When Ray and I decided to start Man Mondays, one question from you guys consistently started coming up in the comments section.  “We’d love his thoughts on wedding planning!”  Totally on board, y’all; I’d actually be interested in his thoughts, too.  So… here they are!

When we started the planning process, I had the same mindset as most guys.  “All I want are our friends and family, good music, and an open bar.”  But as we began to look at all the things we needed to do and broke it down piece by piece, we made the first big decision to have our wedding in the mountains of Colorado.  The Colorado mountains have been truly where we began a large part of our lives together, and we wanted to have everyone celebrate with us where we are at this current phase of our lives. With that being said, I knew that I would have to, and wanted to, be a larger part of the planning process than if we had planned our wedding back in Chicago with both of our families near.  While I’ve been very involved in every step of the process, there are three specific pieces that I didn’t realize I would care about, but where I’ve wanted to be an integral piece of the decision making; the venue, decor, and the weekend flow.

The Venue
When we first started discussing the venue, I assumed Jess had one picked out with no questions asked (back in Chicago.)  She then surprised me by saying that she wanted to pick a place that represented us. Her comment really hit home to me and I wanted be a part of this big decision. As previously stated, Colorado came pretty quickly to us, but in picking the specific venue space, I realized that I didn’t want people to travel all this way and feel like we could have had it closer to the majority of our guests.  The venue we selected for the ceremony is on the mountain, where we feel most at home.  Our reception is in a hotel right down the street, which provides the mountainside ambiance that we wanted, alongside the amenities we needed for our guests to feel comfortable.  All of which were very important elements to me when we were reviewing our options.

The Decor
I will have to admit that I have no experience with design work and believe that I am pretty simplistic when it comes to decor – home or otherwise. With that said, I thought that I would stay the farthest away from our decor decisions… That is, until Jess showed me some rustic options to fill our venue space. I then had several ideas that I thought would transform our venue into an “elegant mountain getaway.”  (Yes, for those that know me well… those words were just written by me to explain the theme of our wedding venue.)

The Overall Flow of the Weekend
Given that our hotel options, ceremony, and reception are all in different locations and involve small bits of traveling between each, I feel responsible for making sure the weekend runs smoothly.  Jess did a good job (almost directed me… editor’s note: lovingly directed) in saying that everyone will be traveling in from elsewhere across the globe, so we want to make sure we have activities available across the week for people if they would like to join. Jess knows me well, because she knows that it’s right up my alley to be planning a full list of mountain activities for our whole group to enjoy.

I will admit that I cared about all of these decisions more than I thought I would, but there was a definite trend.  It took Jess asking me the right questions to really inspire me.  With both of us being very involved, our wedding weekend already feels like more of a “we” thing.  More than just a planned party, it’s the perfect beginning of the rest of our lives together.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

For those of you that are married, was there any piece of planning that was surprisingly interesting to you or your significant other?

For those not married, what do you think would be the most interesting part of planning a wedding?

Let us know if there are any specific topics that would be of interest for future Man Mondays!

Create a great life!