How involved was your DH in planning your wedding?

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

My DP says he can't wait to be married to me, but is actually showing ZERO enthusiasm in planning the actual day. And I find it annoying, and worrying.

He's 45 and this'd be his first marriage. He says he never wanted to get married before, but I don't know if he really wants to now!

He says he's very happy for me to choose all the stuff. But that's actually depressing me. How miserable is planning a wedding on your own?! And if course it just heaps all the stress onto my shoulders.

He's planned/booked the honeymoon. We're saving up the money together (which is stressful as it leaves us both skint). I'm choosing the readings, flowers, making the invites, making the table centrepieces, reading about weddings, liaising with the venue, liaising with the church, dieting and working out every day to look nice, meeting girlfriends to look at dresses, make-up, reading wedding blogs.. He's doing nothing.

If I ask him to do something, he will. But he's not enthusiastic. We have to book a time to go along to have our "tasting menu" at the venue and I thought he'd love that (he loves food!). But when I reminded him we have to book it, his face settled into this "oh, wedding homework" expression.

I've said a MILLION times, if you don't want to do this, just admit it!! But he always says he does. Then comes out with the crap line, "I'm a bloke! I don't care about weddings. Anything you want will be fine!"

Part of me wants to carry on planning a wonderful day, the other part wants to tell him to shove the wedding up his uninterested arse and I'll spend my half of our wedding savings on other, more useful stuff (like the big tax bill I've just received).

How involved was your DH?? And if he wasn't involved, did you still go on to have a lovely marriage anyway, or (looking back) was it really an indication of his secret reluctance to actually be married?

My DH was EXACTLY the same as yours. They do see it as the lady's day and I suppose they are partly right.

My DH was happy if I was happy.

My DH sorted out the suits, honeymoon, gifts for his party, and chose the readings. I did everything else.

We chose the venue together and the food choices together.

He didn't seem that enthusiastic either but towards the day he got more excited and more involved.

When are you getting married? Some men just think it's ages away and don't engage mentally until it gets closer.

We had a lovely day and honeymoon and we are great.

Don't stress out about it.

He chose what he and the groomsmen would wear and we chose the menus together. That is all. He was completely uninterested in getting married but very excited about being married. We have been married over 2 decades and he has shown no sign of reluctance or regret. He tells me he doesn't want / can't imagine a life in which we are not together.

If you are happy to plan the wedding yourself, great, just do it. If however you are finding all the planning a burden and need him to do his share, tell him and be prepared to negotiate - good practise for married life.

I think his priorities are fine. He wants to be married to you. That's the important thing. If you are concerned about the one day, just get on with it.

Hmm thinking back he was happy to help with anything although his craft skills aren't great.

Things we did together:

Honeymoon, picking and looking for the best deal, booking etc
Venue, we both looked for venues and spoke with various people to arrange visits
Menu tasting, another thing we did together, we picked the menu and in fact we were equal so we both got some of the favs we liked
Wedding cake, he did this one but I found and ordered the custom cake topper, we both sampled the cakes.

In terms of decorations, I mostly did that although I got his opinions on colours and things. We both sorted the entertainment, both sorted the photographer and met the guy to discuss.

I think there are some things like bridesmaid dresses, my dress, makeup and hair that he wasn't interested in and I wouldn't have expected him to be really.

We generally do things together, make decisions together and value each other's opinions so that kind of just follows through everything we do in life.

But a lot of what you are doing isn't necessary, or relevant to him.

choosing the readings - he should have a say here
flowers - does he need to care that much really?
making the invites - he should have a say but if you want to make them rather than having them printed, well thats up to you really
making the table centrepieces - how much work is this? maybe he doesn't really care about them?
liaising with the venue, liaising with the church - yes he should be helping here, but really - how much work is this?

"reading about weddings, and working out every day to look nice, meeting girlfriends to look at dresses, make-up, reading wedding blogs.." None of that is relevant to him particularly, surely?

