Now we’re back with Part II of Emily & Weston’s wedding grad post, this time from the groom’s side. (And may I tell you, his advice and perspective sounds so much like my own husband’s, that it makes me wonder why we don’t all listen to our eminently sane partners more often.) Now, grooms and other partners who are reading this post? Get writing on your own already! And now, I bring you Weston himself:
My wife, Emily, began reading APW during our wedding planning, and she would often send me posts to read. Once she started writing her thoughts for a wedding grad post, we figured I should share some of mine as well. Weddings take two people, and a lot of the stress of wedding planning comes from the different perspectives and opinions we each bring.
As a guy, we’re taught that we shouldn’t care about wedding planning, that it’s the “bride’s day.” That always bugged me because it was my wedding, too! None of my guy friends ever asked what the wedding was going to be like; it just didn’t register for them. My female friends would ask me, “What’s Emily planning for X?” or “Has Emily done Y?” There were a few times when I wanted to tell people, “Hey! I’m getting married, too!”
Thankfully, Emily was very clear that she wanted it to be “our” day. And it’s true, a wedding is about the couple. Marriage is about the two of us going through life together, and we get to start practicing that in our wedding planning.
The idea that it’s the bride’s day might be why Emily seemed to feel more pressure than I did. Not that the feelings she described weren’t valid; I just didn’t feel them. I would keep telling her that everything was going to be okay, that she didn’t need to worry so much about what people would think. She would respond that people would only be judging her, not me, because they would assume that she did all the work even though that wasn’t true in our case.
I think now, looking back on it, she would finally agree that it really is possible to just relax and give up the stress. It’s hard for a type-A personality to admit that, which is why, if you’re the type-A one in the relationship, you should listen when your partner tells you to calm down. Emily would have gone through a lot less stress if she’d just listened to me in the beginning! (I’m mostly kidding, but I do think that’s why it takes both people to plan the wedding – you’re in a relationship because you balance each other out, so you should use the wedding-planning as an opportunity to let the other person complement you and shape you into a better person, just as you’re trying to do the same thing for them.)
I think part of the reason I look back on our wedding planning as a great experience is that it gave us so many opportunities to learn more about the other, and to spend time talking about what we want in marriage and life. Sometimes that’s stressful, but we found that as we focused on getting ready for marriage, we got more and more excited about the person we were going to walk alongside for the rest of our lives.
Photos by: Evan Chung
