The Meeting of the Families

How about playing a game after dinner? Something not to cheesy like LCR, Sequence, Rack-O, etc. My family loves playing these games after holiday dinners and it would probably help with making conversation. If you can get through dinner, the game should help everyone relax and laugh together. My only other advice is don't overthink it, if you and FH get a long so well then your parents probably will too. Good luck!!

Just be yourselves and have fun. Conversations will start to take over and then you will be fine. A game is a good idea, especially as a backup. But if you try to over organize the time it may feel awkward. Just let everyone do their thing and most of all have fun!

I agree, don't overthink... it sounds like everybody should get along fairly well.

I'm putting our families meeting off as long as I possibly can. My mom will find some way to make it all about her specifically and try to take over the dinner. She's NPD, and my Drama Llama Momma... She doesn't even realize that she's drive away us kids, and I honestly don't care if she ever meets my FILs, and I don't care if she comes to my wedding.

Thanks - the games are a good suggestion! Maybe I'll have a few on-hand so if we need/want them, they're ready. I'm very skilled in overthinking - it's basically my natural state, haha - so I'm definitely working on not doing that.

Yeah don't overthink it, it will be fine! I always think that playing card or board games is a good way to open up conversation and get everyone to relax.

ETA: I made my comment before reading the others... sounds like we are on the same page @Sara!

I remember doing this when my husband and I were married, and I remember meeting my daughter's future inlaws when she was getting married. I also remember meeting my son's fiancee's parents (cool people, and if we lived closer, her mother and I would certainly socialize via lunches and dinners). As far as my (late) inlaws and my daughter's former inlaws are concerned, those meetings had all of the awkward charm of a job interview.

There's no way of telling how it will play out for you. The one big positive is that if the conversation starts to falter, the default topic is always something everyone can revisit (i.e., the wedding). I'm sure some people remember their family meetings more fondly than I do, and if they do, I hope they chime in.

To be fair, I have to admit that our families first met each other after I left home and moved in with my fiance (current husband). That's no big deal today -- in fact, it's very normal. However, back in late 1970's and early 1980's, there were still enough people who lived at home until marriage that moving in together outside of wedlock (I always hated that word) was still rather controversial. It took a lot of courage (or desperation) to leave home, move in, and share a bed and bath with your fiance. The overriding thought from the detractors was "They're having sex and they aren't ashamed of it!". After I left home to move in with my fiance (current husband), my mother called my (now) husband's parents, and that first conversation between she and my husband's father began with my exasperated mother yelling, "I'm X's mother! She left home to move in with your son four days ago. What kind of degenerate have you raised? Our daughter is a good girl -- a Catholic girl. What did your son do to her to make her act this way? That diamond ring on her hand is nothing but a sham. It's your son's attempt to validate what they're doing!" We then received a call from his father telling us to come over because he wanted to talk to us. My husband's mother was on a business trip, so the entire conversation centered around my mother's hysteria and my soon to be FIL's constant refrain of "Why not just get married? Why should you get to enjoy all of the benefits of marriage and none of the responsibilities?". Suffice it to say that neither my parents or his parents liked our answer to that question. So, that was their formal introduction to each other.

Two years later, we decided to make it official. Now, we had to pretend that the first encounter hadn't happened. Now, it was all legit since we were going to be legal, and a formal meeting had to take place. From my perspective, it was a forced meeting between two couples who would have never chosen each other as friends. In fact, my family only interacted with my husband's family a handful of times after the pre-wedding meeting (the last time being at my MIL's funeral in 2002 -- my mother attended, my father didn't). The first pre-wedding meeting was the RD. The RD was complicated by the fact that my parents, who were paying for the entire wedding from beginning to end, were offended that my husband's family wouldn't spring for a restaurant RD (a must back in the day, especially since the wedding was going to be formal and fully hosted), and instead wanted to cram 20 people and a catering team into their home. My parents told us to tell them that this wasn't acceptable, so we were placed in the unenviable position of telling his parents that they were cheaping out. I know, I know...rude and inappropriate, but weddings back then weren't the multi-faceted events they are today, and the etiquette failures were kind of limited to not having a church/temple/religious wedding and not providing good food and good booze at the reception. His parents, completely indignant by the accusation that they were cheap, responded by saying that "my people" (neither finished high school. Mom didn't even come to this country until after she married my father at 18, and dad was solidly blue collar) were Sears shoppers who had never stepped foot inside Saks Fifth Avenue, and they knew nothing about cutting edge high society traditions. Apparently in 1982, the cutting edge posers thought it was classier to have a RD at home with a troop of uniformed servers (with perfect posture) passing out apps on silver trays while the party hosts snapped their fingers yelling, "Over here with that tray, dear" or "Why haven't you filled and passed the third round of champagne flutes?". My inlaws took the challenge of "my people" very seriously. They shoved their money and class right back in my parents' face. They booked our RD in a private room at a very expensive, exclusive Bergen County (NJ) venue that probably cost a quarter of what my parents paid to host a 115 guest wedding with full, top shelf open bar, a multi-course meal, and a live band. To this day, that venue is still highly desired, expensive, and impressive. They don't just host RDs -- they host exclusive weddings -- from small to large (and I have to admit, the food and service, something I experienced three decades ago, are still things I remember. The whole experience made me feel like a princess marrying a reigning monarch -- no joke. It was phenomenal -- from the moment I walked through the door until the moment we left).

