Should Grooms Be More Involved?

[Trinci]

I would really enjoy hearing what people have to say on this. I truly believe Marriage is about being a team on everything. If a groom doesn’t see the wedding as an opportunity to express his love by helping share in the task of planning such a significant day in their lives, then how dedicate is he to her and their relationship? In marriage there are a lot of things you’re not going to want to participate in, but you do it anyway because you really want to fully support the other person.

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Thank you!
Jeff

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

Nope, because everything you do will be wrong. The wedding is her day.

 

[mina]

My groom is involved!!! We are making descions together. I'm not into that whole "it's my day" "it's OUR day" "look at us and bask in our love" crap anyway. But it is fun to plan together and make descions that will really help us celebrate a special day with our friends and family. I can't imagine doing this on my own and it being soley about me....I'd probably just elope.

 

[citizenthom]

A wedding, like any other event, can't have two bosses; and your fiancee knows you well enough to know what you can and can't do. Give input when asked, take her around for the shopping, and do manual labor when asked; but it is begging for bad results to "take the lead" on something without knowing exactly what she wants.

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

A wedding, like any other event, can't have two bosses; and your fiancee knows you well enough to know what you can and can't do. Give input when asked, take her around for the shopping, and do manual labor when asked; but it is begging for bad results to "take the lead" on something without knowing exactly what she wants.

Bingo.

Seen too many weddings being prepared where the groom to be made a suggestion the bride to be didn't agree with. There was fire in the eyes of the woman turned Bridezilla.

 

[iambren]

Trinci, I TOTALLY agree with your post. This is THEIR day, not the coronation of a queen. And if the couple thinks they should get married then they will find this as good training for teamwork.
They may even breakup as they learn about themselves which is fine, another divorce avoided.

When I married we did it in 3 months. We met every night in my apartment and compared notes dividing up chores. I'm proud that I found the material for the gals dresses. We had ~200 wedding, wed party of 8, 2 pastors, wrote our vows, horsedrawn carriage, reception with meal, DJ and dancing. All for 3.5K ! Wife used the gown from my brother's ex-wife for 50 bucks, cake from Kroger etc.

Have fun and be creative!

 

[Luther073082]

Actually I think you are all wrong, its not her day or his day or even their day. Its a day for God to be worshipped in the bringing together of a couple in the holy institution of marriage. As I tried to tell my mom (who isn't Christian and was somewhat upset with some of our wedding decisions, that we where having a Christ centered wedding, not a bride centered wedding.)

I think its a good idea for grooms to be involved and to help out with a lot of stuff and certainly to give input.

But as someone said, there has to be someone who naturally just sort of takes the lead on some stuff. And I think the bride naturally takes the lead on this kind of stuff because there are things that I think they care more about.

Like the things I cared about in the wedding where basically.

What church it was in
Who officiated it
Music, both at the service and the reception
A few of the things we did at the reception
Who was in the wedding (Ushers, Groomsmen especially)
Some of the food at the reception

And really thats about all I cared about. But there is so much other stuff like the colors and the photographer, that my wife cared a lot more about. Like with the colors my only rule was really that I don't want pink or purple. Other then that I don't care.

I'm definatly not against grooms helping out, but in all honesty I think there are a lot of things in the wedding that most guys really don't care so much about. Like how many guys honestly care about the flowers at the reception? And maybe some guys care about it, but I could care less about the cake.

Now I was prevented from helping out too much because I lived a 1000 miles away from where we where getting married. But I visited her about once every 2 months and a lot of those times we where working on wedding stuff for almost my entire visit. So I did help out some, but not a lot.

 

[CrystalBrooke]

Nope, because everything you do will be wrong. The wedding is her day.

Not true and this attitude really bothers me. It is NOT the bride's day, it is the couple's day..together. It's not about one or the other..but both of them. I wish modern society would wake up and realize that.

Charlie has helped make a lot of decisions, altho I still argue with him about the cake..but it's not a big deal. (he says all wedding cakes are supposed to be round in shape instead of square..which is what I wanted) I know tons of grooms who simply don't want to be involved. They just let her do what she wants because that's her "job". That's fine and dandy if you want to sit there and be lazy about the whole thing, but don't complain when she's spent more money than you think she should and she has you dressed in a white tux with a pink vest.

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

Not true and this attitude really bothers me. It is NOT the bride's day, it is the couple's day..together. It's not about one or the other..but both of them. I wish modern society would wake up and realize that.

