to involve or not to involve...

So this morning I officially booked the photographer. Yup, I put a deposit on our first wedding vendor. They're such nice and honest people and I can't wait until our engagement session!

Now, notice the pronoun I used in the above sentence. I. Not we. Why? Because Gianfranco thought cleaning his garage was more important than settling our photography plans. Of course when I mentioned this to the photographers, they inspired me with yet another blog idea.

Just how much involvement is the groom really expected to have anyway?

Contrary to popular belief, I did not grow up dreaming about my wedding day. I didn't wear a party dress and throw a towel over my face while holding a punch of paper flowers. It's not that I didn't want to have a huge wedding with a big beautiful dress. I just think my eight-year old mind wasn't really aware of how much behind the scenes work went into those fairytale weddings I saw in the movies. I think I just expected it would magically appear. That's the wedding mentality Gianfranco seems to have, which makes him a frustrating yet cooperative groom.

After our first week of getting engaged, I was already scheduling appointments to see the church and the potential reception halls. When I mentioned these plans to Gianfranco, he seemed baffled and expressed his thought that he only needed to be involved in the engagement. He actually admitted, "I thought after the proposal, my job was done." Funny, I didn't seem to think that asking the woman you love to spend the rest of your life with you was a job.

At first, I was upset and embarrassed. Does this mean he doesn't want to marry me anymore? Is he regretting his decision to put a ring on my finger? I mean, why isn't he as impressed as I am to see the bridal suite's bathroom?! Or as excited to select the song to which we'll enter the ballroom for the first time as husband and wife?! Is he not getting involved because he's dreading for the date to arrive?!

But as the weeks went by and I began mentioning more and more of our wedding-to-dos, I realized three things.

The first is that when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, he wasn't envisioning bridesmaid dresses and photographers. His idea of a wedding was simply one in which he was becoming a family with the woman who was screaming, "Yes!!! I will marry you!!" Gianfranco, and possibly most grooms, kinda skip over the whole wedding part and are thinking more long-term. They're looking into the future and seeing babies and family dinners and gray hairs. Girls, on the other hand, sometimes forget that the wedding day isn't the end of the engagement period but rather just the beginning of the "till death do us part" period. We end up spending so much time carefully planning every aspect of that ONE day that we end up neglecting the reason for the celebration in the first place. I read a quote somewhere that remarked,

"If people spent as much time on their marriages as they do planning their wedding, the divorce rate would be much lower."

The second thing I realized is that Gianfranco knew very little about weddings and how much time and energy and money they required. He was quite surprised at how many details and dollars went into innocent things like pictures and flowers. As with the engagement ring, Gianfranco had to learn the jargon of the industry. After he asked three photographers about "flush pictures," (a combination of words he had heard me use a couple of times) I finally corrected him on the term, "flush mount album" and it instantly dawned on me that he doesn't get so involved mainly because he doesn't really know how much involvement is needed! He didn't seem concerned about costs because he had no clue that the "flush pictures" may be more expensive than "the pictures that are stuck on the page" (his words, not mine). Gianfranco wasn't reading The Knot's advice columns on what to ask potential vendors and he certainly wasn't calling venues asking them about their prices. He just simply didn't know.

And finally, the last thing I realized was that items one and two were GOOD THINGS! I mean, really, how involved did I want him to be anyway? Of course I wanted him to voice his opinion if something really concerned him but in the end, the party was really all about me. Now before you get all righteous about my last statement, please read it carefully. I wrote the party was all about me, not the wedding and it's true. The actual wedding lasts about 30 minutes and it is truly about the both of us. We will both be vowing to love and honor each other all the days of our lives. We will both be blessed by the priest in the eyes of God. We will both say, "I do". But do you really think anyone expects Gianfranco to pick out the flowers in his boutonniere? Or the monogram on the wedding program? No. Gianfranco asked me to marry him. That was all. He didn't ask me if I wanted to register at Bed Bath & Beyond for stainless steel cooking pots. He didn't ask me if I preferred photojournalism over traditional photography.

Why didn't he ask me these things? Because unless it's something that will make him feel hurt, angry or embarrassed, it doesn't matter to him. The only thing that does is making me his (happy) wife.

I'm sure there are grooms out there who ARE quite involved in the planning and that's great! I find it very sweet that a man would participate in details that may not usually interest him for the sake of a beautiful celebration. But I want to remind my fellow brides that even if the Mr. doesn't seem too concerned with much aside from the food and liquor (Gianfranco just wanted shrimp), it doesn't mean he doesn't care about you or the wedding. It just means that he cares enough to support and trust whatever decisions you make, both for your wedding and for the rest of your lives.