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I generally try to avoid stereotypes in my life, and in particular, stereotypical gender roles. I don’t like the idea that because of one’s gender, one should behave or be interested in certain things. Unfortunately, when it comes to planning the wedding, Mr. Knitting and I definitely fall into very stereotypical gender roles. While I am (obviously) incredibly excited and interested in every little detail and in making the day as meaningful as possible, Mr. Knitting is completely uninterested. He’s made it clear that while he is thrilled to marry me, and that’s really actually all he cares about. He’s happy to have the big party, but all he really wants is to be married to me, and in terms of how that will happen, he couldn’t care less.
In some ways this is great for me (yay I get my way for EVERYTHING!!!), but when I see or hear about examples of grooms getting really involved, I get a bit jealous. Why doesn’t Mr. Knitting think it’s fun to spend an hour or two in Michaels with me or spend the afternoon in a stamping store looking for the perfect ink stamps for our thank you cards?
The thing is, I don’t know if this bothers me because I actually wish he was more interested in the wedding details or if it’s just because I feel guilty for perpetuating stereotypical gender roles.
Obviously I should just get over it if it’s for the latter reason. In my real life I take no issue with the fact that I’m the one who does pretty much all the cooking and baking in our home and that’s because I feel pretty supported as Mr. Knitting does all the dish washing and the vacuuming. It seems pretty silly actually to take issue with the fact that he’s not much of a wedding planner if it’s just about gender roles.
Me baking while Mr. Knitting waits to be served LIKE A MAN!!!! Yes I’m kidding.
I think I’m just going to have to make peace with the fact that I have a stereotypical uninterested groom. Frankly it’s probably better for me this way as I get my way for EVERYTHING!!! (Yes, I’m a control freak.)
Go ahead, make me jealous. I want to hear all about how your grooms are helping out!
I too have an uninterested groom. His response is normally A) “I trust your judgment honey or B) “Just tell me when and where to show up and I’ll be there.” I am jealous at the fact that Mr. Knitting does all the dish washing and the vacuuming!!
Mr. Peng was the same. He didn’t care about the nitty gritty about the wedding at all. He wanted to make sure everyone had a good time, but that was about it. I’m a little tired of people making us feel “ashamed” or “inferior” because the groom isn’t super involved in the planning process. It’s like… vacations for instance. I hate planning them. Won’t plan them. Won’t lift a finger. Mr Peng has to do it all. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him and don’t want to go on vacay with him… I just don’t want to plan it and he ends up doing it all.
I was happy to take the reins of our wedding planning and do it all with little input from him. We were all happy about it and in the end we’re happily married and I didn’t make him do a bunch of crap he didn’t want to just because people, society, bloggers, whatever—made me feel like I “HAVE TO” involve my groom in the planning because it’s OUR wedding. It was still “OUR” wedding, Mark just didn’t give a crap about colors or decor or any of that stuff 
My fiancee is similar - while he doesn’t have a 45 min explanation as to which embossing powder he prefers (Jeweled Gold or Gold Tinsel?? Hmmmm - this could take all night!), he will certainly grunt in approval or disdain when asked for input. I have discovered the best way to get him involved is to do two things:
1) make little decisions - narrow down the choices and show him the final 2-3 options. (I choose 3 styles of wine glasses and 3 clip art logos - he helps arrive at the final decision for the wine glass favor)
2) give assignments geared toward interest. He uploaded all the pictures and wedding music to our website. crafted our cardbox out of a wine crate (he loves woodworking), and will be choosing music for our dinner music/CDs (yes, were having two wedding favors).
Hope that helps!
My groom and I are both very involved in the planning. He built our wedding website (himself, not one of the free ones) and a RSVP tracker (which is awesome). He scoped out venues with me, picked out tuxes, helped stuff invitations, drove the invitations the post office with me to mail, helped write the ceremony, and dozens of other things. Our wedding is our little project, and working together gets me really excited about our married years ahead.
I HATE perpetuating gender roles. So, yeah, I totally get where you’re coming from.
What I’ve found is weird in our planning is that he is the one with 90% of the opinions. There’s very few things I feel strongly about, and many of those are things he feels even more strongly about. But I’m the one who deals with logistics - he’s the abstract, big idea thinker. So I end up doing a lot of the work trying to figure out how we can realize his vision. ARGH.
At least he lets me tell everyone that it’s his special day. He’s even started saying that himself, which is adorable.
Mine went wedding dress shopping with me, taught himself flash to build our website from scratch, helped assemble our invites, is making half of the favor macaroons, booked several vendors, is planning our ceremony, and went with me on a two day excursion to Ikea, Home Depot, Sams Club, Michaels, Joann’s, and other fabric stores 
I found that making a list of what needs to be done and giving him first pick each week off the list went a long way to getting him involved.
haha I understand how you can feel torn on this! Mr. Socks is pretty involved for a groom, but doesn’t really take initiative on his own for most of this stuff. Will you still give Mr. Knitting a few jobs, like for the honeymoon, perhaps? That’s where Mr. Socks is taking the reigns on our wedding plans! He’s also doing all of the research for our civil ceremony & keeping the budget.
Sometimes I am so grateful that my groom is interested but other times I get a little cranky. Why can’t I get my way?!!?! Isn’t he supposed to be completely uninterested!!!
After assembling the invitations, and taking over all the cooking and cleaning while I did other wedding stuff, my fiancee handmade 80 napkin rings which we then forgot at home, and never once complained.
