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When we started asking around for tips/topics to include in our blog, my sweet friend Megan pitched this fantastic idea! We all know planning a wedding is incredibly time-consuming: meetings, research, etc….it can take over your life! Sadly, during this time, we often leave out an incredibly important piece of the wedding “puzzle”: our fiance’! Feel yourself following that trend? Read on to learn some smart and creative ways to include your fiance’ in the planning process without overwhelming him! Without further ado…..
Let’s just be honest, it is very unlikely that your future husband is as interested in wedding planning as you are. However, I am pretty sure that you would really like him to be a part of things. Just over a year ago, I married a real “guy’s guy.” He’s a meat and potatoes eating, rock music listening, football loving capital M-A-N man, but I highly value his opinion, and I wanted him involved in the planning process. With Chris and I living in different area codes during most of our engagement, I knew I was going to have to come up with creative ways for us to plan the wedding while spending quality time together. So, my tricky mind started working on ways to involve him without overwhelming him, and here’s what I came up with:
1. Figure out what he is most interested in without underestimating the things he may care about.
Example: I know he likes to eat, and he especially loves eating at the place we were having our reception, so I set up a lunch meeting there for us to plan the menu. He was helpful with the menu, and he was getting to enjoy a nice meal. I also had our florist meet us there just so I could kill two birds with one stone. During the floral meeting, I was very surprised because he was much more interested that I thought. He indicated that he wanted his fraternity’s flower included and he gave his opinion on some things that I never knew he was really interested in.
2. Do not give him too many options.
Example: Just in my experience, men do not usually do well with too many options. I have found that giving them about three choices is typically enough. A dear designer friend of mine was making us custom invitations. I had met with her several times on my own to talk about style, paper choice, colors, etc. and I knew that he would not have wanted to sit and talk for hours about fonts like we would, so I excused him from all of those preliminary talks. However, once she was starting to create samples for us, I shared them with him. He got excited about what she was doing for us, and stayed very interested throughout the rest of the process. However, if I had brought him in in the beginning stages, it would have been TOO much, and he wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with it.
3. Do not overload him…only a few hours of planning/work at a time.
Example: Chris is not a big fan of shopping. He also gets VERY CRANKY when he gets hungry and/or tired. We are both big “DIY” kind of people (or at least we want to be), though, so we had to go on many a shopping excursion in order to find just the right decorative lantern, antique window with panes intact or whatever other crazy thing I knew we just had to have to make our day special and unique. Ahead of time, I would try to decide how many hours we would be out so that I could let him get mentally prepared. I also brought snacks in case the grumpies started getting the best of him and always made sure that after shopping, a nice meal and a few beverages were in store for both us.
4. Give him responsibility for things he wants to be in charge of.
Example: We had decided we wanted our reception to have a very warm, fun feel where everyone would be comfortable enough to let loose and hit the dance floor. After realizing that a live band did not fit into our budget and Chris vehemently stating that he refused to pay a DJ, we decided we would try what many couples are doing these days and let an iPod be in control. Since Chris is such a huge music lover, I thought this could be his project. He worked with Clay Kennedy to get just the right rental speakers and lights, made sure he could borrow his brothers laptop and tirelessly crafted the “perfect” playlist for the reception. He got really into it, and it was a huge relief that I got to remove that item from my mile-long to-do list.
5. Find ways to incorporate things you enjoy doing together into your “wedding work” time.
Example: Within a few seconds of meeting Chris, he will probably start witnessing to you about his love for the Tennessee Titans. We get the good fortune of attending a game or two every season, but most often, we are relegated to watching them in our own living room. As the days marched on and the wedding got closer and closer, I realized that it was really going to take some time for us to put together the 200 candy bags we needed to accompany our favors. I started brainstorming ways we could work on it together without Chris hating his life, and then it hit me! I could set up an assembly line so that we could make the bags while watching Titans games together. I premixed the candy in large bowls so all Chris had to do was scoop and fill, which took very little concentration away from the game. I cut and tied ribbons until I thought my fingers may bleed, but in three or four games, we got them all done and we both survived to tell the tale!
THANKS Megan for sharing your suggestions! We look forward to many more blog topics from Megan! Stay tuned!
Do YOU have a fun wedding planning tip you’d like to share with others? Send us an email! We’d love to hear from you!
Happy Planning!
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