In wanting my fiance to have some enthusiasm/involvement in planning our wedding?

[pmjh]

Don't get me wrong - this is not enthusiasm for the actual getting married bit - this we are clear on and he def wants to do this which is why he asked

Its the HOW. And the long and the short of it is he doesn't know what he wants. Only a long list of things he doesn't want. And I am getting a bit fed up with his lack of positive in put.

From his POV he doesn't generally like weddings as he says he finds them all too similar and uniform and tedious. Which is of course his opinion and fine. But he has no suggestions as to what he wants to do AT ALL.

Am starting to feel a bit that he never comes up with anything positive. His latest is that I can plan the day I want (he imagines this to be big white wedding stylee) and he will go along with whatever I want. AIBU to feel upset that he does not say this with any good grace or even a smile? And any suggestions as to how to move forward?

TIA

yabu

he is a man ffs

at leats he has given you a list of the things he doesn't want

do your research and present him with a few widely differing options and see which one makes him go 'oh'
eg
married in Vegas by Elvis
on a beach in the Carribean
Disneyworld
Snowy alpine castle
underwater
etc

if after all this he says 'but I thought we'd just have a hotel buffet and a disco' then you have your answer

This all sounds very passive-aggressive to me. Or just Bloke trapped in the - 'don't want to get involved if I ignore it long enough she will do it'.

Be warned - if you let him get away with it then it will continue for the rest of your lives - the washing up, changing nappies, telling MIL not to keep giving dc's sweets at bedtime, telling mil that bil is gay... it will never end.

Tell him you can't be a**ed either and are spending the money on an Abba-themed yoga weekend in St Ives instead.

In my experience getting excited about planning the wedding is a girlie thing and most of the time if the man did suggest something it would probably be wrong! Just plan things for how you would want them, checking he hasn't got any abect objections to it and get your female friends and family involved in the decision making, they get more excited about it all!

(NB if you do as Corriefan suggests, at least make sure you avoid his stated Don't Wants)

YANBU to want him to be more enthusiastic... but you are probably being unrealistic. Ime not many men "get" the whole wedding planning thing (there are exceptions of course).

DH drove me insane by insisting he was happy to go along with any plans I made and then turning his nose up when I ran them by him just before finalising things etc.

Ask him what his ideal day would and wouldn't involve. He almost certainly will not be interested in flowers, colour schemes or other such guff, but might be able to find a couple of things he is interested in (for dh it want music and food !)

Thanks for your comments. Yes I am sure you are right in that 9 out of 10 men would never get close to the level of excitement that 9 out of 10 women have for this kind of thing. tillyscoutsmum one thing you said really struck a chord - the saying he is happy with whatever or making a vague suggeston but then when I go off and research cost etc and come back and say shall I organise X he turns his nose up and sort of says "meh". And whilst I don't expect him to get too excited I was rather hoping he would feel more than "meh" about a party to celebrate our little family - is this U?

I sympathise, DH was utterly useless not particularly helpful at coming up with stuff when we tied the knot.

I took his lack of interest badly at first, until I realised that he was just not v ceative of imaginative. He can't even decide what to have for dinner ffs!

In the end we agreed I would do the planning and he would have right to veto anything he didn't like. He also had reponsibility for booking the registry office and getting his suit... although that was quite pain tbh. We ended up doing the reg office bit about 2 weeks too early because he had left it to late. At our wedding we had already been legally married a fortnight(!)

Any way, it all worked out - wedding was fab - and he is a wonderful husband and father. Just not v imaginative!

but to him it is not 'a party to celebrate our little family'
it is a royal pain in the arse and is making his (formerly quite sane and lovely) girlfriend squeal and talk about flowers/ dresses / colour schemes.
he wants a marriage, not a wedding

how about sneaking off and doing it on the quiet?
what doesn't he want?

Is it a cost thing ?? DH seemed fine with the idea of getting married and if anything, he was the one who tended to not want "cheap" stuff but when he actually found out prices of things, I think he was really shocked (tight arse )

my partner is exactly the same all he says that if its ridculous then its not gonna happen, apart from that its all up to me

Oh - and try not to take it personally (I know its hard). He obviously wants to be married to you and his lack of enthusiasm doesn't mean anything sinister...... he's just being a bit of a bloke

draw them out on what they liked at weddings you've been to

'oh yes, Mike and Lisa had that great band'

'Gemma and Dan made us wait ages for dinner while they had photos taken, that was crap'

'do you remember at Dave and Helen's when they ran out of champagne just before the toasts?'

