A lot of women think about their fairy tale wedding from a young age; THE dress, the flowers and pretty much every detail except the most important one. Who will be the Prince to your Princess?
You’re mentally spending thousands of pounds ordering designer wedding dresses at 4 years old and even using your mum’s curtains as a bespoke wedding gown. All this before you’re even thinking about meeting your soul mate! What do you do when you meet the man of your dreams and he doesn’t give a single hoot about Vera Wang or wedding photography?
A lot of men won’t give a damn about the colour of flowers and what if you give him a choice on the scheme for your big day? Be prepared for a colour theme based loosely on his favourite team’s home kit this season. If you don’t fancy being dressed up in Liverpool Reds or draped in a Chelsea Blue you’re going to have find something else for him to be involved in. Don’t worry! There are options;
The Technical jobs
These ones are for the serious man who treats his wedding like a work presentation. We all know men like it: they like to create graphs, spread sheets or basically like to make even the simplest things geekier. So the secret is to let them!
- BUDGET – Put him in charge of money. Don’t panic! I don’t mean let him set the budget! But put him in control of ‘monitoring’ where the money was spent. Throw in an app or software package and you’ll be sitting down to evening presentations of your wedding spending. The bad side of this? You’ll have to nod along and occasionally throw in the words ‘That’s great honey’. Hey, at least he’s involved right?
- NEGOTIATING – Put him in charge of negotiating with Venues, clothes hire companies or florists. Every man thinks there is a Jerry Maguire in him somewhere; demanding honesty and the best and you may even get some extras thrown in. Note I said negotiating; for goodness sake don’t let him choose the venues, clothes or flowers…
- POWERPOINT! – There is a big trend at weddings, which involves a bit of technical know-how. Put him in charge of a PowerPoint presentation documenting your childhood, teenage years and courtship in the form of photos. He’ll love digging through the embarrassing pictures of you too!
The Creative Jobs
These ones are for the creative man who secretly watches DIY, food or fashion shows and who thinks they could do better.
- FOOD AND DRINK – You’ll have ideas of what you want you and your guests to eat on the big day, but if he is a food freak he might surprise you. It’s a big deal for a lot of Grooms to have some say on what they put in their mouths. If he’s a particularly hands on cook; suggest he throw a Food and Wine party for your friends to get inspiration and to get him in the mood. You might find your perfect dish!
- WHAT IS HE WEARING? – Some grooms have a higher sense of style than some of your girlfriends; take advantage of that. Let him design the tux based on your chosen theme. He might get more into it than you could ever imagine. Just maybe reign him in if he wants a cane like Huggy Bear
The Bottom of the Barrel Jobs
These ones are for the man who would rather have you and both sets of parents do the hard work for him. If you’re really desperate to get him to do something, here is what BrideOnline suggest for you
- INVITATIONS – No not the design. Nope not even picking them up from the printers. Like all basic admin jobs you have to start from the bottom; Envelope stuffing. If he excels himself and has decent handwriting, maybe even let him write the addresses on too. Make sure he has the proven qualifications for this promotion though.
- FAMILY SITTING – Even your Prince-to-be can’t mess up a bit of family time. Leave him in charge of some of your out of town family; if it’s Champions League time, then put him in charge of other footy lovers of the family and keep them out of trouble.
Your big day belongs to both of you; he will be more and more involved as the date gets closer so there really isn’t any reason to panic unnecessarily that he isn’t showing an interest. Of course, if you’re a detail control freak then having a laid back partner is like a dream come true. Relax, enjoy the experience and encourage your soul mate to add that Blu-ray DVD player he wants onto the wedding present register; it’ll save you buying it.
