Did you help with planning or did you leave most of it up to the bride? Did you enjoy the experience?
I am asking because I’m getting married in October and I’m having a hard time getting my groom-to-be to help with any sort of decision. I ask him for input and his two responses are either “no” or “idk” but when I ask him if he would be ok with me handling everything, he says no that he wants to be involved.
44 comments
I was super involved, probably did at least half the planning. Helped research venues, went to the tastings to pick the catering, helped think of theme and decoration touches, handled the DJ and playlist, organize the guest list and sort the tables… I could go on.
We went with an inclusive venue, they did a lot of the actual leg work.
All we had to do was pick foods from their menu, go to a cake tasting/design meeting, give them playlists for pre/post ceremony and the reception, and arrange our clothes.
Of those tasks I did the cake tasting, menu selection, and grooms side of the clothing.
Very. But then we also had a teeny tiny ceremony.
I’m sure this is a wildly different perspective coming from a gay couple, but we each took ownership of the areas that we cared more about and compromised on everything else. The only thing I was hard on was setting the budget, and the only thing that was nonnegotiable for my SO was having the ceremony itself near some kind of large body of water.
Mostly one of us would curate options on things like the cake or food or DJ down to 2-3 choices and then we’d agree on one from that curated list.
He might *want* to be involved but just not know where to start. ‘Pick a venue’ can be a little daunting compared to giving options. “Should we have a band or a DJ?” versus “What do you want to do about entertainment?”
“Do you like menu A or menu B?” versus “Want to help with catering?”
That still puts a lot of onus and ownership on you so maybe also try being specific in your requests for help. “I’m thinking about a venue, I want an outdoors spot in XXX area between YYY and ZZZ dates. Mind shopping around and finding 3 or 4 spots and getting quotes and finding availability? We can circle back and make a decision once we’ve narrowed it down a little.”
That is assuming he does want to help and you want him involved. It is also possible he’s just saying, “Yeah I want to help” because he doesn’t really but feels guilty saying that. If you’re cool with taking ownership of the whole thing, it might be worth sitting down and clearly communicating: “Hey, I’m stressed about this because I feel like you want to be involved but aren’t actively contributing. I’m ***completely*** fine with doing it all myself, so if that is what you really want, just let me know and I’d be happy to do that. But if you do want to be involved… (Insert above advice about specific requests)”
I guess that’s my simplest advice. The best advice for planning weddings is true for relationships as a whole:
Communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate.
We just did a court house wedding. Wedding parties are a waste of money. I just took the money we would have spent and threw it towards a house and another car.
Very, but then we decided to elope halfway through the planning process for a multitude of reasons.
>How involved were you
*2/10. We worked together 50/50 on the music for the reception. I planned the honeymoon (Honolulu) entirely with her final approval. I was definitely involved on the wedding night. I had been banging her like a screen door in a hurricane for four years, but that night was special.*
>Did you help with planning or did you leave most of it up to the bride?
*Her mother helped more than I did. The mother of the bride often gets the wedding for her daughter that she wanted for herself. I had offered to help as much or as little as she wanted, which was rather little.*
The wedding planning is a trial run for the marriage. It helps you find out how good you both are at managing stress, managing money, managing in-laws, and managing expectations.
Your groom is going to stonewall you after the wedding and it will frustrate you to discuss important things. Sixty years of “whatever, honey”.
Can you live with that?
Pretty involved but we didn’t have much money so we had to budget and plan together. However, I did have a few guys (coworkers and such) think it was odd I was so involved. Depends on your sitch I guess.
Pretty much Zero. Im also divorced now too.
I really only helped with food choices and the officiant. We dont go to church, but I wanted the person doing our ceremony to be someone we knew.
Open ended options can be a bit difficult.
Do you like this? Gets you a Sure, IDK
Vs
Which of these do you like better? This can get you a direct answer. And please make sure the options are different. Not just a slightly dif shade of the same color or pattern.
Driving, arranging meetings and some logistics.
Had amazing best man.
But we all know its all bout the bride so she had most to say.
Girlfriend: “You wanna take our parents to Scotland and ride a boat out and get married on some rocks in Isle of Skye?”
