Note: I wrote this for Tori's crafting blog a couple years back, but for various reasons was never posted. So here it is in its hilarity: picking a bridegroom for your wedding.
So you’re planning a wedding. You’ve called your mother, the florist, the dressmaker, your hairdresser, the deejay, the minister, the caterers, your gay friend who dated the deejay, the baker, the baker’s florist, your mother’s caterer, the hairdress maker, and the caterer’s gay minister’s baked mother. Moreover, you called at least four or five suitors for all these jobs and are now more intimate with your cell phone than any previous (and present) significant other in your adult life. And how has your husband-to-be contributed to the wedding plans since he popped the question? He mastered “Calling Dr. Love” on Rock Band 2 and won’t shut up about it.
I’ll be blunt, ladies: if your fiancé has no interest in any aspect of the wedding, the odds are pretty good he has even less interest in being a groom. Or, for that matter, a husband.
I know, I know: he’s not as big into the wedding as you, and besides, the wedding is the bride’s big day. Everyone is looking at her. Smartass brides will frequently substitute other males for the groom at the altar – her father, her rabbi, her dog – just to see if anyone notices. (They never do.) But grooms are critical to the wedding process: without one, a bride is nothing more than a ludicrously-dressed woman surrounded by people who gave up a day of college football and “Snapped” marathons for free food and booze. So if you’re going to throw a wedding, it only makes sense to have someone standing next to you, and it might as well be a guy you sleep with.
Despite the groom’s lesser presence in the wedding, it doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t contribute. And maybe he even wants to contribute. The key here, of course, is linking the requirements of wedding preparation to the groom’s interests. Sure, your wedding doesn’t require a Nacho Muncher or a Bridesmaid Gooser, but I’m sure your future husband has some interests that can be exploited for wedding gain.
For example, does your groom-to-be like to cook? No? Just barbequing? Ok, how about music? Does he like listening to anything? No? How about alcohol? Just Old Style? And his idea of a bachelor party is playing Wii with his friends? WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU MARRYING THIS BORING LOSER? Replace him with another, more interesting groom. Right now. I’ll wait.
Okay. While you break in your new groom, I’ll offer myself as an example of a groom providing valuable wedding preparation services. As our wedding approached, I was involved with some – not all – aspects of the wedding. Since I enjoy cooking, I participated in selecting a caterer. I also love listening to music, so I helped my wife-to-be hire a deejay. Choosing the wedding cake was also a cooperative effort. The more I helped my fiancée, the more personally invested I was in the wedding.
Given, I didn’t help with everything. I was a passive observer at best when my wife looked into bridesmaids’ dresses, and I had nothing to do with choosing flowers. Why? I wasn’t interested in that stuff. It was okay, though – I participated enough with the wedding that my fiancée wasn’t overwhelmed.
Not every bride has a mother to advise her, or at least a mother she trusts not to drive her into a heroin habit by the time the bride’s wedding day arrives. She may have sisters, aunts, best friends, cousins, and maybe an overenthusiastic co-worker, but the person she should turn to when a wedding problem wears her down is the person she’ll want to turn to after the wedding. It worked out for me, and I’m a happier person for it. Sure, I didn’t get to goose the bridesmaids, but the nachos I’ve gotten out of the deal more than make up for it.