiancé and his preferences in your gown selection, he wouldn’t want to keep you from the dress of your dreams. Most men learn, at one time or another, the valuable lesson “Happy wife, happy life.”

Our experience has been that sometimes guys will voice an opinion in passing that they later don’t even remember expressing. One of Our Brides was practically biting her fingernails while choosing between ordering her dress in white or ivory. Her fiancé said he only liked white… but she looked better in ivory. She ended up ordering ivory. On the wedding day when he complimented her on how breathtaking she looked she asked him, “So you don’t mind that it’s not white?” His response… “That’s not white?” So you see, sometimes even *they* don’t know what they mean. The key idea? Don’t let something your fiancé said in passing keep you from the dress of your dreams. He’ll thank you later, when you don’t spend your whole marriage regretting having let something he doesn’t remember saying keep you from the gown you love. Happy wife, happy life…. happy husband.