Weddings have a tendency to spiral and become all-consuming, which if you're not that kind of person can be quite bewildering and off-putting. Neither DH nor I spent hours fussing over much of this; we picked invites, got them printed, had about a 30min discussion about flowers which matched the centrepieces too, no church, couple of conversations with venue and one meeting with them. Few phone calls for cars etc. All done from engagement to wedding in 5 months. There is no reason to think he doesn't want to marry you, he just doesn't see why the wedding needs to take over his life.

He needs to be part of the decisions, yes, of course. But if he doesn't want to spend 3 hours in the florists, that doesn't mean he doesn't want to marry you, it just means that he's not that bothered whether the roses are white or off white.

Church, venue, invites, food, wine, readings we chose together, we chose the honeymoon but he booked it. He did all his clothes and sorted his best man, I did all mine. I chose the flowers, he organised fireworks. I guess it was about 50 50.

But we had a wedding planner who organised our choices, which really helps.

Me and dh went to the reigster office and booked the day, paid the fee etc
we bought the wedding rings together
we bought his suit together
and he organised the presents for his mum and the best men, the honeymoon

me and my mum sorted the venue for the evening do, the venue for the meal after the ceremony (just close family)
it was in my home town and my mum was fantastic and did most of the booking / organising on her own

me and dh sent all the invites out from our house and all replies came to us so we sorted numbers

my mum also sorted the flowers and cake, I just told her what coours we wanted

I think we did about 50:50

I may have been more involved in the bm dresses (phone call to aunt, any colour the girls like. Let me know and I'll match the flowers to their dress) and flowers once I had a swatch of material.

Other than that we did everything else together.

We married three months after meeting... he put the cake boxes together. I booked the registrar and bought three dresses.

Mine was the same as yours. I'm the organiser in our family and he's happy to be managed.

Tbh he couldn't give much of a shit about the day as it was the marriage he wanted, not the wedding.

We went and chose things together that affected mattered to him but everything else wasn't on his radar and I loved having control so it wasn't an issue.

That's been our marriage in summary. The things he finds important I really am uninterested in, an visa versa. Makes for a good marriage as we aren't 'specialising' in the same areas and gave got everything covered between us.

He dealt with the paperwork.

The guests questions, wobbles and objections.

Driving me around the day before to find something to wear cos Easyjet lost my sister's bags so I lent her my half my wedding outfit and needed a new thing to go on top.

The invitations (cos they were phone based and I hate speaking Italian on the phone).

Going to the supermarket to get the food becuase allegedly English people wouldn't know "good" prosciutto if their life depended on it.

I mainly concerned myself with the question 'hair up, or hair down ?" And how to say "Si" with loving conviction, but without sounding overly empathic. MIL was prone to calling me "just like an SS officer", so I was keen to avoid that little gem working its way into the ceremony and stressed a lot over hitting the right note with "Si". Which is harder than you'd think.

A big wedding is very different to a marriage. You need to separate them. He doesn't enjoy party planning, either do it yourself or just go down the registry office.

My DH was involved in pretty much all decisions bar dresses, hair and makeup etc but I did all the research and then discussed the options with him (to be fair I quite enjoyed it). Only got frustrating when he kept vetoing my first dance suggestions! My BIL on the other hand did absolutely nothing and they had a DIY wedding so lots of prep required. I think some men just don't get that excited by the detail. Doesn't mean he doesn't want to marry you!

Look, he's told you, he doesn't care about the actual wedding other than it will make you happy which it isn't really.

From what you say it's costing more than you can afford and leaving you skint so in all honesty I imagine he's feeling pretty meh about it all but wants you to be happy.

Don't mistake this for not wanting to be married to you though. Can you scale it down a bit? However if it is what you want more than anything, enjoy the planning and look forward to an amazing day. Get friends and relations interested. No doubt he'll look interested on the day.

I was definitely more involved than my DH at first. The engagement ring had barely been placed on my finger before I was off making calls to venues and caterers! At first I took the lead on stuff - although he was happy to come to venues, meet caterers etc so joint decisions were being made. Then as time went on, he got a lot more involved with the guest list (his family situation is complicated, shall we say, so he kind of had to, if only to decide who to put together and who to keep separate!) So towards the end, we were both working equally as hard.

I sorted the dresses out obviously, and picked flowers and colour theme.

