Involving the Groom

Involving the Groom

April 5th, 2010 @ 8:50 am by Mrs. Jellyfish
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From what I’ve seen/read/experienced, most guys aren’t that into the wedding planning. Of course, there are exceptions – like Mr. Sewing, who is MAKING Miss Sewing’s wedding gown (!!!). Amazing. But for most guys, the wedding planning world is scary, uncharted territory. I really feel that a lot of it has to do with basic differences between girls and guys. Whereas girls tend to be more detail oriented, most guys just want to get things done, and would rather not spend hours mulling over the perfect shade of lavender (my guy didn’t know what color lavender was until high school – sorry babe! ).

Mr. Jelly is no different. While I think he is genuinely interested in the wedding and wants to help, I know that if he had it his way, the wedding would have been planned in 2 weeks because he doesn’t like spending hours online researching every single possibility, while I do. So I’ve tried to think of ways to best utilize his man-skills and make wedding planning not only bearable, but fun for both of us.

One thing I’ve done is decide where I actually need his help. While Mr. Jelly was very involved in the venue and photographer search, now that those big things are out of the way most of the stuff left is more detail-oriented (invitations) or decidedly non-manly (flowers). I realize that he’s just not going to hop online and look at different flowers for hours on his own accord. It works much better if I do most of the research, present him with several options, and he helps me make the decision (I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but decision-making is not my strong suit).

Another key has been putting him in charge of certain things. I’m kind of a control-freak so sometimes it’s hard for me to delegate things, but when it comes to things like the hotel block, I really just don’t care that much. So this was something I was OK with him handling on his own. Of course, we still talked about it and decided on it as a team, but he did all of the research. He is also in charge of finding dance lessons for our first dance, and booking our honeymoon. We both agreed that we wanted to go somewhere tropical, and the rest was up to him. He suggested Bora Bora, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Beyond this, something I’ve found to be really helpful in the wedding process is to have wedding meetings. Seriously. I know it sounds a little ridiculous, but it was getting to the point where I’d bring up random wedding stuff all the time and even I was getting tired of it. One of my favorite Bees, Mrs. Cheese, blogged about the idea of wedding meetings and I thought it was a great one. Mr. Jelly agreed. So we decided for the sake of sanity, we would meet once a week or so to talk about wedding stuff – then the rest of the time we don’t really talk about it (easier said than done, but it helps). Our first meeting was hilarious – I printed out an agenda as a joke, and Mr. Jelly showed up in a suit – love that guy! Anyway, wedding planning meetings are a much better – and more productive – way to make decisions instead of trying to ask him about wedding colors while the A’s game is on.

I’d love to hear from some of the readers on this. Are your grooms uber-involved in the wedding planning? What has your experience been?

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26 Responses to “Involving the Groom”

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Member

KKW (message) 34 posts, Newbee

Oh so true! I wish my groom was more involved and less of a stereotypical “whatever you want honey” type.

4/5/10 @ 9:09 am (reply)

Member

xoxokristin (message) 541 posts, Busy bee

Anything I see or think of as inspiration for the wedding, I run it by my man and he usually says “Sounds great baby!” I guess his role is just to agree But we did pick out our wedding colors together by talking it out.

4/5/10 @ 9:10 am (reply)

Member

Helstrong (message) 943 posts, Busy bee

I am still in waiting, however we have been throwing wedding ideas around for quite some time. I threw one out last night regarding a venue and he said it was fine with him. I asked him if it really mattered to him where it was and he told me he didn’t care at all as long as I was happy and he got to marry me.

I absolutely love that your FI showed up in a suit for your wedding meeting!!

4/5/10 @ 9:31 am (reply)

Bee

Miss Cardigan (message) 8,645 posts, Bee Keeper

I’ve been really lucky so far - my fiance is very involved in planning and is always willing to give me honest opinions about things we’re planning!

4/5/10 @ 9:38 am (reply)

Member

farmersdaughter (message) 1,675 posts, Bumble bee

These are some great tips - and I love that he showed up to your meeting in a suit =) My fiance tends to be really enthusiastic when we talk about stuff, but then he procrastinates and never gets his tasks done. I’ve found it helps to have him make a list - he’s set up a to-do list on his iPhone and gets really excited whenever he gets to cross something off.

4/5/10 @ 9:44 am (reply)

Member

Caitlyn619 (message) 8 posts, Newbee

Just now I felt as though I was reading a post that I could have written.

My FI has been great with my indecisiveness.
He has been the decider (is that a word?) on the date, the invitations, the save the dates.

The dj and photog and videographer are all friends of his. (he is in the entertainment biz so those were easy)

I did the flowers and favors and picked our first dance song.

And I totally agree with the meetings. Although not as formal as you mentioned, we have started to make time for eating dinner not in front of the TV and that is usually when we hash out what needs to be done and he tries to nudge me on my indecisivenes.

I know what you mean with interupting the game.. (although with us it is not the A’s its the B’s.. ) He was watching the game and I said, instead of favor boxes, what about organza favor bags.. And he just looked at me annoyed and said he had no idea what I was talking about in an unpleasant tone. which annoys me.

Then the NEXT day he calls me at work from Michaels Crafts and says what about instead of boxes we do these Or-gan-za bags they have here. Then I get all annoyed and bark. “I just said that yesterday” and we are both annoyed again..

So the meetings are a good idea. Both parties are in wedding mode and no one gets blindsided by wedding talk!

4/5/10 @ 9:45 am (reply)

Bee

Miss Elephant (message) 6,182 posts, Bee Keeper

We pretty much have the same type of thing going on as you… I do the research and then present the options to him. We then make the final decision together.