Me: “Yeah, sounds awesome. I’m gonna wear a purple velvet blazer and some cowboy boots. Also I found this michelin star restaurant where we can take everybody.”
fin
Not married yet, but getting married in September. While she has certainly put in more effort than I, it’s not by much. We’ve both had say in our decisions. We both had the same venue in mind so that was easy. I arranged the photographer and videographer and she arranged the DJ and florist. I do give her a lot of credit for taking care of the save the dates, invitations, and thank yous from our bridal shower
A lot of guys don’t know where to insert themselves and when to.
By the time a guy’s asked, sometimes its chooisng between random things.
Its like asking someone who their favor baseball team from 1965 is. Clearly that year and sport is meaningful to the other person, but if asked to choose between the giants and pirates, you would say I don’t know or ask if the question was even important.
If you want decisions, explain the context and what each of the choices means to you.
Her: “What do you want to do for our wedding.”
Me: “Vegas.”
Her: “Sweet, I’ll book the flight.”
/planning
We eloped and she’s the one with the direct connection to the officiator so…what little there was she did.
Any detailed planning about decor or whatever would have been me trying to guess what other people would like while working to keep the “I don’t want either, I don’t want to do this ceremony” look off my face.
Not that much. I was consulted on some stuff and vetoed a few things. The day of the wedding I helped a lot setting stuff out, and setting stuff up, but in general women care about the wedding, men care about the marriage.
Currently in the process of planning.
She (especially her mom and my mom lmao) are certainly focusing more on the logistics of it as it’s something they’ve talked about since she was young so I get that it’s a sentimental thing for them.
But, she actively involves me and I want to be involved and she allows me to focus on a lot of the things she knows I care more about. Venue we picked together as well as honeymoon. we are on the same page in terms of guest count and im involved with the actual planning stuff such as vendors, catering, photographers, etc but I’m not solely picking them out as they’ll propose a few they’ve found and I’ll give my preferences.
But they’re handling more of the save the date, invitations, theme, colors, and a lot more of the small picture things that aren’t as important to me and totally fine with that. Idgaf if the tablecloths are forest green or blue haha. So I’m a sense I’ve taken maybe a more passive role in the smaller things with it.
Also, to be fair, we are doing a smaller but nice wedding and going pretty light on the honeymoon as we are putting that amount towards buying a play toy car we will share. Which thank Jesus out mothers initially wanted to invite well over 300 guests and we were thinking like 50 max. 😂
But, that being said, probably similar in the case of your fiancé, while it’s an exiting time and something very sentimental for her, it’s not that I don’t care and am not excited about the wedding, because I certainly am.
But my main sentiment and excitement is that’s the day I’m marrying someone I love and the extravagance of that day doesn’t matter to me as long as she’s there and she’s happy so the main reason it matters to me is because it matters to her and has nothing to with how much I “care” about marrying her or the wedding.
My wife to be and I were living on different continent during our engagement. (I was the expat). I told her maybe three things that I wanted, and my only job was to pick the song we danced to.
Most everything was handled by my wife and her mom. I went along with DJ prep and gave my two cents about food. But I’d say most of it was handled without me.
The wedding turned out great.
VERY!
I think I had input and was part of the process of nearly everything. About the only thing I didn’t help decide, was her dress (duh), the ceremony venue (her church, I’m lapsed so didn’t care), and the cake (she had long ago fallen in love with a particular bakery and I was more than happy and impressed with it).
When it came to everything else though, we discussed and came to agreements on everything. Thankfully we usually agreed on most things and it wasn’t an issue of sacrifice.
Photographer, colours, flowers, reception, dinner, wedding party, seating arrangements, DJ, the important songs, everything was a discussion and process together.
Wasn’t stressful, but probably helped we were both all-in on making it the best day not only for each other, but all our guests as well.
We paid for most of our wedding so I was involved by working my ass off. When asked an opinion I tried to be helpful and honest. Wife also kept things to a modest but nice level
I organized the budget so my wife had something to laugh at the whole time
But seriously, I took the lead on the party favors, groomsman attire, and music. Everything else I was consulted but wife did most
I planned and executed our entire wedding with very very little input or decision making from my wife besides input on “the fun stuff” (picking wine, tasting food, etc). 100 guests, fully catered dinner with everything else DIY. We started with an empty field in rural Washington and ended with a shared dream of a ceremony surrounded by our community, a white tent with floor, live band with a stage built by yours truly, and a party that went all night long. We even had a pumpkin auction for charity with pumpkins I had grown myself. Luckily I have a wonderful sister who one hell of a front of house boss and day of coordinate.