Their second interaction was at the wedding. My mother had a loud discussion with his mother because his mother was caught sneaking into the reception area during cocktail hour and changing the seating chart. The third interaction was at my baby shower (after which my mother cornered me and asked me why my FIL -- who dropped my MIL off at the shower, stared at my mother, shot some photographs of her with his ever present camera, and then took off in his Mercedes -- was so damn creepy and was always silently leering at her whenever they found themselves in the same vicinity -- something he did with regularity), and I think that was about it.

They never even ran into each other at the hospital when my children were born -- although I distinctly remember my bossy, intrusive MIL, who worked at the same hospital in which I delivered both of my children, standing at the foot of my hospital bed in her crisp, white medical jacket right after I delivered my daughter (as in, she was delivered 12 minutes earlier). Three nurses were in the process of doing some rather messy and highly personal post delivery, very painful procedures that involved me and a good supply of those blue absorbent plastic pads you often see in hospital beds, and I opened my eyes long enough to see my looming MIL enjoying a bird's eye view of something she had no right to witness. If I had the strength, I would have kicked her in the throat. I remember yelling, "Why is she here? Get her out of here!" -- which they did. They thought she belonged there because of her Talbots attire covered in that white jacket.

Sorry, TMI, lol. It's a new century. You won't have to deal with the social issues that complicated the lives of the ladies who came before you. You'll be just fine, but keep your expectations at a reasonable level. The parents will probably not become best friends (or maybe they won't become friends at all), but there is every possibility that they will, at the very least, catch the spirit of excitement surrounding your wedding.

ETA: All of our parent's angst was for nothing. He and I have now been together for 36 years -- 34 of which have been completely legal, lol.

Let's see, my mother (my dad is not in the picture) met my FMIL and her husband when we took them to dinner to annouce our date. I didn't want to do obe before the other, so that's how they met. My mom met both of FH's grandmother's the weekend before Mother's Day when we took them each out (one for lunch, one for dinner - my mother got both). I should mention that my mom is disabled and doesn't drive and was visiting at the time. Both grandmother's still live alone, drive, etc. We had to take my mom by FFIL's work for them to meet. He's not very personable and borders on rude. My mom has still not met FFIL's SO (they've been together for 33 years) and none of them have met my mom's SO (together 20 years) - he was not visiting wih my mom. He annoys me, but I tolerate him. I have only met FFIL's SO three times - she is a generally unhappy person who complains about any and everything, but our schedules don't mesh, so I don't have to deal with her often. FH is an only child, but I met is step-dad's kids at get togethers at FMIL/FSFIL's house. I will add that my mom, FMIL, and FMIL's mother are friends on FB now. That is my FIL's initiation as my mom couldn't figure out how to send a friend request if she had to. They both always ask how my mom is when they see me. If my mom lived near any of us, I'm sure they would do things together.

Kimi, your post made me feel better about my post. The meetings of the families can be so challenging. We do the best we can. We tolerate what we can tolerate, and at the end of the day(s), we hope we've covered all of the bases.

UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your suggestions! The get-together went well! We hit some minor snags before it started - half of FH's family, who were supposed to be bringing some food & wine, bailed about 10 minutes before and just said, "we decided to go to dinner somewhere else, so see you later!" Um, okay, thanks? Then they showed up at my parents' house a few hours after dinner. They didn't give us a heads up that they were stopping by at all after their dinner elsewhere! But besides that, the parents all got along and conversation was fine. My FFIL even called my dad this morning to go to breakfast together, so apparently it went well enough for that to happen!