How do you deal with a fiancé who is uninterested in anything wedding related?

Put all planning on hold. Sit down and talk to him about your concerns and that you aren’t marrying yourself so he needs to help you or there won’t be a wedding. Ask him what compromise you can come to that you are both happy with. Does he want to decide on catering/bartending, music, or any combination of areas?

My husband was the same way, I think you should sit down and talk to him and see what you both want and how y'all could make a wedding work. At first i was doing all this planning then i would change things every other month, then COVID happen. Finally I sat and spoke with him, and come to find out he just wanted a small wedding. So we compromised on a planned elopement. Sure I feel some way about not getting the full experience but I can pick a dress with my family, I can have a wedding party with all the fun, and my FH and I will still be getting married. So try talking to him.

It takes two to BE married so it takes two to GET married.

Whatever amount of effort he's willing to put into wedding planning is the same effort he'll put into house hunting, packing for moving, planning for kids, supporting pregnancies/adoptions, and parenting.

Stop everything. Refuse to do anymore, and make it VERY clear that he helps, or there's no wedding.

Counseling is always a good place to go to work on communication, as a neutral third party can help you both.

I was going to say this exactly! My FH was the exact same way at first, and when I showed him the costs and budget...forget about it. He flipped out. But it's because he didn't really understand how everything was going to work. I had planned everything out so that we could actually make the payments without going into debt or charging up credit cards, it was all things we could afford on our own as well. Once he saw that it was making smaller payments leading up to the day and we had time to sort things out AND we had the money to do it, he felt much better about the budget. If you didn't make one, I would suggest it! I made mine with the costs, what that cost included, when the payments were due and how much was due.

Now for the not being excited thing...figure out what makes him excited! My FH started to really get into things when we started talking about having some yard games set up and then he started planning this whole big surprise thing for me (which I still don't know what it is). Then we did a food tasting and he loved all of the food, so he got even more into it. If he's not into any aspect of planning at all, you need to figure out why. Unfortunately, bills are always going to be there, whether it's a student loan debt, a house payment, a car payment, something. So if he is handling stress this way, there may be further issues there.

So I was this person and to a certain extent still am this person. Not gonna lie, we had some conflicts some of which were pretty big and I've been told are "red flags" even. Most of our relationship has NOT had conflicts so it was pretty scary. Took the time to dig deep and realize some things and we are compromising, or rather kinda saying, ok, this is important to him/her, I can do this for them. He felt the wedding was way more detailed than he ever expected (I promise you it is NOT, it's extremely chill by most standards, and like 10-15% of the local average wedding in cost, but he was getting overwhelmed which is real). So I learned to keep most things to myself and share deets more with a friend or two who is more excited.

Another thing that's come up (we are planning honeymoon altho it's before the wedding? right) is that he really, really likes surprise, and it's also hard for him to picture stuff that is happening weeks or months away. We had another big trip like this and it was the same- once we were on it, he was sooooo stoked. I have to remember this since for me a lot of the excitement is in the planning, for him it's in the experience. Anyway, it's a good lesson for the wedding.

We identified things that are important to him (ceremony location/details- also for ceremony he wanted a smaller thing, he felt shy, so we are doing just immediate family for that now. I was upset at first but actually have come around to it), good music (we both agree on that), and first dance (he is in charge of choreography, I am letting him do in his own time). I learned that he really really is just focused on getting married TO ME and the other stuff isn't important to him. For me bringing family and community together is really important so he is letting me do that via the reception.

Setting a budget here was important. We set that before we really talked too much with parents. We actually got a very generous gift from both sides that is more than double our budget, but we are still basically sticking to our budget- because that is also about values. I only ask "permission" for a major thing (like yesterday when I found a photographer, ran it by him, showed some pics, said are we cool?). One thing that helps me is I say, this is important enough to me that if he was like hard no, I would pay it myself. I am keeping a detailed account on a google spreadsheet. I've gone over what is expected to spend in each of the categories, don't go over with him every single decision within.

As we navigate everything it's actually become much calmer. My fiance really struggles with anxiety way more than I ever realized, the last year and a half certainly hasn't helped,. We've got the major things of wedding in place right now so we can breathe a little more and not stress as much. I took some steps of self-care for myself too.

I *did* stick my foot down and say we needed premarital tho. He was ok with that (although 1000% not into therapy) and got cold feet on the first one, it activated some issues for him. BUT he then found one he was comfortable with so we are doing that now.

We figured out what my FH was more into, and let him help with that. I still share some info with him, but I am mostly planning this all on my own. He is obsessed with food, so I let him help me pick the menu for our reception dinner/go to the tasting (we made a date night out of it), desserts, and the Rehearsal dinner venue/food. Once we get to pick out our wine/beer, he'll help with that (he is very excited for a free wine/beer tasting). He was very helpful with the Honeymoon planning...and I think that's the only thing he is looking forward to! haha He has been pretty helpful with some stuff (that he's more interested in). He couldn't care less about the photography, flowers, decor, Hair/Makeup, Dj, etc., so I've been dealing with all that on my own and only asking him for help when I need him to pay for something (if we had a lot of deposits due at the same time, we had to split who paid for what). I also created a spreadsheet with EVERY payment for EVERY vendor, so he won't be surprised by any costs/payments that come up, and can see what the total cost is. He has also been very concerned with financials (we bought a house 6 months ago), but I think being open and honest with him from the beginning helped a lot. Talk with your FH to see what he is excited about and ask him to give his opinions on that. But definitely let him know that it's hurtful he isn't more engaged in all the work you're putting into it. Most men don't know what weddings cost, and how once you slap the "wedding" tag on anything, the price triples.

I would bring this up with him, sit him down and have a close chat about how you and he both. Some people, particularly guys just don't care about wedding planning or anything about weddings. That is okay and normal, but you've got to figure out if he's unenthusiastic about planning or unenthusiastic about marrying you.

At the very least he has to be plugged into the financial aspect of the wedding. He needs to be involved in that and understand how much money is being spent and where it is going.

Is there an aspect of wedding planning that might excite him. Transport to the wedding perhaps? Food and liquor. If there is, put him in charge of that.

My FH was the same. He was very stressed about finances and that limited his excitement and involvement. We had a talk and hashed out the details of what we wanted out of this experience and things got much better. It sounds like he needs some reassurance that he will be able to get the car he wants after the wedding as well. I think a good talk will help. The previous posters have listed some great examples of where to start. Good luck

Honestly just assigned him stuff to do that he was interested in. for instance he knows more about alcohol and was more excited about being able to pick and buy what he wanted so i just left him in charge of that

PS I'm just realizing the car thing too. Same case over here. I kinda let him have it a little- he is getting his car with my partial blessing (he knows I think it's expensive, I do understand him needing to get it but my personal choice will always be used, he will his own money, BTW) and he is giving me less nonsense about what we are doing for the wedding. I bring up in a calm manner anything he starts to disagree with that it's important to me and/or family, and the price I am getting for it is hugely discounted. I also offer/am willing to pay for the things I value, I don't expect him to. He backs down a bit when I set a calm, realistic boundary. It is helping.

I do think you need to have a real compromise about costs. We decided BEFORE the wedding what we were willing to spend. THEN looked a little bit about what was reasonable, adjusted it slightly based on our values, but not buying into the whole wedding-industrial complex. Our budget is $5-6k, locally the average is $53k. You have to decide what is realistic for BOTH of you.