Charlie has helped make a lot of decisions, altho I still argue with him about the cake..but it's not a big deal. (he says all wedding cakes are supposed to be round in shape instead of square..which is what I wanted) I know tons of grooms who simply don't want to be involved. They just let her do what she wants because that's her "job". That's fine and dandy if you want to sit there and be lazy about the whole thing, but don't complain when she's spent more money than you think she should and she has you dressed in a white tux with a pink vest.

Except the reality is that most decisions made in the planning process the male simply doesn't care about and the ones who do usually end up butting heads because it's not what she wants. It's simply not worth the hassle or the aggravation that follows to get involved in 90% of the decisions made.

We call it marriage training much like marriage counseling. We just nod our heads and say "yes, dear".

 

[CrystalBrooke]

I guess I'm the odd one out..I don't want a "yes, dear" type of guy. I want input, I want opinions..I want him to disagree with me from time to time. Charlie wasn't involved in the flowers, I asked him if he wanted to go, but he said he knew nothing about flowers and whatever I picked out would be fine. Likewise, I know nothing about tuxes and told him to get whatever he wanted so long as it didn't have ruffles on it

 

[Sketcher]

If more grooms were involved in a meaningful way, I'm sure that weddings on average would be a lot cheaper.

 

[CrystalBrooke]

Well, they could certainly try to make them cheaper, but because men are hardly ever involved in planning they have no idea what anything costs. A simple wedding will still cost more than a man thinks it should simply because he's ignorant of prices.

 

[Sketcher]

Well, they could certainly try to make them cheaper, but because men are hardly ever involved in planning they have no idea what anything costs. A simple wedding will still cost more than a man thinks it should simply because he's ignorant of prices.

A fair point, but we're more likely to say "we don't need that."

 

[CrystalBrooke]

Oh don't I know it! But you say that to things that are in 99.9% of weddings..things like flowers. I've realized men have NO clue how much flowers cost for a wedding..or cake...or(simple) decorations.

 

[mina]

haha I'm the one finding the deals in our wedding planning.....
Convo:
him: Yeah this looks good and it's a good price.
me: I can get it for a better deal and it will look better or the same......(and then I do) It pays to shop around.

 

[Luther073082]

Oh don't I know it! But you say that to things that are in 99.9% of weddings..things like flowers. I've realized men have NO clue how much flowers cost for a wedding..or cake...or(simple) decorations.

You realize that a lot of those things are in there because the bride wants them there right??

I maintain that a lot of the weddings are pretty much run by the bride because the bride cares about more of the details then the guy does.

Like for me, there where only certain details that I cared about and the rest I didn't care so much about. Thats why women end up doing most of the planning. Honestly would you want a guy who doesn't care about the flowers to go pick out the flowers for the wedding by himself?

Honestly this is how guys think about weddings. I want a certain few things and my bride to be happy with everything else. After he gets his certain few things that he wants, its more important to just let her be happy about everything else cause he just really doesn't care.

For example flowers, the guy just doesn't care about flowers. But the flowers make her happy. Hence there are flowers.

I'm not trying to excuse uninvolved grooms or think they should be totally uninvolved. But the bride is always going to be more intimatly involved in the details of the wedding because she's the person that actually cares.

 

[CrystalBrooke]

Things like flowers are in weddings because it's tradition and long ago they were there because they actually meant something. Now we just have them because..well we just have to have them So I agree with you to a point.

 

[Luther073082]

Things like flowers are in weddings because it's tradition and long ago they were there because they actually meant something. Now we just have them because..well we just have to have them So I agree with you to a point.

Correction, women just have to have them.

I got married. . . who do you think was oohhing and ahhing about the flowers at our reception?

It wasn't the guys.

There's nothing wrong with women caring about these details you know, but thats just why the bride is more involved with it all. Now if I would have been nearby I probably would have ran more of the errands and things. But there was very little I could do from 1000 miles away from both her home and the wedding site. Most of the visits I took I worked on wedding stuff when I was there.

But I'll bet if you really think about it, a lot of your groom's input on some things has probably been something to the effect of "Whatever makes you happy."

 

[147]

Nope, because everything you do will be wrong. The wedding is her day.

Yup, but it scares me, because my fiance isn't that sentimental or romantic. So I'm anticipating that we'll end up at a church with no decorations, no frills, no reception, people to look at us strange, me looking at her strange with her saying "What? You should've planned something..."

However, I think Korean culture (she's Korean) dictates that the parents arrange everything. So all hope may not be lost.

 

[CrystalBrooke]

But I'll bet if you really think about it, a lot of your groom's input on some things has probably been something to the effect of "Whatever makes you happy."

No, not really. And that's fine with me, I like a real opinion and he has certainly given me that.