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?

That's £12 a head for a bacon sandwich too.....cheeky - that's bowl food prices imo. Evening canapés would be cheaper and way more hassle for the venue......

Evening guests - it's nice to buy them a welcome drink but most people expect a cash bar and it's easy to set expectations in advance on that score.

He turned up

The next day he brought me breakfast in bed, a bracelet and a card ...in the card he had written how our life was going to be together...he wS more interested in the marriage

Dh just turned up on the day and tbh I didn't do much more.
neither of us wanted a fuss, headache and years of planning.
We are still together 22 years later.
if he isn't the sort to organise things then it isn't for him. he still wants to marry you but not have to do any organising.
If you want to do all this stuff, do you have a friend you can rope in to share and help you?

Sorry, I must've done my maths wrong. It's £4.50 each for a bacon roll. :)

My dh was the same done what I asked just. He was more excited bout being married than the actual big day. But he is best husband ever

Why does an invitation have to mean loads of money is being spent on you? I'd happily go to a wedding in that scenario. It's about the people, not getting free drinks.

Yes it's about the people, and therefore it's about being a host to your guests. If all you are offering is for them to buy their own drinks, arriving after all the fun, and not feeding them, it's a bit flat, often. Especially if, as evening guests tend to be, they on the periphery of your social group and may not know many people. It's not about having money spent, it's about a sense of occasion.

I just looked at our wedding photographer's website and completely remembered why we booked him and thought he was worth the cost. I've been in FLOODS looking at his pics! We have to keep him.

I just did alllllll the money figures again, and we have to save £370 each a month to cover everything. Call it £400 to create a small bumper. we're already saving £250 each so it's not that much more, and only for 4 months.

I think we should keep things as they are, and yes hope for expect a 20% reduction in guests. But change the church to later.

So, 2pm-3pm church. 3-4 photos/travel to venue. 4-5 drinks. 5pm-7.30pm meal and speeches? 8pm evening guests?

Once we've agreed that, I can get on with invites. Then we'll have a better idea of numbers too.

Does our photographer have the full meal too?

That sounds brill. Usually you provide food for the photographer and something for the DJ but it's not usually costed by the hotel in the same way. They'll do them some warm food that the staff are having. You don't need to provide the photographer with a place setting Just ask him/her what they need and they'll tell you, but it's usually something to keep them going only. They'll disappear as soon as the first dance is done.

New plan sounds brilliant. Have you got a spreadsheet set up for costs? If you know anyone who's a bit handy with Excel so you can set it up with automatic multipliers, then you can update all your numbers as you go where headcount impacts your estimates.

We've used our wedding pics as a screen saver on the home computer. See them all the time and have never gotten around to doing an album !

I would keep the photographer. I love my photos and I have some excellent ones on the wall of my living room and enjoy looking at them every day! They were well worth the small fortune we spent on them!

If it is a church ceremony then 130pm works well as the ceremony will last about 45 mins and then by the time you sign the register and every one gets out of the church and does the confetti bit etc it will probably be 3pm.

We had a few guests that came from the other side of the world - Singapore, Mexico, and USA and my entire family travelled from Ireland so I did feel like I had to make sure they were well watered and fed. Free Prosecco, wine with the meal, procecco for the toast and the we bought one round at the bar. After that it was a cash bar and there was an evening buffet as well.

Shop around for DJ - mine cost £200 from 8-12 and he was fantastic! I also shopped around for wedding car and I paid £50 for a nice mercedes. Invites....hmm...I picked one of the cheapest but still classy looking from one of those wedding websites.....for 60 invites i think it was around £120. There are cheap nice looking ones out there. But I have no creative ability at all! Table centerpieces - Oversized martini glasses that the florist supplied with some tea lights were about £12 per table. There are ways to make things cheaper, it just depends on what is important to you both. My DH wore tails and looked fantastic! Dont regret for a second the fab BM dresses that I bought from a shop in NY and had my American BM post to the UK - Saved money and they were really lovely. Just shop around and enjoy! :)

Thank you! Invites will cost just the price of the stamps.

