Your Memories in a Magazine

A Plea to Brides Everywhere... from a Groom

11 August 2015

By the LifetimesMAG Scribbler...

You get to an age when you seem to spend most of your summers hopping from one wedding to another, which is not only great fun but also gives you lots of insight and ideas for when your own big day arrives.

A couple of weeks ago, it was our turn. My fiancée Lynda and I tied the knot after a two-year engagement.

Both of us loved every single minute of the day. It’s a cliché, but from a personal perspective, it really was the best day of my life.

Now, guys know that you brides have been dreaming of your big day since you were little girls and you will take great joy in analysing every last detail of preparations so your wedding is absolutely perfect.

But one thing I would like to stress to every bride-to-be out there who is ‘taking control’ of the build-up is this: you should NOT do it all on your own.

One of the reasons why my wedding day felt so utterly brilliant is that Lynda and I shared the preparations.

It felt like it was our wedding. It wasn’t just a case of ‘what she says, goes’. We discussed everything together – from the venue through to the food on the menu to the decorations.

Don’t get me wrong – Lynda was admittedly the creative driving force behind most of the best stuff around the wedding. She spent hours upon hours sifting through wedding magazines and was constantly checking all of the top wedding bloggers for tips. But if I didn’t like an idea, I said so. And vice versa.

I was also responsible for a few things – including the music, orders of service and some of the decorations. It felt like I had ownership of certain aspects of the wedding and I felt proud of those things when I saw them on the day.

I know that some grooms are quite happy to let the bride do everything. Fair enough. You know if your partner is one of those people!

But there are a lot of grooms out there who would really like to have more of a say in their wedding day.

Of the dozens of weddings that I’ve been to over the past couple of years, I know for a fact that several of the grooms felt sidelined when it came to the big decisions, and to make matters worse, they did not feel like they were allowed to speak up.

They will shrug it off by saying, ‘well it’s their day, isn’t it...’ but shouldn’t it be the happiest day in your partner’s life, as well as yours?

We know it’s your big day – that’s why the vast majority of wedding magazines are targeted at women. But please, please, please don’t become a controlling Bridezilla who won’t entertain your groom’s ideas.

Think about things that your partner can do to help with the preparations. What little touches and ideas would your partner really like on the day? What skills do they have that can be put to use? What would they enjoy putting their efforts towards during preparations?

Organising a wedding is a huge job, so for goodness sake involve them in the preparations... otherwise they will be nothing more than a wedding guest in a fancy suit!

‘Don’t tell the Bride’ is a great programme, but it encourages a bit of a lazy stereotype – that men are incapable at doing anything useful in relation to a wedding.

In most cases, this simply isn’t true, and – trust me – they would love to share in the joy of the planning.

So please, let’s bust this myth that the groom is there to be seen and not heard in the build-up to your big day.

And you never know, you might just like some of his ideas...

 

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