by: Natalie & Kyle: Part 1 | Rachel & Joe: Part 2
Getting The Groom Involved In Wedding Planning: Part 3
Welcome to Part 3 in our series of "Getting the Groom Involved" in wedding planning. We're excited to share Jen and Josh's planning journey with you today. What have we discovered so far? First, grooms are more than happy to help their brides out. Just give them tasks that they actually care about. Simple, right?! Here's how Josh and Jen's worked out their wedding planning journey ... Jen and Josh had a 3-month engagement, so they started talking about tasks right away. Jen said, "Josh knew a wedding was a huge thing to plan and wanted to help me with everything but had no idea how much time and work it really would take. He told me that he valued my desire to have a nice wedding, but personally, there weren’t a lot of things that he really cared about. He just wanted me to be happy with everything. So I didn’t need to involve him in a lot of decisions … it was actually less stressful to just make decisions on my own for the things that didn’t matter to him. But he was willing to help with anything that he could.
How Josh and Jen divvied up the responsibilities
I was in charge of the big picture and would pass things off to Josh that I thought he would enjoy and be good at and helped us divide and conquer the enormous list. 
Top 5 planning areas that Josh helped with:
1. Finding a reception site 2. Finding/communicating with ceremony musicians 3. Finding/communicating with reception band 4. Renting sound equipment 5. Getting groomsmen suits
What Josh found most enjoyable
The easiest tasks for Josh were the ones that had to do with music. That’s his area of expertise and the thing he enjoys the most.
What tasks Josh helped with
I did a lot of planning and decision making, and Josh helped with a lot of tasks. He found us a reception venue and a band, gathered clothing sizes for the groomsmen and picked out ties, found addresses for the guests, wrote thank yous for the groom’s dinner, rented a microphone for the reception, found us a huge cooler for the reception. Josh is a musician, so I trusted his judgment on finding ceremony musicians and a band for the reception. He did most of the work and decision making for those things, but we both signed off on the final choices together. Moral of the story: To get grooms involved with planning--is to simply give them tasks they would enjoy and feel confident doing. Thanks Josh and Jen for sharing your story of how to share the responsibilities of wedding planning in the best possible and most enjoyable ways! See Jen and Josh's rustic-organic Minnesota wedding photos here.Credit Photographer: L&E Photography
