"Lessons Learned: Why I Regret Not Preparing a 'Meeting Shiori' - Realizing Its Importance Too Late!"

2021.02.18 published

I Should Have Prepared a Face-to-Face Meeting Handbook!

Hello, this is Nagisa from marry.

Recently, I had a face-to-face meeting between both families...

During that time, I reflected, "I should have prepared a handbook for the meeting."

Since I work at marry, I have known about the existence of a face-to-face handbook long before we met, but

✅ I am clumsy, so making it seemed troublesome.

✅ Neither of our families is the type that gets along well.

✅ We won’t have a grand wedding.

✅ We didn’t do a pre-shoot.

✅ There wasn’t anything in particular I wanted to write.

I thought a handbook for the meeting wasn't really necessary... so I didn’t prepare one.

However, after actually having the face-to-face meeting, my perspective changed.

I realized that a handbook for the face-to-face meeting is truly important. I thought, "If I knew this would happen, I should have prepared one!" So, let me share the reasons why.

Importance of the Face-to-Face Meeting Handbook ① It's Hard to Ask About Each Other's Jobs

For parents, it's natural to be curious about the profiles of the other family.

They want to know about the person their son or daughter is marrying and what kind of environment they were raised in.

(Especially, their jobs are a curious part!)

However, it’s awkward to face-to-face ask, "What’s your job? And what do you do at that company?" If you know in advance, you might have more engaging conversations, but starting to ask these questions without any prior knowledge is quite a high hurdle.

After our face-to-face meeting, when I got home, my mother grilled me with questions like, "So, what kind of company does the other father work for?" "Is the mother a full-time housewife?"

Information about jobs and companies is something you need to know to avoid various inconveniences, but for some reason, asking directly feels intrusive, and it’s hard to bring it up.

That said, it's also rare for someone to provide detailed information like, "I work for Company ◯◯ in the ◯◯ department doing ◯◯!" which creates an imbalance between the information we want and what the other person provides.

The amount of information shared can change based on the speaker, making it quite subjective.

There's no need to keep it secret, so if it were included in the meeting handbook from the beginning, the conversation could take place with shared information rather than probing, leading to a calmer atmosphere.

I had heard that sometimes "a personal history" is handed over during face-to-face meetings and thought it sounded old-fashioned... but now I understand its importance.

To avoid "probing" and causing awkwardness between parents, having a documented profile in advance would be more considerate.

You might struggle with how much to disclose, but

【Things to Include in the Handbook】

✅ Job title and profession

✅ Company name

✅ Work location

If these are written, it seems likely that both sides can converse clearly.

(I personally wanted to know at least something like, "I work in sales at Company ◯◯, with the office being near ◯◯ Station!")

Importance of the Face-to-Face Meeting Handbook ② Write Down Parents’ Ages

I also thought I should have written the parents' ages in the meeting handbook.

During the meeting, the mothers were being polite by asking, "May I ask how old you are?" "You’re still quite young, right?"

They definitely didn’t mind sharing their ages, but asking face-to-face makes it feel like they should be cautious and considerate of the "was that rude?" factor, leading to exchanges of meaningless phrases like, "You look young!"

On the other hand, while being asked isn’t a problem, suddenly stating your age and introducing yourself in detail might come off as presumptuous, like expecting the same from the other person.

(But then again, saying, "Okay, let’s introduce ourselves!" feels like something from a mixing party, so that doesn’t feel right either…)

When discussing this with a friend, she mentioned, "My mom and the other mom were trying to guess each other’s ages based on the zodiac. Couldn’t they just skip it? It doesn’t matter how old they are. They could just talk normally; that back-and-forth was annoying."

Similar to jobs, I think ages are also "something you want to know but feels awkward to ask," so it might be good to include it in the handbook.

Parents' names and addresses may also be necessary at some point (like sending a summer gift), so let’s include that in the handbook.

【Things to Include in the Handbook】

✅ Parents’ names

✅ Address

✅ Date of birth (age)

Importance of the Face-to-Face Meeting Handbook ③ Write Down Seating Arrangements

I also regretted not writing down the "seating order" for the meeting in the handbook.

With my husband, my parents, and his parents there, we had a total of six people, and since none of our siblings participated,

I assumed the seats would be like this: in the upper seat (farthest from the entrance) would be my husband's father, mother, and then him. In the lower seat (closest to the entrance) would be my father, mother, and then me.

However, when we entered the private room and were about to sit, my husband’s father was courteous and said, "◯◯-san, please go to the back."

My mother suggested, "Shouldn’t the main person sit in the center?" causing confusion.

If I had predetermined the seating order and included it in the handbook, we could have avoided the confusion before the meeting even began.

Importance of the Face-to-Face Meeting Handbook ④ Wedding Venue Information

I planned to have a family wedding and had already decided on the wedding venue by the time of the meeting, so I had given the parents the URLs and pamphlets of the venue.

Since it was also brought up during the face-to-face meeting, I thought it would have been nice to include the wedding venue information in the handbook.

Even though I provided the information in advance, they hadn't necessarily researched it online or read the pamphlet thoroughly (possibly due to the personalities of the parents, the scale of the wedding, timing, etc...)

Basic information like "When is the wedding?" "Where is the venue?" "What’s the nearest station?" "Is there parking?" was verbally confirmed, so I thought it would have been better to have concrete details written in the meeting handbook.

Depending on how much is decided and shared about the wedding, I don’t think it hurts to include the information!

The Face-to-Face Meeting Handbook is an Essential Item!

I used to think that the face-to-face meeting handbook was for:

✅ Preventing conversations from breaking down.

✅ If they do break, it provides some material to keep the situation going.

✅ To help each other’s parents learn about each other.

But it has an additional role:

writing down what both sets of parents want to know (like ages and jobs) helps to remove the need for uncomfortable direct questions.

For us as the bride and groom, summarizing the profiles of each other’s families in advance was a significant change for me and a point of reflection, in realizing that "Neither set of parents has to face an awkward situation on the day, nor must they take the risk of being rude."

If someone were to ask me, "Is a face-to-face meeting handbook really that important?" I would definitely say it is necessary, so just make one no matter how it looks!!

For those like me who might think, "I probably don’t need a handbook for the meeting," please reconsider and think, "Should I prepare a handbook????"

➡ Check out all articles on the face-to-face meeting!

@non.ayam