Sanity Savers: Married to the Snob
 Dr. Dale Atkins understands your wedding woes and has the perfect sanity-saving solutions for emotional issues, family questions, and fears about the engagement, wedding planning, and future.
 | Help! My fiancé and I want to have place cards at our wedding, as we feel it is both polite and helpful to our guests. My Mom insists that she’s never been to a wedding where people are assigned seats, and that it insinuates that we are trying to be "snobby" or to outdo other family weddings. We’re not! I’m afraid that our guests on my side of the family might think the same thing. Our family weddings have generally been on a smaller scale--rented halls and balloons as decorations--and I’m afraid that the fact that I want something better makes me appear snobby. Are place cards a snobby thing? |  |  | I think that your family finds the place cards intimidating, rather than snobby. Your desire to have people seated in a manner you find helpful and polite and orderly is entirely up to you. You have an image of your wedding, and you are entitled to have that image become reality. Some family members may feel challenged and threatened by something different or new, and they may choose to ascribe a pejorative meaning in order to defend themselves against something they feel may be a judgment -- either against them personally or against past family weddings, which you say were simpler and more casual. Your family’s comments are hurtful and unnecessary, but you need to go ahead and enjoy your wedding, as well as the fact that you will know exactly where everyone is seated! | |  Dr. Dale Atkins is a professional psychologist and frequent media expert specializing in couple and family relationships. Dr. Dale is also an author with five books to her credit: Sisters; Families and Their Hearing Impaired Children; From the Heart (co-author); I'm OK, You're My Parents; and the most recently published, Wedding Sanity Savers (co-author). Currently living in Connecticut with her husband and dog, Dr. Dale has two grown sons and a private practice in New York City. | |