Maybe he would just like to nip down to the registry office and get two witnesses off the street, but doesn't like to say so.

Mrs Badger I have said lets just say sod all the hoopla and head off to the registry office - I have suggested this a number of times and I have also said I would rather do that than spend a shedload of our hard earned cash on a party one of us is not too keen on. But he says no to that and that he wants our family and friends there. But that is as far as he gets on what he does want. We have looked at venues and stuff together and he and I both like one a lot. And he is happy for me to do things like invites and flowers and find a photographer if that's what I want and I am okay with that.

Its just the going round in circles between "I don't want a big white identikit wedding" and "I don't just want to slope off to the registry office I want our family and friends there". And then every so often he gets teh arse because he just wants something booked!

hmmm. The trouble is he is a man and therefore unlikely to be interested in the little details, but want to feel that he is making the choices.

I would advise keeping it simple.

Give him specific choices. eg

"DP, which of these 3 places would you like to get married, A, B or C?"

"DP, do you want to book the caterers or the band?"

Start with the main frame work (venue to get married, venue for reception, number of guests etc) and then use the above method to get down to the detail. He will eventually lose interest and then you can start dishing out the jobs (always giving him a choice of at least two).

IME this is the only way to do it without feeling like you're doing everything or him feeling that he's not involved/had no say.

YABVVVVU. I think I would be bored if I ever had to plan my own wedding. This stuff (the peripherals) is just very dull and pointless to a lot of people

I think he is a typical man-he will love it on the day but has no interest in how you get to that point! I would go with joesmum.

We have it set up so I have had free range with the wedding, and DP with the honeymoon. We've discussed ideas and likes/dislikes but have been responsible for sorting out bookings etc by ourselves.

So I get the day of my dreams and a holiday where I don't have to organise ANYTHING - I think I have the better choice

he's a man, what do you expect. YABU. They just show up on the big day, that's all they really feel up to doing.

we just said to each other 'do you want to get married then' and went to the registry office a few months later and tied the knot. no fancy proposals, it was more like a business transaction! I couldn't be arsed with all that fussing over favours and chair covers and how many bridesmaids to have etc and I also know DH was not into the details either. For some people, making too much of a wedding is more effort than is really necessary.

YABU i found it much easier to just get on with it because everytime i involved him he banged on about the cost. He still says it was the best day of his life and i genuinely think that he enjoyed it more than me.

I would love if my dh took an interest in Weddings, interior design and gossip but he's rubbish at the lot he also showed little to know interest in my pregnancys but is a fab dad. He's good at other things though. Men HUH

YABU i found it much easier to just get on with it because everytime i involved him he banged on about the cost. He still says it was the best day of his life and i genuinely think that he enjoyed it more than me.

I would love if my dh took an interest in Weddings, interior design and gossip but he's rubbish at the lot he also showed little to know interest in my pregnancys but is a fab dad. He's good at other things though. Men HUH

Both DH and I found it hard to drum up enthusiasm for wedding planning. Some people just aren't interested in that stuff.

Before we got married an older male colleague took me aside and said the following true fact.

"The wedding is really the woman's day. The man does not enjoy it half as much"

He was so right. I just got sick of the whole planning thing and wanted it over with, didn't sleep he night before, shook like a leaf through the service and only relaxed when we drove off in the car at the end. DW just loved the whole thing.

I really wanted to get married but could have done without the wedding. I have never looked at the photos but love DW very much and would like to renew our vows.

If any of that makes sense.....

I agree with your fiancee that a lot of weddings are formulaic - why MUST you have favours/ bridesmaids/ a first dance / toasts/ a seating plan?

We had our wedding the way we wanted it - DH only realised that was how we wanted it once I had made the initial suggestion

My initial idea was that if we had a large enough house I would have just had a big party at the house and have everyone stay over so there was no hassle about taxis etc.

What we ended up doing (not having a house big enough for more than four guests) was hire a country house which was licensed for weddings, invite people to stay in the house with us, arranged some catering and made other food available for breakfasts etc.

We had no flowers, photographer, disco, cars (no need), and I didn't have my hair styled into a concrete creation or have makeup applied with a trowel, and it was all exactly as we wanted it. We had to search high and low to find it though. I found my DH had some very strong (and quite often surprising) opinions but I needed to ask the right questions and they were about the important things like guests/ music/ best man and witnesses/ inviting children (we did) etc. He wouldn't have been bothered what our colour scheme was within reason (we didn't have one anyway) or any of that sort of thing.

Maybe ask him what he thinks the important elements are and then give yourself free rein with all the rest knowing you have his blessing.