Discouraged by fiancé’s attitude towards planning

Ask him what is important to him. My husband’s top 3 were good food, beer, and leaving with his wife. He honestly could care less what colors I picked, centerpieces, decor, anything. I asked him about the big stuff and then did what I wanted and showed/told him. Maybe try giving him your top 2-3 and let him choose.
Every now and then some small detail would pop up he would care about. Like when we were picking envelopes and he wanted gold. We’ll hold wasn’t one of our colors so I said no and got white. Well I never heard the end of it. So if something does come up that he has an opinion about, let him have his say because at the end of the day he doesn’t care about much, but it is his day too

Hi Lindsey! This is typical for most men when it comes to wedding planning! Have you expressed to him how you feel about his lack of interest?

My FH wasn't very involved in planning either! I just told him how I was feeling, and that I wanted us to be able to bond through wedding planning. It's a team effort, and I was feeling stressed and alone having to essentially plan by myself. He told me that he noticed a change in my demeanor, and offered to alleviate some of that stress by helping me going forward.

Since then, he's been more willing to offer his opinion and I've even given him his own tasks to work on! He told me what his top 3 important things are for the wedding and we agreed that he would first research caterers and come to me with his picks.

As for pricing. I suggest coming to him with a handful of vendors with varying prices. My FH always came back at me with: "they're too pricey, I'm sure you can find something cheaper so don't book them". That frustrated me because I spend SO much time researching vendors and comparing so that the ones I show him ARE the lowest and best options. It's hard for our partners to know that if they never do the researching or planning. So also remind him that the quotes you've been given, are the best your vendors can do.

Ultimately, you have to be honest with him and let him know how you feel. If he's sticking with the whole "Whatever you want is fine with me", then leave it be. Some guys just don't want to be part of wedding planning and truly want their brides to be happy with whatever they choose!

I will tell him that you would appreciate if he helped make decisions. I think the best way to do this is to give him a few options for each "category" and let him pick his favorites. For example, flowers. Show him a few different flower options you are considering and let him make the final choice. My wife was fairly hands on during our planning process, however, whenever we came to something she did not care much about, I gave her options to choose from. It worked out well for us.

View Quoted Comment I agree with Meghan! My fiance and I are doing something similar. Since he's very busy with work and school, he didn't feel like he had the time or energy to help me research various things for our wedding (and he also didn't know what all we needed to do for the wedding other than provide food and alcohol for the reception). So, I would do most of the research on things such as invitations and vendors and vow books, etc, and show him 3-5 options that I liked. If he especially liked one of them, great! If not, I continued researching until we found an option we both liked. He also has been the one communicating with most of our vendors, which has been super helpful.


Maybe try to show him a few options of various things and ask him his opinion? I think it may be less overwhelming for him if he has options to choose from, as opposed to him doing the research (maybe he doesn't know what to look for when researching, or genuinely doesn't have an opinion on that topic). You could also ask him what he's most interested in for the wedding, and ask him to take the lead on planning just those parts. Also, if you setup meetings with vendors or look at venues, always include him!

I agree with others about narrowing down to three options and asking him to pick a final. I can also understand and agree with his perspective about things costing too much, but at the same time, if you're spending within the agreed budget then he should be fine.

My husband didn't care about the "little things" but he definitely was interested in the bigger things (venue, menu, drink package, etc).

Its unfortunate society has created such gendered roles when it comes to weddings. Men can absolutely participate and be heavily involved in or lead the planning if they want, and women shouldn't have to bear the burden of figuring all the details out and should be free to "not care" as well. That aside, I agree with the previous posters about asking your FH what is important to him.

I'm naturally very organized and good at logistics, so I took the lead in planning our wedding. There were aspects of the wedding I cared about a lot and knew more about, as well as things I didn't have as strong an opinion on, same with my husband. So we split tasks based on our interests and strengths. I took the lead on photography, florals, and stationary, and my husband was in charge of alcohol and music. We split decisions about our venue, menu, and attire pretty evenly, and for the tasks that had a clear "point person" that person still got feedback from the other and didn't make decisions in a vacuum. Doing it that way helped take some of the burden off of me organizing all of the details.

Chances are your husband does care about some wedding related things - like what he wears, who his groomsmen will be, and perhaps food and alcohol. He might not have a specific idea in mind such as navy blue suit with white shirt and burgundy tie, but I bet if you go "tuxedo, suit, pants and vest/suspenders, polo shirt and jeans, or camo shorts" he'll have an opinion. Chances are he cares about specific details a lot less than you, and is willing to defer to you on most things because "happy wife = happy life" and he'd rather see you happy than pick something that will upset you. But if you have a conversation with him about how you want him to be involved, and make being involved easy with some clear choices and reasonable expectations, he might become more of a participant in the wedding planning process.

I'm not in the belief of "men don't care about weddings" at all. It's his wedding too, he certainly should care! There's definitely aspects that some people are more interested than others as we are human, but it's important that he show interest in some aspect of the wedding planning. It sounds dismissive of him to go straight to cost for everything, so that would be concerning to me. As previous posters mentioned, does he care about the venue? food? guest list? officiant? anything?? I think it's really important the two of you identify a couple things he does care about. Otherwise, I'd be concerned about his lack of enthusiasm for the wedding.

So the trouble with brining him options and letting him pick his favorites is that *you* still have to go through the legwork of doing the research, contacting vendors, etc. This is known as "emotional labor", which is a term every person should be familiar with. This will actually cause more frustration with you, because he won't understand or have to do the work that actually goes into planning a wedding. So when he comes back with "that's too expensive" or "why can't we have XYZ" your first instinct will (rightly!) be to tell him "Well, YOU go call all these people then!"

