Engaged but not planning

Congratulations on your engagement, Kendall. Wedding planning is new and overwhelming to most so I say start off fun and expect a joint effort. You're not marrying yourself. Let him know you've reserved X and Y days to check out venues together. Do a casual drink and walk through (vs formal tour). Normally, I would suggest establishing a budget and guest list first, but that's not fun. Feel the romance as you spend the day. Ask him his vision, share yours. Later at home, discuss budget and concerns. I've always found when someone invests their own money into something, they get very opinionated.

My now husband did not get into wedding planning until I started booking venue tours. He really enjoyed touring the places. After that, he didn't really do anything wedding planning (other than providing the credit card to pay for things). About 2 months out, he started asking a million questions about the details and trying to provide input but at that point all the decisions had been made and couldn't easily be changed lol

I would just start a conversation. Talk with him about how you want to start planning and you want to hear his thoughts. Does he want something more casual or more formal? Does he want it here or does he want to elope in the Bahamas? Does he have an idea of a time of year he wants to get married? Even though he’s laid back, he may still have some thoughts but potentially isn’t sure what to think about. Also, how much money is he ok spending? That’s almost always a question that is of interest.

So one thing that came up with FH and me that I hadn’t thought about before is how you want to handle smaller points of contact through the day. My FH is actually super invested in planning, but I’m still the main contact number/email. Of course when I answer a call or check my emails, it’s at a time that works for me so it’s easy for me to respond right away. But he might be in the middle of a meeting or something. Early on we had to discuss what to do in those situations where there’s a more urgent question, like does he want me to run it by him or just go ahead and answer. There are some things that are super obvious wait for him/don’t wait for him, of course, but there were others that we needed to make sure we were on the same page.

I was super excited about planning a wedding and my then-fiance thought we should chill a little bit lol. I agree on the earlier comment about starting with something more fun though before it starts feeling like work. I took an online quiz with my partner (can't remember if it was here or another site) that was to see what kind of "vibe" you want for your wedding. It got the conversation flowing on what we both initially envisioned without the stress of commitment, and I was able to see what he cared more about, which also helped when I eventually assigned out roles and responsibilities.

I feel so blessed to have a laid-back man, but what I had to do was tell him the realistic time frame I wanted to plan our wedding in, and designate days and times to discuss wedding plans.

I think that maybe the excitement of the holidays and being "officially" engaged in front of family is slowly easing into the new year, it might feel like its more "casual/laid back now".

What may help bring your fiancé around is asking to set a day and time to fully discuss preliminary wedding plans for at least 3-4 hours, and then ending the night with a restaurant date or with a drink (and uber ride after).

(As you continue planning, a whiteboard calendar to put by your door, or cell phone calendar memo alarms are good ideas so that you don't have to nag for wedding meetings. _

Do Discuss:
-What are the non-negotiables, nice-to-haves, etc.

-What you may want in terms in terms of venue, ceremony, family, traditions, and faith.
-Discussing a few dates in mind, and the pros and cons (seasonal wedding, easy to memorize date, etc).

-Preliminary budget (that you can laugh at the number later)

My advice is accept now that he may not care to be very involved. My fiancé is very excited to be married but he is so low maintenance that, I quote “we could get married in a Nissan dealership parking lot” and he’d be happy, as long we were married. Throughout the process I would ask him to pick between two options I liked, so he did help in small ways (and paid for things lol), but far as arranging the logistics and keeping track … fiancés are often hands off unless you really push. The other advice given here is also great - just have a conversation over dinner about general ideas and expectations. But don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t totally take up the planning mantle - he still loves you regardless I am sure 😀

I was ready to dive into planning the day after we got engaged, but my husband didn't want to plan anything until a while off (in his defense, we were both still in school and didn't have incomes yet lol). Then COVID hit, and we didn't want to commit to anything or put any money down until we knew we'd be able to see it come to fruition. We were engaged for over 2 years without really planning anything towards the wedding. I think what finally lit the fuse to get into gear with planning was just jumping right in. Maybe start with asking your fiancé what things he'd like to have or is excited about for the wedding, and see what sort of vibe he'd want for the day.

My husband hadn't been to many weddings or have very strong opinions on things at first, so I started by booking venue tours so he could get a sense of what ours might be like and what kinds of considerations we had to think about. Once a few things started materializing we started delegating things for each of us to look into. He was in charge of the hotel we'd be staying at, transportation, finding a DJ, and booking the honeymoon.

One thing that is really helpful with the "just do whatever you want" spouse-to-be is to narrow decisions down to 3 choices and ask them to pick.