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Getting the Groom Involved It’s OK to let the man help plan the big day 
In case you hadn’t noticed, it takes two to get married. Funny how most weddings, from planning stages to the last dance of the night, seem to be all about one person: the bride. While it’s true that the girls largely take the reigns for the planning and execution of the wedding process, there are grooms out there who want to be involved. Some want to be involved a lot, others as little as possible. My groom, he’s in the middle. He cares about the transportation to and from the church, but he doesn’t give a hoot about “colors” or “favors.” I decided to talk to some recently wed grooms to see how they handled the process. I learned months ago that when I’m not sure about wedding etiquette, the best thing to do is ask the folks who tripped down the aisle before you. Jeremy Akers is an independent entrepreneur and consultant living in Los Angeles who married his wife in 1998. Akers says that he figured out quickly his opinion was welcomed – sometimes. “I stayed away from most anything that had to do with how the wedding looked,” Akers says. “[Like] flowers, dresses, stationary etc. Someone gave me a piece of advice that stuck with me: Most brides have pictured their perfect wedding day since they were a child, so it’s best to go along with anything she wants, support her decisions and just help her to create her ideal wedding day.” That didn’t mean that he wasn’t consulted. “When choices needed to be made, I was presented with options, but I was rarely involved in the narrowing down process to get to those options. Angie and I were the first of our friends to get married, so we had little on which to base our expectations. We worked together to create the flow of the wedding and make sure we involved as many family and friends as possible in the ceremony. I handled a lot of the grunt work, such as making sure there were a variety of hotel options, that there were adequate direction cards for our out-of-town guests, and I made general travel arrangements.” On the other end of the spectrum are grooms like Michael Gutwaks, vice president of information & order management at Maya Romanoff Corp. in Chicago, who says he was basically “the project manager” for his wedding several years ago. “I got quotes from all of the vendors, worked out delivery schedules and responsibilities for friends that were helping,” says Gutwaks. “Some things my wife managed on her own, like her hair and make up.” That was nice of him, I thought. “I also made sure everyone got paid. We did make most decisions together about specifics, like colors, invitations and flowers.” At press time, this bride is about to go out of town for three weeks and is leaving a long list of wedding tasks for her somewhat-task-resistant groom to take care of while she’s gone. To be perfectly honest, she’s a little worried. It’s a pretty long list. My wise grooms assure me everything will be OK. “The little details are never as important as they seem while you are planning the wedding,” says Akers. “There will be mistakes. Someone you meant to include will be forgotten. Rarely does everything go according to plan, but looking back, it still seems like the perfect day to me.” From what I can tell, grooms will be as involved as the captain of the wedding ship (that’s the bride) wants them to be, and many grooms will take on more responsibility than one might think. I hope that includes picking out the table favors, because that’s on his list. |
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