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Dear Preston,

Two years ago I graduated from law school and got engaged. While planning my wedding, I realized my true passion was the wedding and event industry. I recently told my parents that I’m going to leave the firm where I work to pursue wedding planning full-time. They got so angry that now they’re refusing to even talk to me.

What can I do to change their minds?

Sincerely,
An Unhappy Lawyer

Dear Unhappy,

Who paid for you to go to law school? If your parents wrote those checks, then I can understand their frustration.

I don’t want to discourage you, but just because you enjoyed planning your own wedding, doesn’t mean you’re going to enjoy planning other people’s weddings. And you are certainly not the first bride to get swept up in the wedding industry and decide planning is your new passion.

As much as I agree that we should always follow our dreams and our passions, ask yourself the following questions first:

1. Do you understand and accept that as glamourous as the wedding industry can seem at first, at least eighty percent of the job is very hard work? (Only twenty percent is glamour — if that!)

2. Do you also understand that in addition to being meticulously organized, planners must be able to provide many challenging services to clients who are sometimes very difficult to work with?

3. Does planning make you feel alive and so energized that you get completely lost in it?

If you can honestly answer yes to these three questions, then I think you are on the right track. However, before you quit your job, consider enrolling in a planning course and doing some part-time planning. Dip your toe in the water, before you dive in.

And as far as your parents are concerned, once they see that you are happy, your creative spirit is coming alive, and you are committed to this new path, I suspect they’ll embrace your choice. Give them time.

Dear Readers, what advice can you give this unhappy lawyer? Have any of your brides decided they wanted to become planners after their wedding? Did they stick with it?

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