How Brides and Grooms can Team up on Wedding Planning

Since time immemorial, brides have been the producers, directors, field generals and general bosses of wedding planning. Why is this? Well, for one reason, weddings themselves seem to be historically focused on the bride. Flowers, jewelry, pretty dresses, statements and symbols of love and passion ... it's all up a woman's alley. This isn't to say that guys don't enjoy these things, too. But for us, our wedding is about making our bride happy and is a more of a party; for brides, their wedding is a destination that they have been looking forward to their entire lives.

This is mainly why brides get so worked up about all the details of planning a wedding. They want it to be perfect, the ultimate expression of love, the best day of their lives. So it only makes sense that the put so much time and effort into achieving that perfection. It's important to note here that this perfection exists in their minds, and if a groom is going to help his bride plan their wedding, he needs to know what this perfect day looks like.

On the flip side, grooms also have an idea of what our wedding day should be like, but often we defer to brides because we don't want to step on your toes and disappoint or frustrate you when we want to wear Chuck Taylors instead of wing tips or if we want the colors to be brown and orange (because we're Browns fans) instead of the lovely mint and silver that you picked out. Honestly, we'd rather swallow our words than get in the way of your plans.

But there is a middle ground here, and so before either of you start planning your big day, it's a good idea to sit down and talk about your goals for your wedding before you start planning. Issues like size of the wedding, budget, general guest guidelines and the like are good things to square away before you plunge into the details.

Once these are ironed out, you can begin to divvy up tasks so that each of you can wear the hat of wedding planner. You can even both choose the tasks that interest you and share in the tasks that are more labor than fun. For example, the bride may be more interested in flowers and food, while the groom may have a yen for cakes and music, so each of you can take the lead on these things. And when it comes to the budget, one person can be the keeper of the books while the other checks the numbers to make sure all is in order.

There's a stereotype out there that women are more detail-oriented than men, and in some cases that's probably true. But anybody who puts their mind to it can keep track of details, and I personally think this has been used as an excuse by guys for way too long. Weddings are nothing if not replete with details, and it doesn't take a statistician to keep track of them; just diligence and the will to do it.

There are lots of tools out there to assist you in keeping track of everything. Wedding planning binders and books have been around for years and are a great place to store clips, receipts and important papers that involve your big day. In recent years, wedding planner software has provided engaged couples with a handy way to track all their wedding details. However, regardless of the tools, it's important that you both are in agreement on how much each of you contributes to your wedding planning, as it is really no longer just the responsibility of the bride to make sure the cake arrives on time and the church is reserved on the right day. You marriage will be a team effort, and so should be your wedding planning.