I can’t believe another month has passed and it’s time again for Polka Dot Hot Spot! Any nagging problems? things you want to get off of your chest? get an opinion on? Leave me a comment!
Today’s hot spot is all about the groom. I’ve been reading a lot about grooms lately. From publications that give Groom’s a tiny page and tell the bride “Don’t bother him with small decisions” to Mr Polka Dot’s post “The Invisible Groom” and it has me thinking a lot. Involving the groom, or should I say not acting like he is just an accessory has always been really important for me (which is part of the reason we launched a dedicated site for grooms two years ago). I suppose my thought has always been that two people come into a relationship and therefore two people are equal parts of a wedding celebration.
There are definitely some things that grooms aren’t particularly going to be interested in and the same can be said for brides. But I want to know from you- what do you think? Has your groom been equally involved? Has he been frustrated by the lack of information for him? Or could he care less? (I say he but whether it’s a she, a he, or something else the point remains).
A sad memory of a groom – I attended a wedding a few months ago and there was a moment during the ceremony where the groom forgot what he was saying. I put it down to nerves at the time but speaking to him later at the reception, discovered he was watching someone putt out on the golf course out the window!! He never really had his heart set on the union and the maid of honour was saying he didn’t smile once during the rehearsals or any of the preparations.
A very happy memory of a groom – One of my closest friends from high school married her sweetheart and it was one of my favourite weddings. He was so involved in everything from the ceremony to the reception and beyond and his opinion was important to my friend. I think it was a comment on how their whole relationship is shaped. On the day, as my friend walked down the aisle, he shed tears of joy seeing his soon-to-be wife.
I agree wholeheartedly that a wedding needs to be about both of the people in the relationship. Otherwise you’re missing the point of this special union. Yet in this day of mega expensive, bride oriented weddings, I feel that sentiment gets lost in translation.
Hopefully, when it comes to our day, my partner and I will be dedicated to discussing as much of the day as possible. 😀
Thank you for the topic. xoxo
Danielle- that is a sad story. It breaks my heart when one isn’t really into the wedding ceremony. I know there is compromise and getting married solely because it is important to your partner, but I think you owe it to your partner to “show up” us well if you make that decision.
Thankfully your happy story seems to be the majority of the weddings I read, i love stories like that!
I really want to crack that mold of bride centric- I don’t believe in it and it makes me feel really uncomfortable. But we even get it in our own site- Polka Dot Groom topics are harder (I don’t want to write topics that may not interest the grooms, so again I’m even buying into it myself) and we struggle to get groom written submissions so it’s something we consciously are focusing on.
My wonderful groom was involved in every element of our wedding. There were certain parts he cared about more than others and vice versa, but it was very much his day as much as mine.
We spent days before the wedding crafting and making elements of our day together. Some of my best memories of our wedding were leading up to it. For example, he taught me how to use the sander to make our stage and I taught him how to use the sewing machine to make our invites. He ended up being a better sewer than me!
At the end of the day, our wedding was one day in our life and acted as a symbol for how we wanted to move forward together in life. It’s a partnership through and through.
I love that! Mr Polka has quite the dab hand at crafts (he has a technical brain!) so i don’t buy it that guys can’t participate in the elements of the wedding like that!
Really love your perspective and agree with you!
And doesn’t planning your wedding and being involved in it TOGETHER, set the pattern for your relationship for the years to come? If one of you is dis-engaged, or disinterested, or worse, deliberately not being involved for whatever reason – be it because the bride feels ‘she’s the boss of it’, or the groom couldn’t care less, or feels excluded, then that’s scarey!! Not the way to start the ’till death do us part’ journey.
It has been said by some that us girls tend to, ahem, exclude our men in certain things. I’m not suggesting that this is always the case but if our grooms aren’t participating, maybe we should look at communicating with them about what they really want and remembering that it’s just as much their day as ours. Maybe then, they’d be more inclined to get involved. Thoughts?
true Ms Gingham. I think it’s vital to communicate if you’re having an issue (if you want to do everything and your partner is happy for you to fine! but if you’re secretly seething…!) They often say wedding planning is a good test for relationships- family stress, money stress, responsibility stress! So if you can’t talk through your issues surrounding wedding plans, what’s the point?
I think a big part of the problem is that girls and guys are so different in the way they think about getting married. Many girls imagine the day they will get married, long before the potential groom is in the picture, whereas most men don’t seem to really picture their wedding until they are actually engaged (or until their bride-to-be is asking them which garlands they prefer and they don’t even know what a garland is!). For this reason I think some brides get carried away with planning their wedding the way they have always imagined it and don’t really make an effort to involve their partner and find out what he wants his wedding to be like. Add to this the fact that many grooms just don’t place as much significance on this one day as their bride and you often end up with a wedding that is exactly what the bride wants and doesn’t at all reflect the groom or the two of them as a couple.
So, brides, make sure you make an effort to find out what your groom wants and to try and involve him at least in some aspects of your day that do interest him. Maybe he doesn’t care about the decorations but maybe he is excited about the idea of a lolly buffet or a band or planning the menu. And grooms, tell your bride what you want, or at least what you don’t want. Sometimes we girls can get carried away but if you make it known that you do have an opinion when it comes to this stuff we will (for the most part!) listen to it. Planning your wedding is so much more fun and so much more rewarding when it is a shared experience and the end product reflects you as a couple and I speak from experience 🙂
Kristy that’s a really great point, I suppose that’s also where it comes down to communication and not going by what the “wedding industry ” advises. Some guys are not interested in the typical “cars and music ” publications advise us to throw to the groom to “make him feel involved” (ugh). Maybe that’s part of the problem? Planning a wedding is such a big undertaking, it’s so hard to see through the “rules” and understand you don’t actually need to do things in ANY particular way. Gosh maybe the bride loves cars and maybe the groom has a live of flowers! Nobody knows your relationship, or yourselves better than both of you. I think it’s important to keep that knowledge above anything else. It is after all what it’s all about!