4/5/10 @ 9:46 am (reply)

Member

pvaulter718 (message) 2,116 posts, Buzzing bee

We didn’t have wedding meetings, but we set aside Non-wedding days. So, Thursdays and Fridays were all about us as a couple, having fun, living life, not planning a wedding. It was super relaxing to have those days where I just shut the spare room door and did my best to forget about the stress, the projects, and the like.

4/5/10 @ 9:49 am (reply)

Member

CorgiTales (message) 9,861 posts, Bee Keeper

My guy cares about two things: Venue and Budget. Now that venue is picked the only thing he really keeps an eye on is the bottom line (but I knew what I was getting into when I said Yes to an accountant heh). Honestly he works a lot more than I do so I don’t mind at all handling most of the wedding planning because its really fun for me. The only thing I’ve put in his ballpark is the ipod playlists for the reception. He’s a huge music buff and I can’t remember a band name to save my life. We’re doing ipod reception to save money (which is his thing) so I figure its only fair he deals with making the playlists for everything. I’ll obviously look them over and make suggestions and such…. but I’m totally comfortable passing off this (rather large and annoying if you ask me) task to him.

4/5/10 @ 9:54 am (reply)

10.

Bee

Miss Trail Mix (message) 6,328 posts, Bee Keeper

Hahaha, I’ve said this before but in general, Mr Trail Mix is very laid-back about the wedding but he seems to have random opinions about things AFTER I’ve researched and decided on something…Argh!

4/5/10 @ 10:21 am (reply)

11.

Member

Roux (message) 1,352 posts, Bumble bee

This is going to sound horrible, but I wish my boy was LESS interested in the wedding! We aren’t officially engaged yet, but we have started planning, and he seems to have opinions on everything! I was sort of hoping our engagement would go like this:

Boy- “Will you marry me?”

Me- “Yes. On the third Saturday in November there will be a suit in your closet, put it on before 1.30pm. A car will pick you up at 2pm and take you to the wedding. Don’t forget to brush your teeth and wear matching socks.”

Boy- “Yes Ma’m,”

But it doesn’t look like that will be happening.

4/5/10 @ 11:06 am (reply)

12.

Member

Stesse (message) 136 posts, Blushing bee

Good timing for this subject… last night, my FI sat down next to me as I was making invitations, and asked if he could help! Once I picked my jaw up off the floor (and shoved down my Type A tendencies…), I handed him a glue stick & let him at it… I was tickled pink that he was interested!

4/5/10 @ 11:32 am (reply)

13.

Bee

Miss Jellyfish (message) 1,450 posts, Bumble bee

@pvaulter718: Non-wedding days are a great idea!@Miss Trail Mix: Oh, that can be annoying. My friend is currently undergoing that with her mom, who tells her she dislikes things after the fact.
@Roux: Hahahaha this cracked me up. Hilarious!@Stesse: Cute!

4/5/10 @ 11:54 am (reply)

14.

Bee

Miss Pretzel (message) 1,893 posts, Buzzing bee

Ubber-involved… Ubber-ubber involved. Mr P and Mr Sewing are cut from the same cloth.

4/5/10 @ 12:23 pm (reply)

15.

Bee

Miss Turtle (message) 782 posts, Busy bee

Our experiences actually sound pretty similar! Mr. Turtle is more involved than most grooms, and is really supportive. But if he had his way, this whole thing would’ve been planned in a week. He totally doesn’t get why I do so much research!

4/5/10 @ 2:06 pm (reply)

16.

Member

Iggy (message) 23 posts, Newbee

Wedding meetings - what a fabulous idea! This would be good for us, because, like you, it’s not good for me to ask him questions all the time, especially when the game is on (Red Sox in our case). On Friday we went BM gown shopping. On Saturday, I asked if we could go again and he said “I don’t really want to. We JUST did that yesterday!” I think that is when I realized he’s just not as into it as me.

4/5/10 @ 3:09 pm (reply)

17.

Member

jordynrose (message) 6,351 posts, Bee Keeper

FI took charge of the honeymoon and hotels and I took charge of the rest. Our paths only cross for vendor meetings and major decisions, and thus far it has been fabulous!

4/5/10 @ 3:12 pm (reply)

18.

Member

ktisthatbees (message) 2,742 posts, Sugar bee

I can completely relate! My poor FI really does want to be involved, but he could not possibly be less interested in which shade of green I would like to use for the place cards or whether or not we want to use roses or peonies. He just looks at me with a bewildered face and says something along the lines of “I wish I could have an opinion on this, but they look exactly the same to me” Mars and Venus I tell you, Mars and Venus

4/5/10 @ 3:17 pm (reply)

19.

Member

JessersLA (message) 50 posts, Worker bee

We have wedding meetings too! We schedule ours on our shared Google Calendar- HAHA! It sounds so sad when you say it like that!

I do find that even though R gives a hand when he can, I’m constantly following up with him about stuff and it drives me nuts, to the point where I feel I just should have done it myself. I think this will get better as the wedding gets closer because 5 months away still doesn’t feel very urgent to him (even though it does to me!!).

4/5/10 @ 5:10 pm (reply)

20.

Bee

Miss Cola (message) 2,868 posts, Sugar bee

Haha, love that Mr. Jelly showed up in a suit! Mr. Cola is only involved in some aspects, but overall, he doesn’t much care about too many of the details, so I try not to bug him too much.

4/5/10 @ 8:03 pm (reply)

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