In many if not most weddings, a groom will play some role in the proceedings. Some nuptials are, of course, groom free, and more power to all involved. But in general, grooms get the shaft because it’s assumed that women are behind all of the wedding planning. Books like The Engaged Groom and Thirty to Wife have started to crop up in slow little waves, and I think that’s a good thing. But until more books for grooms are published (and more grooms start reading them), men who are both engaged and involved can always look online for info, right?
Groom 411: Craig of the aforementioned Thirty to Wife created this site to help grooms get involved in their nuptials. While the front page design is eh, the info within is sound and the tools rock. I plan to bring a Wedding Bingo card to the next one I attend.
GroomsOnline: This is mainly a gift resource with a few articles tossed in here and there for show. But if you happen to be marrying a crabby groom-to-be, point him toward the site’s monthly Groomzilla giveaway!
Two Grooms: This partner site of Two Brides and parent site of Gayweddings.com really is a great resource for those participating in weddings where grooms outnumber brides, two-zip. Yes, it’s basically a store, but there are some textual resources and where else can you find cute double groom thank you note cards?
Bliss! for Grooms: Four guides and one article supposedly help grooms get “up to speed,” but if all marrying men need to know is how to buy a diamond and to bring a change of clothes, I think we need to rethink gender roles in weddings. Again.
Groom’s Magazine: As far as I can tell, this is just a Maxim clone with the word groom in the title. Today’s feature choices include The Wedding Night Twist: Six Best Sex Positions (which reads like a Cosmo article) and Model Advice: When was the last time a women who looked like this took the time to answer your questions? I’m sure brides can rest easy knowing their fiancés are getting their guidance from “Anna.”
And, at close to 10 p.m., I found another… Grooms Club, whose tagline reads, “Finally a wedding blog for the groom.”
My husband was a bit TOO involved, actually. I wanted to elope, and he wanted a big wedding!
And here I was thinking I was the only one, Glinda! The Beard had a lot of opinions about how big everything was meant to be, and I had just one opinion. I thought the perfect wedding would involve dressing up to the nines (gown and all), going to the courthouse, then coming home to eat the most expensive cake I could find.
I’d have killed to get Mr. Twistie interested in anything. And on the rare ocassions when he did have an opinion, he nearly had a panic attack if I attempted to listen.
To this day I think he feels guilty that he ‘denied’ me cake when I actually adored his idea of individual fruit tarts and our guests loved them, too. I asked what he thought of a cake I was considering, he said he really didn’t like cake that much. I asked him what he liked, he said fruit tarts and I felt as though the sky had opened up and angels had begun to sing…and I told him so. He kept saying miserably that I could have my cake, it was okay, really. He never got that I WANTED the fruit tarts more.
Of course I’ll be baking a cake later this month for my birthday. Anyone who happens through my door that day gets a slice. Yum.
The wedding bingo card is a work of genius that would have come in tremendously handy at a couple of the scalier nuptual celebrations I’ve attended.
Still, it would be nice once in a while to see an advice page for the groom that suggests something other than ‘you don’t know how to dress yourself or what anything means, so just shut up and do as your fiancee says.’ I really hope that one or two of these sites expand to suggest a man might actually take a serious interest in his own wedding.
I think it’s fantastic that other wedding blogs and resources specifically geared towards men are getting popular. I bought my husband the Engaged Groom when we first got engaged and he loved it!