Weddings are long slogs of decision making and if you’ve never planned an event or completed projects with many pieces and vendors then it can seem overwhelming. Spreadsheets for rentals, spreadsheets for budgets, spreadsheets for fucking cutlery. It all compounds the longer you delay decisions because of decision fatigue.
Ultimately, my wife-to-be wasn’t having fun planning a giant party. The color of the napkins was agonizing. It was becoming a wedge in our relationship so I said “worry about the dress and I’ll handle the rest”. Releasing her of the burden of party planning allowed me to proceed with the speed that was needed for my mental health and allowed fully value the dream party I threw her as her special day. If she had made the sausage she would have struggled to eat it, I think.
Figure out what the guy wants and boot him out of the planning process if he can’t hang with the big girls.
When I got married, she and I decided on a budget and a location. From then, I did most of the leg work but it was a cruise wedding. It was pretty easy.
Just a little bit. I can’t speak for all men but I will say a good bit of men don’t really care for a wedding and they do it for their future wife and family.
But to answer your question. I was heavily involved in the beginning then I shifted to “whatever you want, babe” or “that looks nice” or “you have a good selection”
I tried to be helpful, but none of my ideas where correct. Haha. This was a microcosm of our relationship. I ended up being a figure to bounce ideas off of and help facilitate where people needed to be/do.
Wedding #1, not at all. Wedding #2, my wife and I planned and did everything together except her dress, and all for under $500.
Btw, he’s waving a huge red flag.
About 25%
I had veto power, but didn’t really care about many of the formalities. My wife wanted a medieval wedding, so we had to find a church, she sewed her own wedding dress, all of that.
I did use my veto once: she didn’t want a wedding cake and I did. She doesn’t like cake. So we compromised on a carrot cake. Standard sheet cake style, which was fine with me. But she was passionate about the wedding style and had lots of opinions. I didn’t. Neither of us was wrong for that.
This carries into our marriage now. She is the decorator, I just want things cleaned up, but I will occasionally object. I didn’t object to her styling our master bedroom after Alice in Wonderland. But I object when things become a mess (she is fine with it).
I showed up
I just got married on Friday and currently honeymooning.
I was involved. I said we are getting a wedding planner because this is an industry that will take advantage of you. Our planner had a master list to keep us on track (eg. have wedding invites sent 6 months out.)
I work full time and some and my wife works part time so she definitely did like 70% of the work so kudos to her. Whenever it was time to make a decision it was either, give me 3 choices or let me see this list and I’ll choose 3 and you pick.
I enjoyed it. The budget was my main concern and it was stressful but totally worth it for us. It is NOT everybody’s cup of tea. You will hear this. You will wonder if you made the right choice. We saw a wedding ceremony as an important event since we are close with our families.
My advice is have a road map and when something is due make those decisions together even if it’s just thru text. You’ll have 204958372 things to decide on so you’re just going to have to make decisions that feel like it’s on a whim.
Once it’s the day before you have to let everything go. Something will not go accordingly but you have to let it go and enjoy yourselves.
Told my wife “we should get married under that tree.” She agreed, we invited my grandmother’s, our moms and her best friend (along with our kids). Perfect, 5 minute ceremony
I came back to the USA. We had 3 weeks to do all the planning, get married, honeymoon for a weekend, pack, and move back overseas. We were both busy every waking minute, but in all honesty she did more of the planning and list-making than I did. My daughter was engaged for a year while they debated and planned. I’m glad we didn’t have the time to deal with all that.
I said I want steak and day of, I drove both of us to the venue. That was it.
Fairly involved
I showed up with groomsmen.
Its her day, she gets to choose. I get her!
41 years in….
Destination wedding, and very involved.
Hey OP, I’m a woman scrolling through here who usually lurks, but I happen to be planning a wedding too lol. Just wanted to toss my two cents…
My fiancé sounds vaguely similar. He’s really reluctant to be in the spotlight, and much prefers to treat our wedding as “hosting our families/ facilitating a loving meet and greet” rather than thinking about it being About Us. We’ve both held off on active wedding planning (for other various life/ family reasons), but the difference between the two dudes is _I already know what he wants._ We talk about wedding planning _all the time_, even if plans are on hold for the moment. I can’t say how involved he’ll be I guess, but I already know his exact food preferences, music preferences, etc etc. I know he wants a specific old friend to be involved in xyz. I know his groomsmen, and his ideal suit, and his preferred bachelor party plans. He’s voiced very specific thoughts on booze and music and decor. He has active thoughts and opinions on what he wants, and he’s already shaped at least 50% of our vision.
