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Where are all the ‘how to be the perfect groom’ wedding articles?

A dose of control-freakery, a sexist wedding industry and colourblind groom mean Yahoo’s wedding blogger is shouldering more than her fair share

I’m buried in venue brochures, spending a most of my time on the phone booking viewings, fretting about dates, pondering stationary, pinning like a crazy person and talking wedding to all my mates.

My fiancé, on the other hand, doesn’t even HAVE a Pinterest wedding board (or a Pinterest account for that matter). And the only reason he knows we even need a date is because I keep wailing ‘I JUST WANT A DATE’ at him.



It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

In all other areas of our life and relationship, we are equal partners, regularly subverting gender norms. I, for example, am a dab hand at DIY, while Adam can whip up a mean cheesecake.

So it’s a bit of a disappointment that we’ve manage to revert to type in such a clichéd way.

But it’s not our fault. It’s the whole industry. It’s angled completely towards the bride-to-be. Because the future husband couldn’t possible be expected to care about or be trusted to pick the cake/venue/type of ceremony/food/colourscheme, right?

[Help! I hate all wedding dresses]
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Weddings are for women

You’d be forgiven for thinking that only women want to get married at all. Most articles I accidentally end up perusing are written perfectly for me, and tap directly into my panic circuits. But nowhere is there an article titled: '10 things the groom forgets during wedding planning’, or ’10 ways for grooms to save money for the Big Day’, or even ‘How to glow on your big day as a Groom’ (and they could certainly do with that).

Think of your (female) friends - how many of them have gone into wedding meltdown? I swore this wasn’t going to happen to me. Because we were going halve-sies. On everything. But even though Adam did the initial ringing around to book some venue viewing and get some details, it wasn’t long before my inner control freak escaped and took over.

Because I know that Adam hasn’t read any of the articles warning him what things you miss out when wedding planning. He hasn’t pinned the ‘23 questions to ask your prospective wedding venue’, and he certainly hasn’t got a clue what colours work together. (NB. He is colourblind though, so this is slightly unfair.) So I had to get involved, right?

I’m loathed to suggest this, but is wedding planning one area that will just never be equal? In my heart I fear that Adam is never going to be as hot as I am at researching thrifty ways to decorate your wedding on the cheap. If he’s honest with himself, I bet he doesn’t even care if we even have straws, let alone what colour they are.

But at the same time, I’m reluctant to relinquish planning control on the more fun, less girlie areas. I want a say on the music, the entertainment, the booze. But if my head’s full of bunting, surely the sensible thing to do would be to pass over these to Adam, giving him a getting-towards-equal share of the planning. And stress. Even if it 100 per cent gender stereotypes us.

Girls do the decorations, boys do the entertainment.

Control freak

It’s not like I don’t already have more things to worry about simply by the fact that I’m the woman.

I am the one who’s going to be under (friendly) scrutiny all day. I have to consider hair and make up, fake tans and those old, new, borrowed and blue things. I’m the one that’s going to be gutted if I’ve got a double chin in the photographs. All he has to do is button up his suit for instant weight loss.

I’m even going to have to go into a six-step programme to stop me biting my nails so they don’t bleed when I’m given my wedding ring.

And then there’s The Dress. Picking a suit hardly compares.

But despite all the added extras on my plate, I can’t shake the idea that, particularly armed with all the tips and tidbits I’ve had forced down my throat by Pinterest/blogs/wedding mags, I’m just going to be better at making everything happen than he is, even though I’m clearly making a beautifully-decorated rod for my own back.

I’ve let him pick the colour of his tie and our ceremony exit music. That's a fair split, right?

Catch up on last week's Don't Tell The Groom: Help I hate all wedding dresses