Oh, it’s going to be a fun summer…
So I’ve been engaged now for a couple of months, right? And it was bound to happen eventually because I think women instinctively begin planning for their wedding while still inside the womb, so I knew it was only a matter of time before the wedding planning explosion hit and our lives were inundated with brochures and sales calls and budget estimates higher than what I paid for my last car. Granted, I’ve had since I actually purchased the ring to prepare myself for the onslaught that is wedding planning, but unless you happen to be born a little girl, with those wedding planning skills planted firmly in your genes just waiting for a chance to shine by differentiating between eighteen pretty much identical shades of white, there’s really no amount of preparation that can get a guy ready for what he’s about to face once the proposal has been put behind him!
But wedding planning could be fun, right? Maybe it needn’t be the mangled quagmire that most people make it out to be. I mean, we’re supposed to be planning The Most Important Day of Our Lives, not the last day of our lives (although there is a joke to be had there…), so you would think that the right people could still manage to make it a somewhat enjoyable experience…
Unfortunately, as it turns out, we’re not the only ones who get to help make that decision.
You see, we’re only about two months into the planning process and some parts of it have been pretty interesting, but sadly they’ve been overshadowed with a realization of the way things work, at least as far as wedding planning is concerned. My pet peeve is this – there’s a significant stereotype stating that women work themselves to death planning their weddings because their men don’t want to help or have any part in the planning process. And when I first started out down this taffeta-lined road, I aimed to defeat that stereotype because I’m not like other guys and I sincerely do want to play a part in the planning of our day. The whole idea of one’s wedding day is to celebrate a loving union between two people, so what sense would it make to force all of the preparations for that onto one person?! So like many other stereotypes, I figured that I’d have no troubles proving this one wrong, too, and thus tried my best to throw in my two cents as much as possible.
And admittedly, so far my fiancée has been responsible for the majority of the research, as far as gathering brochures and sales fliers and tabulating things for us to consider, but when it comes down to the decision-making itself, I think we’re doing pretty well so far at going over our options together, whether it’s considering locations or the guest list or even just the colors. Mind you, we’ve still got an awful long way to go, but we seem to be moving right along just fine so far. That is, until I got a cold gust of reality earlier this month when attempting to take the next step towards breaking out of that stereotype…
I had been convinced by my fiancée that bridal shows are the way to go when you’re planning a wedding because rather than trying to hunt down the various vendors separately to get more information about what they do and how much they’re charging to do it, they’re all gathered up in one place and it’s simply a matter of making your rounds around the room to collect their fliers and sales pitches. And don’t get me wrong – I knew that even going in, being called a bridal show that it would be more geared towards her, you know, to sell her on dresses and makeup and spa packages, but even so, I figured that there would still be enough presence from the photographers and DJs and tux rental places to give me a sense of purpose and still make the trip worthwhile. Besides, I was told that there would be free food … who doesn’t love free food?!
But as the afternoon progressed, I soon concluded that all the free food in the world wouldn’t be able to bring my spirits back up after having been faced with the cold, hard truth about wedding planning from the bridal show perspective and that is, it’s all about the bride – period. And because it’s her day, she’s the one who’s making all of the decisions so we really only have to sell to her with our marketing presentations and gimmicks. Mind you, I was one of maybe six or seven guys in the room at any given time as opposed to hundreds of women who were there with mothers or girlfriends or what have you, but I guess maybe it’d just have been nice to get that little bit of credit for being there, you know? Instead, all eyes were on the brides who were scrambling around from table to table collecting brochures and business cards and by the time I had left, I just felt so out of place and unwanted – not by my fiancée, but simply by the process as a whole – that I even caught myself saying those stereotypical words, “I don’t care what we do – just pick whatever you want…”
And that’s when I came to realize that despite how the stereotype may be pointed, what if it’s not so much that men don’t want to be a part of the process as women don’t want them to be a part of the process??? Sure, they complain about not getting any help and having to do everything themselves, but remember – if the wedding is all about her anyways, then who’s to say that the struggles of planning can’t just be attention whoring as well? “This wedding planning is sooo hard and I have to do it all by myself,” except for the fact that you’ve systematically scared your groom away from helping by making it a women’s-only industry. Us guys can only hear the line, “You’ve got it easy – all you need to do is show up!” so many times from vendors in their attempts to small talk us before eventually you start to believe it for real. If all I am is a guy who pays the bills and stands at the end of the aisle, why should I care about what color the napkins are or what kind of food we’re going to serve at the reception? If you truly want my participation in the process, you have to treat me like it’s actually my wedding day, too!
So needless to say, my frustrations leave me wondering if other grooms out there have had this same experience and use it to justify their lack of participation in the festivity planning as a whole. While I’m trying my hardest not to let these events affect my own involvement, I certainly find myself looking at everything from a different light now and I most definitely am not nearly as excited or interested in attending further bridal shows if none of the people in attendance, save my fiancée, really care what I think anyways. And I think that’s an important point to close on because my bride-to-be really has been good at welcoming my input in everything – I honestly don’t think I would be marrying her if she wasn’t that kind of person simply because marriage is supposed to be a team effort and I just couldn’t handle being in a relationship where it was one-sided in either direction. All in the same, though, it’s tough when you have to interact with a wedding industry that has focuses oh-so-heavily on the bride in all her glory because yes, this is a day that many women dream of since they were little girls and most are of the opinion that they’ll never look as beautiful as they did on their wedding day, but the point is forgotten that without a groom, there’d be no wedding at all. It takes two of us to celebrate a wedding – anything less is just a fancy party. I’m not asking that the fanfare for the bride be any less magnificent, but maybe just that everyone take a moment to remember that the groom is getting married on this very special day, too.
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