Mr. Cardigan is definitely involved on some things, and he’ll always give me his opinion on stuff if I ask, but for the most part he really doesn’t care. I’m deciding on most things, and just getting approval from him. And I’m with you - I like having control, so I won’t really complain!
If my fiance had his way we’d have already gone to the Justice of the Peace and had the whole thing done with already. His idea of comprimise is that he’s agreed to show up for the big-ish wedding I’m planning.
He’s also a big time penny pincher, and while I’m doing things within a set budget and paying for 90% myself, I don’t want things to look cheap either, so he tends to leave the room or do the ear-plug thing whenever cost comes into the discussion.
He didn’t have any problems tasting the cake and catering though…
My FI has been involved with almost evey aspect of our wedding. Just today he finished embossing our enclousures. Tomorrow he is using a Martha Stewart edge punch and attaching the paper to the enclousures. Granted it helps him keep busy. He got into a car accident (the other person’s fault) and now has some pretty beat up shins and can’t work since it involves him standing and running around. He is happy to help out.
He has been to all of the appointments with vendors and has brought his own questions.
No offense but I am sooooo Happy to hear this I have the same situation. My FI is happy to marry me and I told him he was in charge of transportation and tux’s and he was fine with that but every time I find some thing new or a great bargin or have questions I get the “It doesnt matter to me” answer. LOL He just wants to show up. I thought I was the only one going through this
Honestly, I’m a total control freak and have been perfectly fine with the fact that my FH doesn’t really care much about stuff like flowers, decor, paper, etc. He trusts me to make decisions about the smaller stuff without involving him. The only thing that I wish my FH was more involved in was following up on the few things I actually delegated to him- I feel like I have to nag until it gets done and that is irritating.
Everyone’s relationship is different- if you have a man in your life that loves weekly trips to Michaels, more power to you, but I would personally never drag my FH into that stuff. I know it bores him to tears and I don’t think he should have to pretend that all the sudden he cares about things like calligraphy pen ink just because we are getting married.
scournoyer - I know how you feel! My fiance isn’t really interested, like he never wants to hear about the wedding, but I’m not allowed to make a decision without him. He claims not to care, but then he tells me he doesn’t like my ideas! You can’t have both!!
Overall my FI has been generally uninterested in wedding planning until recently he didn’t have a care in the world…things changed though and he’s been making the effort and offering his input and has taken on a big chunk of tasks like planning the honeymoon, setting up the cake tastings and helping with centerpiece ideas. He still can’t bear the craft stores or attempt to help with projects (because the scare him), but I am grateful for all he is doing.
There are days that I wish Mr P was less interested in certain details- like it would be easier to just make snap decisions, but he is a very interested groom and I love it. It does slow the process down a bunch. We also don’t fall into stereotypical gender roles… perhaps there is a correlation.
In every relationship, labor, tasks, dreams and motivations are going to come from and fall upon the two members of a couple unevenly. People are interested in different things, they excel at different things, why should it be any different with wedding planning? I agree with your statement that beating yourself up over having an uninterested groom is probably mostly inspired by guilt over perpetuating stereotypes. Hey, if a man REALLY likes auto repair and a woman is REALLY inspired by home decor, let them do what they love. There’s nothing wrong with that.
My FI basically gets involved whenever I ask him to. He gets really into it only when he perceives it as a job to take care of - so, sometimes the most effective motivation I can give him is to announce “Your current important job is to create an opinion about this topic and tell me what that opinion is.” Then, he’s great at giving input! Even better is “Your current job is to cut out 60 belly bands identical to this one.” You just have to know your guy; mine has an engineer’s brain, so you have to frame things as Problems That Require Solving. Overall, we both do what we enjoy doing, and it all gets done - it works out great.
BTW, his favorite line when I ask if he wants to be more involved in decision-making is, “You are doing a Great Job.”
My guy is the same way. He cares about the food and making sure that everyone has fun, but other than that he couldn’t care less. Like some others who have commented, I also feel bad about my uninvolved groom. But hey, it works for us and I’m not sure that I want him nay-saying all of my fabulous ideas anyway.
Love the post! It’s interesting stuff to think about. I to have a gut reaction to go against gender stereotypes, but like you have to remind myself that if it’s true to the person then maybe it’s ok… I’ll continue needing reminders
My fiance is mostly interested in things which I reeeeally appreciate. Of course there are those days that (as some others mentioned) I could just make snap decisions and run with it, and then other days when he looks at me and says “what’s next” like he expects me to be the to-do list manager… good days and bad days…
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Mrs. Knitting, Toronto Age and Occupation: 24, Student Recruitment Assistant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Neuroscience PhD Candidate Engagement Date: October 2009 Wedding Date: December 2010 Venue: University of Toronto Faculty Club About Me: I'm a pearl wearing, etiquette book reading Toronto girl who loves cooking and baking, museums, charm bracelets, and collecting books on Jackie Kennedy (a lot). I've been known to spend Sunday mornings at the antique market, Wednesday evenings at sister sushi dinners, and any bit of spare time reading. After six and a half years of many late night walks, watching DVDs together in bed, travelling to places like New York, and Tobermory, doing Sudokus together on the couch, lots of Indian food, the occasional yoga class, moving in together and so much more, Mr. Knitting and I are planning a cozy Christmasy (it's a word!), vintage wedding in Toronto complete with many DIY projects (eek!) and lots of help from our amazing group of family and friends.
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