Fiance doesn't seem interested in any planning

This seems to be a common post, as planning a wedding is not something too many men want to be involved with. However, it is important that you establish a budget and then book a venue together. Chances are, most decisions after that will be mostly on you. It is much too early to ask people to be in bridal party. Typically you should wait 6 months prior to wedding date (another hot topic on this forum).

I would agree that this seems very common and relatable! My advice would be to narrow a given topic down to 3 options and ask him for his favorite (i.e. three venues, three floral "looks," three available dates from the venue, three cake flavors...well, he'll probably want to join for the cake tasting...that's a super fun part of planning!). OR another strategy is to ask him what his priorities are....you both sit down with a list of wedding planning "topics" (food, music, flowers, drinks, photography, etc) and you rate your top 3 most important things. This is helpful for 2 reasons. Number 1: it identifies areas that you may agree are relatively unimportant budget-wise - for us, we didn't want to spend a lot of money on paper invitations, mailed-in RSVPs, etc....we still spent time and effort on them, but kinda cut corners in terms of the cost. And of course, if you both agree that food is an important part of weddings, then you can allocate more of the budget to that topic than you may have otherwise. P.S. Another way to ask this (to an overwhelmed SO) is to ask "Hey, at so-and-so's wedding recently, what are the top 3 things you remember?" ....or.... "what are you looking forward to most at so-and-so's wedding?" Number 2 reason it's helpful to prioritize: your SO may only realistically care about 2-4 topics, so therefore you may agree that you consult them on those 2-4 topics and just give him status/accomplishment updates on the other topics. Good luck to y'all!!

I echo what has been said already. There are very few Men who get excited about planning. I planned the entire event with my coordinator and Mom. Other than having thoughts about event rentals and design, he has not been involved and is confident that I will execute a event that represents us given my history of entertaining. He said just “ know I will be there whatever you plan is going to be amazing.”

Generally speaking, men aren't as into weddings. My fiancé hadn't been to many before we met, and all the ones we've been to together were drastically different than what we want or what's "typical," so he really didn't know what all went into a wedding, much less the planning of a wedding. My best advice would be to sit down with him and just try to knock out one thing, like picking a date. Coming at him with multiple things at a time can get overwhelming, especially if he feels "out of his element" about it.

I like the above advice about discussing what parts are important to each of you vs what you don't have strong feelings about. For us, I wanted a great photographer/ videographer, so that was something I was willing to take over, whereas fiancé wanted a great DJ, so that was on him. Neither of us are particularly concerned over invitations, so we'll probably spend less time and money on those.

The advice on narrowing different things down to 3 options is also a great idea. "Which of these 3 places do you like?" is a lot easier to wrap your head around than "Pick anywhere out of all the places." If there's something that you wouldn't really care about regardless of the choice, but it still needs to happen (for me, that's the day-of transportation), you could ask your fiancé to look into those and give you 3 options as well. Then it's just a matter of narrowing it down and less stress to pick "the one."

I can't generalize that men are less interested in weddings because in my case, my husband was far more invested than me. I actually know many men who took part in their own wedding planning. So I can't say gender is a valid cop out. However, not everyone is a great co-planner! I recommend using the 3 choice suggestion above, relying on your book, WW timeline and budget tools, and designate a meeting time with your partner to talk about wedding planning. . . then put it all away until the next scheduled meeting. If neither of you are interested in planning, you can hire a planner or elope, which is a ceremony on a much smaller scale. Good luck!

If you do a search of the forum, this is a common thing. Let him know that if he doesn’t help, there won’t be a wedding. Break it down into manageable pieces. Figure out what you both are willing and anble to spend first along with your vision of what you want to include and what is not important to you to cut, as well as the guest list of your most important loved ones. Then look for a venue. Guest list and date availability will be leading factors in narrowing down a venue

My FH was the same. We got engaged in December of 2020. We had been planning for a 2023 wedding. But every time I asked his opinion on things he seemed so indifferent. We started looking at venues and every one was "too expensive" or "just ok". I got worried that he didn't want to get married at all. We sat down and had a conversation about how I was feeling. He told me that he was concerned with pricing and family drama. So, in March of 2022, we went to see one more venue which turned out to be EVERYTHING and reasonably priced. Suddenly, he relaxed. Seeing that things weren't insanely priced, made him more excited. Now we make a conscious effort to look over our to do list every week.


I recommend trying to get to the root of the issue and then work with him to assuage his concerns. Good luck!