I agree with what NeedaBumChange says, remember it is about the wedding and not the marriage. Hands up, I got pretty consumed by it all, I'll admit, and there were definitely times when that look of 'can we just not talk about this again??' did cross his face whenever I started a major stress about s the name cards for the tables!

Maybe try and keep involving him in something fun - OK you tried the food tasting to no avail, but how about picking songs together? My DH is a music snob freak so he got very involved in picking music for the ceremony and evening do. We had good fun choosing our first dance one evening, over a bottle or two of wine. And if all else fails, try and see the funny side - when we picked our wedding cake we went to the naffest shop ever, the tables were shaped like cakes which we just thought was hilarious! (and this was straight after a HUGE argument, so you have to take the rough with the smooth. Wedding planning is not for the fainthearted...)

If he really isn't that fussed, how about involving a good friend or a relative? Some of the best moments of wedding planning for me involved sinking a bottle of champagne with my bridesmaids after choosing their dresses, and finding the perfect vintage hairpiece during a day out with my mum. They both were a lot more excited than my fiance would have been in the same situation!

Good luck - and enjoy - some men (and women) just aren't that fussed on the whole wedding scene, that doesn't mean they don't want to get married though!

My DH can't show excitement for something until it's happening. It used to worry me, especially when we were booking our first holidays and viewing our first home. I would have thought he didn't care for the wedding if I didn't know him much better by then!

He took an interest in things and said yes or no to certain aspects and had his own wants for the day but he wasn't like me, on pinterest all night

I did all the planning but I wanted to and it was fun for me, if I was stressed he'd have stepped in but I really wasn't and our tastes are so alike we knew the kind of wedding it was going to be from the get go.

If we ever did which I don't imagine will ever happen I don't think I'd actually want DP to have too many opinions on how it should work.

It's always the bride who gets the credit/blame for how a wedding is.

Fair enough they should get a say in their outfit, the vows, civil vs religious ceremony, venue, honeymoon but would you really want to be debating every little detail with him?

I would say we were pretty much 50/50. We chose venue, food, wine, buffet menu together. Did all the admin (register office etc) and ring buying together.

We chose the readings and music together.

He sorted his outfit and best men/ushers outfits. I did mine (didn't bother with bridesmaids).

We did the flowers together too.

But we didn't let it consume us, we are both pretty easy going (we chose the only venue we viewed, only saw one florist for example!).

I did most of the liaising with the venue, mainly because I'm more organised.

Oh and he sorted the honeymoon, with my input though of course :)

Getting married and having a wedding are two very different things.

Your DH is looking forward to marrying you and spending some wonderful quality time with you on your honeymoon.

He's not overly fussed about the actual wedding because this bit is just a party full of frivolity and expense, most of which is entirely unnessecary for the actual deed of getting married.

It sounds to me like his priorities are perfectly in the right place.

It sounds like you are the want the wedding, but don't want the marriage? Keep it simple

Dh sorted suits and menu. That was it really. Didn't bother me that he wasn't enthusiastic about the organising at all.
We had a great day and are still very happily married 10 years and 3 dc later.

I wouldn't take his non interest as a bad thing.

He chose the suits and ties for the groomsmen and helped choose readings (which I researched and shortlisted). That was pretty much it really. We rowed when he got hacked off that I'd stopped consulting him on anything but I had to point out that he hadn't done anything he'd elected to do or responded to anything I'd asked him by email.
He changed his mind on the colour of the suits from black to navy AFTER the black bridesmaids dresses had been bought. Was totally baffled when I went nuclear!

Stop making invites and other stuff that you don't have time for.

We have a great marriage and had a brilliant wedding day.

Watch Ed Byrne on weddings on YouTube. It will give you a good idea of the average mindset of the male.

Oh, you're all so sweet to reply - thank you.

I think it's the stress that's getting to me most. All the decisions. I'm crap at decisions and invariably change my mind and regret everything. :)

I love choosing/talking things over with him, but I'm now over-sensitive to any sign of disinterest, so I register even the faintest flicker of a yawn across his face as total pre-wedding panic and regret.

I'll involve him more and stop being so insecure.