How to get him to take ownership in the wedding and get him to help with planning.

In my last comments I wrote a little about why he doesn't help plan the big day, and gave a few ideas as to how to get him involved. In this second part I will give some useful ideas on how personalize the wedding towards the two of you so that he will be more interested and will want to participate in the planning. Men are often mistakenly labeled as strong and silent, but if you get him to talk about sports or racing or his interests you will find that he is not so silent after all. He may have even shed a tear last March when his team did not advance in the college Basketball March Madness finals, or when Dale Earnhardt Sr. tragically lost his life. To label guys even those you know from years of experience as insensitive is to misjudge them., let's not waste our time on that, but concern ourselves with solutions.

One of the best ways to get him involved is to give him some freedom to do what he wants with the wedding. Other than leaving him the planning of the honeymoon, which is usually an easy sell, you will need to give your guy some responsibility too make his OWN decision. I said earlier have him pick the location, or part of the ceremony, the minister should have a couple different suggestions to choose from, an let the groom make the ceremony reflect both of you. There are a lot of customized vows on the Internet, I have read some sports related ones as well as those dealing with sleeping in and family outings. Your vows are something to reflect the individuality of your relationship, if something is important to him, it may be good to let him include it into the ceremony. The minister can usually word anything to fit in with the rest of the ceremony. Maybe golf is your thing as a couple, so would it really be that hard to swing a couple of golf terms in to your less formal wedding. Once you give him the responsibility though, don't take it away, or he will learn to clam right up again. If you don't want to ruin the ceremony, only let him select the finalist and then choose from what he likes best, he will respect you all the more as you give him the respect by trusting in his decision making, he may even turn to you for advice while he contemplates choices.

What specifically you should give him depends on the couple, the groom, and the relationship. Here are a few recommendations of where I have seen guys shine in the planning: choosing the locations for either or both the reception and the ceremony, also good because it is at the beginning, and will get the ball rolling; choosing or setting up the minister; selecting the food and or caterer for the reception, I would not recommend the plate ware nor the silverware for the formal event, as this is not most guys forte (he probably does not notice the subtle differences between the buttercups and ivy plate and the tulip centered plate) and he really does not care, so he will view this as a set up and give the decision away; choosing the vows or ring exchange wording, may be he can make the final decision; what themes to include in the ceremony, do you want to make the ceremony unique and truly yours, let him decide what to include from your lives, he won't stray very far; choice of add in ceremonies, he has probably been to a few weddings, and may like the rose ceremony, or the sand ceremony or whatever but will it really kill you even if you don't to let him have his 2 minutes, during your 30 minutes of fame?

This not only is good for relieving stress from your wedding planning, it also will help you to set a precedent in your relationship of each of your opinions being heard. Do not let this foundation crumble, as you move on in your relationship I recommend that you let him have a say in decorating the house by giving him his own room of decorating responsibility, not just the man space of the garage, you can always designate it as the man room if the college team colors don't coordinate with the rest of the house, or other important things. This will only help you to have a good strong relationship, which is what you are looking for, correct?