JP REYNOLDS WEDDING BLOG!

How To Stay Sane While Planning for Your Wedding!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Grooms Committed To Wedding Planning



Five years ago I had the pleasure of working with event designer Colin Cowie when I officiated the wedding of Survivor reality show sweethearts, Rob and Amber.  Colin is wildly creative and has a great, wry sense of humor. 

He recently wrote at The Huffington Post some suggestions for how a groom can become involved in the planning.  Of course, his ideas are spot on and I invite you to read his post: Finding Your Niche In Wedding Planning.

I especially agree with his opening insight:

Whatever style of wedding you and your fiancée prefer, as the groom you need to decide early on how involved you want to be in the planning process, and make sure your bride understands and is supportive of your role.

If you’ve read any of my other postings here, you know how committed I am to the belief that good, healthy communication is the surest way to vaccinate yourself from the insanity-inducing moments of wedding planning.  And so I agree with Colin that you and your partner need to talk about preferences right from the start.

I’d also add to Colin’s list the ceremony itself.  I'm often contacted first by a groom and this is because either the couple did strategize at the beginning and scouting potential officiants was put on the groom’s to-do list or because the groom grew up with a stronger church-going affiliation. 

While some grooms are so detached from the planning that it even extends to their opinions about the ceremony, my experience is that most grooms want to have a say in creating the ceremony.  Ritual crosses the gender divide in ways that much of the wedding does not!

Earlier this year I officiated the ceremony of a couple where the groom is a professional football player.  If you were going to go stereotype you’d think there’s no way this guy would have any strong (or worthwhile) thoughts about the ceremony.  But Logan is not a stereotype. . .he’s a guy who had a shared vision of his day with his bride, Kelly. 

As we talked about the ceremony, his insights were so astute that he managed to calm his bride who was nervous that the ceremony was going to be flimsy (it wasn’t).

The main thing is that the groom does not go through months of wedding planning shrugging everything off with, “whatever she wants is fine with me.” 

This is not the bride’s coronation; it is your celebration together!