I am going through this with my FI, and he has (diagnosed and somewhat-treated) ADD, so it's a constant battle on a lot of fronts. But I would not give in to the gender stereotyping if you want an equal partnership.

I used to think the same thing. My fiancé literally told me “the only thing I knew to do was to propose, everything else I have no idea”. It’s been a process getting him involved but it takes patience, allowing them to contribute if they desire and also explaining things that they make think are convoluted. They just want to make us happy and would prefer for the details to be spared. Nothing to be offended over, but I understand your frustration.

View Quoted Comment I just want to comment on this. It’s not exactly on topic. But if it was husbands job to research and find vendors it would have been a quick google search, 1 phone call, and the contract signed. 5 minutes done, no consideration on cost or logistics! We would have easily surpassed our budget. That’s literally how he’s does anything and it drives me nuts!

I definitely think this is typical. While my fiancé has been insanely supportive and will look through tons of options, listen to me explain things, etc., to be honest I don’t think he could care less LOL He just does it to make me happy, because he knows I really enjoy doing it. I found what worked best for us was for me to narrow down the options to just a few (3 or 4), then let him help choose from those. It’s much less overwhelming when they only have a few things to choose from. Another thing we did was at the very beginning of planning, I asked him what his top 3 important things for the wedding were, and made sure he was included in those decisions. To be honest, I don’t even tell him what things cost. I just show him the final 3 to 4 options and ask for his input on them. I am 100% in charge of the budget, so he doesn’t panic LOL

Even though you may not agree with the whole weddings being a woman thing and that most men don't really care that much about the details. It's something that is very true for a good percentage of men. Don't be down because he really isn't interested in planning.


When my fiance and I started planning the wedding he was the same way didn't care about the details, didn't give much of an input unless it was about the money being spent. I just plan the wedding with just me and my mom and only ask his opinion when I have a hard time deciding between 2 things. I also made sure to know what is most important to him for the wedding so I can make sure to include him with that decision.
Men are simple creatures. They don't want to be the one deciding on little details especially for a wedding. They don't want the additional stress of calling around for prices and having to decide between 3 colors that almost look identical to each other. When it comes to weddings and all the details that go into one it has always been and will always be a womans thing. Men just don't care nor want to put that much thought into one day. Just tell them when and where to show up for the wedding and their good.

My dh isn’t interested at all. All he care about is just having me as his wife. If I let him decide, we would never had an elopement at all. We probably just line up at the city hall just to sign and go back home or work. His interest on anything related to romance is 0%. Typical I’m afraid. I reminded him now and then that he is not asking or showing any interest planning our silver wedding. The first time I got upset he quickly booked the flights and done. He carried on with the rest of his day showing no excitement at all. I ended up showing excitement to a couple my besties only. I feel to show excitement when he is at point 0, if you know what I mean. I sometimes feel, maybe I am too emotional, too much, whatsoever, but the more I think the more I want to cancel the whole thing. But deep down I know I wanted this wedding, for decades! Now that is in plan, I feel alone, and wished I have someone to feel excitement with 😔

View Quoted Comment

I totally agree with this.

I had to tell my FH a million times that its not just MY wedding it’s OURS, that he deserved to have the day of his dreams too. After a lot of convincing and 6 months of planning we cracked open a bottle of wine and I finally got him to tell me what he hated about the wedding and what we could do to change it.
My recommendation? Get a nice alcoholic beverage (that he prefers), and ask him if the wedding you have set out is what he really wants if there’s anything he hates about it. or tell him your at whits end, you don’t know what to do, the wedding is your dream but not his and you have no idea how to continue.
Good luck!!!🍀

That is very typical of grooms that's for sure.

one thing that got mine excited with wedding planning is giving him a particular task he can do that he's excited about. for instance i left mine in charge of alcohol.

Did you two ever sit down and have a full conversation about what you want and prioritize in a wedding? Does he want a big wedding, or would he prefer small and intimate or eloping? Try to understand his reasons and explain yours.
My fiancé was very similar at first (because everything is a lot more expensive than it seems like it should be and chances are he just spent a lot of money on a ring!) but once he admitted to wanting a fun celebration with our friends and family we were able to prioritize what the essentials are for the wedding (our outfits, Tex-mex food, open bar, party atmosphere). The whole process is complicated, overwhelming, and expensive - it may help to get aligned on the full picture before jumping into the details (but honestly he may never care about the colors!).

I think everyone makes really good points here. One of the first things FH and I sat down to talk about when we started wedding planning was what kind of wedding we want, who we want there, and how much it would realistically cost for that to happen. The budget convo was painful for us because we hadnt originally wanted to spend so much. When it came down to it, we agreed that being able to celebrate with our friends and family was worth the money to us. We are gonna cut corners on the parts we don't find important, and splurge on what does matter to us.


FH isn't super excited to talk wedding stuff, so me, my mom, and my MOH are doing the wedding planning and will just run stuff by FH before I make any final decisions. I just go to him to bounce ideas off him here and there. He cares most about the food, the music, and his attire. Other than that he is good with pretty much whatever I can make fit within our budget.
If you haven't already, maybe yall can sit down and talk about what you both want in the wedding and how much it would cost. And you can find out what aspects of the wedding he cares about! You can ask him to tackle those parts, or do like other people recommended and ask him to pick once you've narrowed down your top 3!

You are not alone. I’ve experienced this in the very beginning, and now, I’m so used to it. I just stopped talking about “wedding details” to him and just let him know when I need $$$. He started asking recently about details, which shocked me, but he’s coming around honestly.


I’m not sure what I expected from him, he’s so not a planner and I really expected him to pick between colors and flavors.
Give it some time, he will come around. Just try to not care too much about the wedding and less about the marriage. Men see that. Also, see what he’s interested in, you’ll see him light up.