I’d recommend “tasking” your guy with pinterest lol. Give him a week and tell him to make a full album of what he likes and wants. It takes the pressure off of him to make an in-the-moment precise decision, but it’ll also force him to visualize and voice his preferences. Once he’s got his pinterest, you can resume your specific questions like the food decisions, but give him a clear “I’m going to decide by x date if you won’t talk to me about it.” If he truly wants to avoid a decision, then that’s his decision. Stupid games win stupid prizes and all that. You’ll pick the food, and he’ll be fine with it, because he has essentially agreed to give up his opinion in his refusal to make a decision.
I kinda knew/ suspect I’ll be handling most of the active planning for our wedding, because I’m much more outgoing and “a planner” as is. But honestly, I’d be so disappointed if my fiancé didn’t want to make any decisions like yours does. I don’t think I would tbh. Even if my guy is hesitant to put himself in the spotlight, he’s got a really clear vision of what he wants out of his wedding, and he’s willing and ready to communicate it with me and work with me 50/50 towards making it happen. I know a full wedding is a bigger sacrifice on his personality/ energy than it is mine, so I’m fully willing to do the bulk of the planning, but I would be pumping the brakes if he truly wanted to be uninvolved and/ or insisting on being involved but refusing to make decisions. That’s fucked up.
Your fiancé needs to start aiding in decision making, or agree to let go of the reins (in which case, you’d also have to accept that you’ll likely be decision maker for the rest of your life). I totally understand how paralyzing a wedding can feel, and it’s scary as hell trying to plan it all out. But like, we _all_ feel it. I feel it, my guy feels it, _you_ clearly feel it too. He’s pretty much telling you to shoulder his burden on top of your own, and that’s unacceptable in both life and wedding planning. That’s not life partner behavior. That’s not the man you want to be parenting alongside, I’ll tell ya that much. That’s gonna be a lifetime of you handling school and doctors and meals and chores and bath times and bed times alone. That’s gonna be a husband who “doesn’t know where the forks go”, a husband who can’t get his kids dressed on his own. I don’t want to extrapolate or fear monger, but like…. your example of “bbq or pasta” is _so simple_ that it calls into question his abilities to be a self-led adult. He’s pretending to be incapable of making this simple decision, and that’s a bad sign. He seems like he’s setting the stage for you to be “momager” for the rest of your life. He wants to coast on by while knowingly letting you do all of the leg work.
Sorry for the novel there lol, that food example got me heated. If he wants to be a “laid back groom” and you’re fine with it, then that’s fine, but he at least needs to offer his input when asked. Bare minimum, for the wedding and for life. He’s asking an impossible ask of “I need to be involved, I don’t want you to decide by yourself, but I refuse to make a decision.” One of those three have to give, again in life AND in wedding planning. It’s on him to decide which one to give up, and then it’ll be on you to decide if you’re okay with accepting that as a quasi-marriage vow. Best of luck, OP, I truly, truly hope he decides to shoulder his own burden again. I’ll be thinkin of ya
Give him a task. One task. I had zero involvement outside of showing up.
But my wife said “captainBrinksmmanship, you need to design, and complete the invites”.
If you do it right, and give him freedom of choice, it will grow from there.
I drove us to the court house. So, pretty involved.
Involved and attended all the wedding planning things, but also just went along for the ride for a lot of it.
But made it a point that when my opinion was asked, to give it, even if my answer was “I don’t have a strong opinion either way”.
That being said my wife was good about narrowing it down to a few options.
I was decently involved. My wife decided on the overall look and I went with her to China Town in SF to bargain shop for decorations. Helped find stuff online as well.
I purchased materials to build myself the lighting & part of the larger backlit panels that were placed around the border of the hall. Put my DIY & theater set design experience to good use.
Ours wasn’t extravagant and probably didn’t require quite as much planning as the crazy big weddings I see some people having.