Tip of the week - Get your groom involved

He asked, you said yes.  You're engaged and getting ready to start planning the wedding of your dreams, and, traditionally, the bride has done most of the planning, but you'd really like your fiancee to be involved.  Here are some simple ideas on how to get him involved, keep him involved, and enjoy the time you will get to spend together while planning for your celebration.




1. Have dinner or lunch together, regularly, to discuss wedding plans.  Have a lot of one-on-one discussions with your notes, pictures and thoughts all readily available.

2. He's a guy, so you will have to make the planning fun and boost his self confidence.  Take him to tastings.  How can you go wrong with food and drink?  Go on fun gift registration trips.  Sporting stores (Scheels), outdoor party ideas, items needed for fun entertaining are all decisions that he'd most likely want to be involved in.  And, always make sure to compliment him on his creativity and ideas.

3. On one of the first one-on-one discussions you have, ask him what he would like to be in charge of. Even though you would still like input on these decisions, you can let him take charge of these things.
Some fun ones for the guys are:

• drink selections
• writing his vows
• music for the reception
• cake flavors
• tuxedo or suit options 
• wedding day transportation
• planning the honeymoon
• make room blocks for out-of-town guests at local hotels

4. Delegate simple tasks to your fiancee.  He can run over to pick up the invitations.  He will have to check them over to make sure everything is correct, so this is a great thing for him to do to make sure he is involved.  He can also work with you to call all of your vendors the week before your wedding to verify all important information.  Give him half of the list and the date that this should be done by.  When this is done, have some dinner and verify everything with each other.

5. AVOID fighting over wedding planning and wedding budgets. Finances is the number one topic married couples fight over. Start your marriage on the healthy path by having loving, mature, productive discussions about your wedding finances.  To make sure you don't have finance issues before you're even married, make a budget for your wedding and stick to it.  Make the budget one of those one-on-one discussions...you'll be happy you did!

6. Please don't be a BRIDEZILLA!  Your groom will give up on trying to help, and neither of you will be happy.  A BRIDEZILLA is defined by the following behaviors:

• controlling behavior
• irritability
• yelling
• making all of the decisions
• hard to please
• being critical of the groom and everyone else that is trying to help 

Planning your wedding together should be a fun and creative way for the two of you to start your new life together.  This is a great time to learn how to work together.  Planning a wedding is stressful and time-consuming, but if you work together, make sure to communicate, don't sweat the small stuff and have fun with each other, you are off to a great start.