I think others here have already been through the process and have better ideas.
I had looked at complete ceremony packages in Las Vegas. If the details are too overwhelming to him, that sort of package might be a starting point to keep things simple. Like Jillian said, it all depends what the root issue may be.

Maybe just take it one step at a time or write a list for him so he’s not so overwhelmed. Coming from me, as a bride I was very stressed about planning and thought about eloping to avoid the hassle of having everyone we know at the wedding. My fiancé wrote me a list and got us a wedding planning book that really helped me narrow down what needed to be done first etc without getting to far ahead of myself. He has been helpful but he definitely wants it to be My day so all in all it comes down to me for the final say but I’d just include him where you can and give him projects which is what the book he bought assigns and try to speak about one subject at a time because there’s a million things that go into the special day.

My FH is invested in the planning, but it seems like he isn't to outsiders because he doesn't have strong opinions. Maybe that's what's going on with yours? I suggest talking to him to figure out why he's ambivalent and overwhelmed. The burden of planning should not be on you; if you're worried about it, you could hire a wedding planner.

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Agreed. My fiancé and I took a long time getting engaged, so I feel like we were really ready once he proposed. That said, having been in too many weddings with too much drama, he was also dubious about wedding planning. Then he learned the word “microwedding”—-and he’s all over the details now just so he can continually use the word 🤣🤣🤣!!! My default is to always go back to our friendship and our connection when we don’t seem to be on the same page. A little patience and a lot of humor seem to get things back on track more often than not.
Breathe!!! And all the best during this exciting time!!!

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Maybe the full package chapels matches the idea of micro-weddings. It may be what he wants but didn't know about. Of course, this has to be what both want. One friend focused on being casual during the wedding and reception. Not all of us want an overwhelming event. Also, people with Aspergers syndrome do not do well in large events.

This sounds familiar. My fiance and were engaged for a while before we got down to planning. It actually took me sticking to what we said we were going to do in terms of wedding date, guest list, etc lol. At first, there were days where he seemed ambivalent, but I think it's just that he may have also felt overwhelmed. I ended up just moving on with planning what I could without him and shared what i had each step of the way. When I found the perfect venue, he seemed to relax and gradually started tomshare his opinions more. Someone mentioned sharing the responsibilities in the areas that each of you are interested in. That has worked really well for us. He's fully involved now and we respect each other's opinions.

We were working on our music list this past weekend and that was fun! Planning is stressful, so that was a welcome breather.

Be patient, and hang in there! Best wishes to you both! 😊

Very relatable! Here is what I can add to the great advice you have already received.



1) My husband greatly appreciated reading through my wedding planner to get a fuller understanding of what was involved with planning a wedding. Even just providing him with a timeline for what to do when might help him. The known is a lot less scary and overwhelming than the unknown.
2) I usually gave my husband 2-3 choices at a time and that helped. If you need to, you can remind him to just focus on the question/subject at hand.
3) I limited my wedding questions to one day a week (with exceptions for time sensitive things). That helped a lot so the wedding planning didn't take over our whole lives!

Aside from that, I highly recommend prioritizing your budget/vendors like a previous user described. I went a step further and made my husband responsible for hiring just the two vendors he cared the most about, but that really depends on what the two of you decide to do.

Hello! I can relate to your post and many of the other posts here already! This is what worked for us.

1) Decide on budget and whether a wedding is something both of you want to invest on (because you can still get married without the big wedding OR elope). My fiancé and I chose a venue together for under 60 people.

2) After that, I started choosing 2-3 vendors I liked most for each category (catering for example) and asked for his opinion. This worked great!

3) Once that was narrowed down, we did food tastings, cocktail tastings (the funner part of wedding planning and he enjoyed that ofcourse) and chose final vendors together.

I delegated a few tasks for him to do such as reaching out to DJ's but ended up doing it myself anyway because I didnt like his options LOL.

I say give him three dates, and put it in a hat and y’all pick it that way. We couldn’t decide on a date either, but we narrowed a date down to like 2 other dates just in case the venue is not available. My fiancé is only interested in certain things, I’ve been working on planning everything else with my sister, and I already made it known that I want this experience and process to be exciting and fun.

I wanted a nice sit down dinner with no typical reception. When I shared this he said he wanted dancing and a DJ and open bar. I was like that’s a lot of work? I won’t be able to plan it on my own. And he said he would help if we did the “traditional wedding” and he did!