I think it’s pretty safe to say that nine out of 10 brides plan their weddings almost entirely on their own. Well, not counting nosy mothers-in-law and pushy mothers and opinionated bridesmaids and interfering friends. But what I mean is, how many weddings have you been to where the groom picked the flowers, or helped design the place settings, or heck, even knew what the colour scheme was before he rocked up on the big day? Yep, me too – zero. And I’ve been to a lot of weddings.
Chatting to friends who are also engaged and frantically gluing glitter to invitations and collecting glass jars for table centre pieces (totally absurd, isn’t it?), the picture looks the same: all he has to do is rock up, preferably in a suit (which he probably didn’t even pick himself), and mutter a few words to seal the deal. Maybe he helped with the budget. A little. But that’s about it. Ask him if he’d prefer peonies or roses and he looks at you blankly, shrugs, and then goes back to watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother.
But here’s the thing – my fiancé, Etienne, is not quite the same. He’s unusual in many ways, yes (I mean, who else carries everything short of the kitchen sink in his car boot ‘just in case’ and has never so much as tapped his feet in his entire life, let alone never actually ever danced?), but when it’s come to our wedding planning, he’s been downright weird.
At first, I thought it was a good thing – great, even! Here he was getting intricately involved in every step of the process, from the guest list and the colour scheme to the venue and even what the bridesmaids would wear. Fantastic!
Some much-needed help with all the admin, not to mention a supportive ear to bounce ideas off? Well, not exactly. You see, like many girls, I’ve dreamt about my wedding day for years. Before I could walk I was paging through bridal magazines, tearing out pictures of chiffon explosions and sticking them to my walls (thankfully, my taste has since improved).
So I’ve really thought through my ideas. I’ve ummed and aahed in my head for years – trust me, the decisions I’m making now about my wedding have been decades in the making. But Etienne’s ideas are a little more, well, new. He’s only just started thinking about the pros and cons of a summer wedding vs. a winter wedding. He’s never before considered save-the-date designs. He doesn’t even have a wedding Pinterest board.
There are so many options and ideas that have never crossed his mind. He has no idea how important some decisions are and, most crucially, he has even less idea about what really isn’t important. At all.
Let me explain: according to Etienne, the flower arrangements have been unimportant. The seating plan? Couldn’t care less. He isn’t all that fazed about the vows or the ceremony… or whether or not we get married inside or outside. But heaven forbid the napkins be a few millimetres wider than he had planned (seriously – this was an actual argument we had) or that our monogram printed on our envelopes be positioned a little too much to the left.
We’ve disagreed about the tiniest of details (mainly because I refused to get sticky about them because, they are after all, tiny details), from the length of the groomsmen’s ties (again, we argued over millimetres. Millimetres!) to finding the exact shade of turquoise in everything from ribbons to linen to glassware, because there can’t be an ounce of variant in tones. (Have you tried looking for the exact shade of something in everything? It’s impossible, I promise you.)
So instead of finalising the menu and choosing wine, the things guests actually give two hoots about, I feel as though I’ve spent several months micro-managing my fiancé’s incredibly in-depth involvement in our wedding. What I thought would be a blessing has become exhausting. Even worse, by having an opinion about everything, he’s even binned some of my greatest ideas – the ones that have been in the making since I was five.
The one thing I have learnt, though, is that we bring very different talents to the table. I do not give a damn about lining up cutlery with a ruler or the difference in a few millimetres of essentially anything.
I think big picture, big details, big impact. Etienne, on the other hand, thinks small and precise. He thinks tiny touches that complete a bigger picture, minute details that can make all the difference. Is he maddening? Yes, absolutely. But will our guests be able to criticise the sloppy napkin placements or the jumbled tones of turquoise throughout? Hell, no.
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