Many, many couples find that when planning a wedding, they're forced to deal with the issue of mixed families — and they have no idea what to do. After all, when the first etiquette books were written, divorce and remarriage were not acknowledged, let alone given space in print. These days, of course, ignoring the issue of divorce and stepparents is impossible — and cruel. You may love your stepmother as much as your own mom — but how can you include her in your big day without stepping on any toes?

Evaluate the Family — Honestly

If there are big problems in your immediate family stemming from your parents' divorce and remarriages, this is not the time to ignore those issues or to say to yourself, “Well, they're just going to have to get along on my wedding day.” If there's tension between your mom and dad (or your mom, dad, stepmother, and stepfather), the last thing you want to do is to put anyone in a situation where that tension is going to be on display or exacerbated to the point of an ugly confrontation.

Don't expect miracles just because you're getting married. Don't seat your parents together in church — or at the reception — in the hopes that your wedding will be the balm for their catastrophic relationship. You're thinking, “They'll all be so moved by the ceremony, everyone will walk out of the wedding the best of friends.” No, they won't.

Remember that weddings tend to get the best of people who are normally rational. Your parents may be forced to do battle with conflicting emotions on your wedding day — joy (as they watch you standing at the altar, waiting for the love of your life); fear (that your marriage won't fare any better than theirs did); and pure animosity (when they catch each other's eye). Give them plenty of space to hold themselves together.

You Sit Here and You Sit There

Don't seat dueling parents and their new significant others in the same pew in church — unless you want to hear from one of them that they really would have preferred the aisle seat. Give them both aisle seats, one behind the other. That's about the best you'll be able to do without holding separate ceremonies for each parent.

Put each parent and their new spouse at a separate table — preferably nowhere near each other — during the reception. Seat them with other members of their own family (your grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., from your mom's side will be seated with her) — and if there are still seats left over (if your mom has a very small family, for example), then fill out the seating arrangement with a few of her close friends.

Keep in mind that as much as you'd like them to put their differences aside for this one day, they may be too far gone to comply. Your mom and dad may not be able to enjoy themselves if they're forced to be in the vicinity of one another. Make things easy for them — and, more importantly, for yourself.

Appeal to Their Sensibilities

Before the ceremony and the reception — well before the big day, talk to each of your parents. Be completely honest about your concerns, but don't get into placing blame on either of them. The issue you want to resolve before the wedding is whether both of them can agree to either call a truce or simply ignore each other for a given number of hours on a certain Saturday in June. Impress upon each of them how important it is to you to have a peaceful wedding day. You don't want to hear their complaints; you don't want to hear them bickering in the vestibule of the church.

Stepsiblings

Of course, along with stepparents, sometimes there are stepbrothers or stepsisters thrown into the mix — and the mix isn't always a good one. Do you have to invite a stepsibling you've never liked (or one you barely know, for that matter) to your wedding?

The answer depends on how you want your familial future to proceed. True, you may not be especially fond of a stepsibling or two, but they do fall under your family umbrella.

Whether you're debating over not inviting your mom's stepson or your dad's stepdaughter, one of your parents has to deal with this child (or adult) on a fairly regular basis — and with this child's parents, also. You and your bride will be the hot topic of conversation between all of these folks for a good long time if you choose to exclude a stepsibling. You're not just proving a point to the stepsibling in question — you're putting your own parent in a tough spot, too.

Of course, your family relations may be so poor and your reasons for slighting a stepsibling so valid that you really don't care who will be angry over the whole situation. That's something you have to evaluate on your own. Just be aware that you're putting yourself in the position to have guilt and blame heaped upon you for years to come.

If you can possibly find it anywhere in your being to include the stepsibling you despise, you'll take the attention off of yourself. The ball will be in his or her court, and you will be absolved of any wrongdoing. If he or she doesn't respond or refuses to attend the wedding, you can just shrug and say, “Hey, I tried.”