Thank you all so much. it's awful, but I've spent ALL day obsessing about this, only to end up with exactly the plan we already had in place! No wonder DP gets annoyed discussing this. It's not the wedding itself, it's my inability to stick to a plan! That poor man. He has no idea what he's getting into.

Write it all down.

Stick to it

And don't worry about it!

It will be fab whatever you have, whatever you do, and even if it all goes haywire, because you are marrying the person you love and that's all that matters.

Men aren't bothered about this kind of thing. He loves you and that's all that matters. In my experience put the word wedding before something and the price triples and the quality halves. Enjoy your day but don't let planning it ruin your relationship.

We were both involved in choosing everything apart from what each other was wearing. I chose my dress and my bridesmaids dress, make up etc. he went off suit shopping with his friends. He was involved in choosing the venue, flowers, wine and food.

Oh and the honeymoon. It was very much 'our' wedding.

And bollocks to this 'men agent bothered' assumption. Some are. Stop making sweeping generalisations.

Agent?? Aren't. Stupid phone!

My Wife and I planned and picked everything together with the exception of our wedding gifts for one another and her wedding dress. When it came down to the organisation of things like the evening entertainment, transportation, photographer, etc. that was all my doing. My Wife has a heavy workload with a lot of stress, so I felt it was my place to lift the wedding stress from her and take that on myself.

As said above, add Wedding to anything and the price sky rockets but I wouldn't skimp on the photographer, his/her work lasts the years. We have photos from our wedding all over the house and as the desktops for our computers and tablet.

Before we got married we were given some sound advice that I pass on. Take some time in the day to walk away from all your gusts and take ten minutes of just you and your partner to take in the day without guests, photographers or whatever else.

My husband did literally nothing, didn't even see the venue (he's a policeman so works weekends and I work full time so venue visits had to be done on weekends when he was working) I even picked his suit and despatched him to miss bros to get it. He was totally not interested at all but he is a great husband and father and although it would have been nice to have some decision making support I don't think his I out would've necessarily been helpful. It was a fab day so it all worked out well in the end!

I didn't make the "men aren't bothered" sweeping generalisation! DP said that!

No this is really normal. My DH didn't roll eyes at being told he needed to do XYZ but if I hadn't have said it then nothing would have happened.

I consulted with him on:
The choice of readings
The menu
The reception venue
The men's waistcoat and shirt styles
The wines and drinks being offered
The gift list
The entertainment at the reception
The photographer

I decided pretty much individually on:
The flowers
The decoration of the marquee
The coordinated design of the invitations, orders of service and seating plan
The design of the cake (I made it)
The transport
The church music
The colour scheme

We discussed together the main roles and the guest list.

We had a great wedding!

Put something on the invite/let people know there is no food till the evening so they can have lunch beforehand and not starve. Also, can you do most photos at the venue instead of the church, so guests not hanging around for an hour?

I've spent ALL day obsessing about this, only to end up with exactly the plan we already had in place!

That sounds like something I'd do.

He'll find it very useful aspect in the marriage. He can be sure that once he's helped move all the furniture around and around all day, that when it is revealed in it's final... and original .... position, this is tested, confirmed, CORRECT position. Not just randomly right by accident position. There is a subtle, but important difference.

My DH:

Helped choose honeymoon
Sorted the suits
Wrote the cheques
Turned up on the day

It was all wonderful.

The photographer was the only thing we splurged on (we weren't going to have one) but even though we got some good photos from friends the pro ones were amazing.

Hubby wasn't involved in too much (picking venues and menus). We used our ponies' shoes sprayed silver for balloon weights, and he did them. I guess that I just enjoyed all the making stuff more than he did.

DH did 90% of the organising. I was never interested in marriage, he really wanted to get married so I compromised because I love him very much but weddings turn my stomach

Was a nice day, never again though too terrifying