What now?

Ok, so you're engaged. What now? I've never been engaged before so I don't know how this works as a guy. Of course, my fiancee immediately went into planning overdrive . If you're like me, you probably thought that you didn't have much to do or even have much say in how things are going to play out. However, for me at least, this isn't the case. There are some things that the groom is responsible, albeit not nearly as much as the bride and her family is responsible for.

First thing's first. You need a wedding party. But before you determine who is in your wedding party, you have to determine how many people you want to be in your wedding party. This is a decision you need to make with your bride-to-be. We are planning on having 5 people in each of our wedding parties, including the best man and maid of honor. The hard part is deciding who is important enough to be in your wedding party, of course, but more on that in a future post.

Ok, so you have your wedding party, now what? Time to relax a little, right? Not if you're me. Sezzy started looking at venues about two days after the engagment, which is good I guess. Her parents are going to be paying for a good portion of the wedding, so we have to find a place that meets our needs and their budget. This can be very tricky and as the groom, it puts you in kind of a tough position. You know what you want, but if it doesn't fall within the budget, you can't really argue too much because you're not the one footing the bill. Anyway, Sezzy and I are looking at places in State College, PA because we met at Penn State and both graduated there and it still holds a special place in both our hearts. Plus, they have some very cool packages up there. There are two Penn State hotels: The Nittany Lion Inn and The Penn Stater. Both places look nice, but if you want an outdoor ceremony, it looks like you have to do The Penn Stater. One of the packages (I can't remember which right now) lets you rent out a suite in Beaver Stadium for the rehearsal dinner, which is AWESOME!! You get your name on the scoreboard and everything. We also looked at a few places locally (head on over to Sezzy's blog to see pictures) and there are some nice places but most are expensive and some have venue fees associated. It's crazy how expensive weddings are.

Now, in order to pick a venue, you need to have a date. While we still haven't set a concrete date, we know within a few weeks when we want to do it. Our original date we had considered was June 19, 2010. It's a nice date because our dating anniversary fell on the 19th of the month as well. Also, it's soon after Sezzy is done teaching for the year, but it only gives her about 1-2 weeks once school is out to finalize any last-minute details. Well, this date was shot down because her aunt and Godmother won't be able to make it that day because of graduation parties (her son is graduating from high school in '10). Ok, how about the following weekend? Well, I wasn't crazy with that weekend because the 26th, which is the following Saturday, is the exact day I started dating my high school girlfriend. Don't ask me why or how I still know that, but I do and it bothers me. The weekend after that is July 3-4, which is no good. Or is it? Think about it. Sure, it's a holiday. But it's a holiday that's generally associated with partying and having a good time. What if we had our ceremony on the 3rd? Everyone who wants to make separate plans for the 4th could still keep those plans, and if anyone wanted to stay around I'm sure we could find fireworks wherever we held the wedding. And the best part is that everyone will likely have off work on the 5th. We filed that away and we are taking it into consideration. The following weekends would also be fine, the 10-11th, 17-18th, etc. but the weather starts getting stifling hot around that time. Thus, we are still deciding.

How about a guest list? This has been tough. We wanted to hash out a preliminary guest list just to get a rough idea of how many people we were going to have to account for. We got to 200 almost effortlessly. We want to keep it around 200 and not much higher, but you have to draw lines somewhere in order to keep your guest list a decent size. You have to ask yourself lots of tough questions like: whose children should we invite? and for whom should we include "and guest"? Our general rule is that if the person in question is living on their own (i.e. not in college or living with their parents anymore), it's courteous to invite a guest (unless it's immediate family). Generally, inviting children is a must for close family and friends. We had to cut out guests and children for some people on our lists or else it would have swelled to over 250.

What's next? How about deciding what to wear? Are you going to wear a tux or suits? How about your groomsmen and ushers (if applicable)? Yes, this is your responsibility. While your fiancee may have her own thoughts on what colors she would like, you have a say in that and once the colors are decided, you have to pick out the attire for your side of the wedding party. Personally, I like the idea of myself and my groomsmen wearing tuxes, but the ushers will wear suits.

Ok, now we're on a roll. Details about the big day are starting to fall in place. But there is still so much to do. You need to figure out what to do with out-of-town guests. In some cases, everyone is an out-of-town guest. For instance, if we have the wedding in State College, everyone will be out of town. We will probably reserve a block of rooms in whatever hotel we have the wedding in, in this case. Transportation also has to be arranged. In some cases, the hotel may be far away from where the ceremony is held, or the reception may not be in the same place as the ceremony. One thing to consider is that some venues charge for parking. Will you cover the parking yourself or will you make your guests pay to park?

More men's duties:
- Obtain marriage license (very important)
- Purchase gift for the bride (also very important)
- Purchase groomsmen gifts (again, very important)
- Plan the rehearsal dinner (can be done with bride-to-be, but generally this is paid for my the groom's family)
- Prepare a toast for the rehearsal and a speech for the reception
- Plan the honeymoon (can be done with bride-to-be, but generally this is in the hands of the groom)

The marriage license is obviously very important (you can't get married without it) and finding someone to officiate can often be tricky. I am going to try to have my brother officiate the ceremony, so that should alleviate a lot of headaches. Also, the groom is responsible for the officiant's fee. You must purchase a gift for the bride. This is usually a piece of jewelry, a bracelet or watch, etc. Purchasing gifts for the groomsmen is very important as well. They put a lot of time and effort into the wedding planning and it's a nice gesture to get them all something that suits their personality. My friend got custom cufflinks for the groomsmen in his wedding and they were awesome. The cufflinks came in the form of dice, CD's, and stormtrooper helmets, among other things. The rehearsal dinner can be planned by both bride and groom, but the groom and his family are responsible for paying for it. The groom has to have a toast for the rehearsal and, generally, a speech for the reception. And of course, the honeymoon. You want to make sure to book a romantic getaway for your new bride.

So that's it. More than you thought, huh? Yeah, me too. And as of today, 23 days after we became engaged, we have none of these things done. Of course, we still have 17 months left, but it's always good to get a jump on things so you don't end up on one of those Bridezilla shows. Guess we better get moving.