So, I'll come clean upfront and say that I'm not a person who is born to plan. I'm not a list maker, I wouldn't call myself a details person and I would probably never get hired as a project coordinator. So what makes me think I can plan a wedding?

Well, first of all, I'm not doing the wedding planning all myself ... I'm tag-teaming it with my fiancee. And second, I figured that guys usually cop out on planning because none of us claim to be details people, but that's actualy a self-fulfilling prophecy, and also I'm not one to step down from a challenge.

With that said, I wanted to cover a few items that I have realized over the last few months of planning a wedding with my fiancee.

First, guys and women sometimes have different ways of planning, and you need to accout for those. My style is verbal and collaborative, meaning that when I plan, I like to first talk things through with people to gain a sense of direction and to brainstorm ideas. Then we all return to our respective corners and work through the details that we discussed, and later we meet up to review what everyone's done and move on. As a wedding planner, my fiancee has a different way of working through the process. She first likes to sit down indivudally and map out a strategy, then talk about that strategy together, flesh out any details, make any revsions and then move forward by assigning people tasks. Both work equally well, but you need to come to a consensus as to how you will both work the process, or you could have your first big marriage-related argument.

Second, guys need to assert themselves a little more (politely and lovingly but firmly). I haven't had this experience with my wife, but I do know that many brides have a definite idea of what they want their wedding to be like, and much of the time they are hell-bent on making that happen. God love this vision and committment, but we guys also have a few ideas of our own, and not all of them involve using the colors of our favorite football team as the wedding colors. We have ideas on the food that will be served, the drinks that will be inbibed, what we will wear and possibly even what you will wear (although you don't necessairly need to heed our opinion on that last detail ... just hear us out). So let us offer our ideas and feel like we're involved, because we actually would like to help out.

Third, if your guy does not seem to be interested or is shying away from being your assistant wedding planner, maybe he just needs to be given a role. My wife loves working in the yard, and when people ask me if I like it too, I say it's alright but that I'm actually cheap labor for my wife. Maybe you need to use your groom as cheap labor. Have him help stuffing invitations, making favors and decorations, anything that might be easily accomplished physical labor. This way, we're helping and doing our part and getting involved in our own way.

Finally, I found division of labor seems to work the best. I am in charge of the guest list, invitations and much of the tracking of the details (I found a really great online wedding planning tool that lets me track everything), and she is in charge of arranging with vendors and ceremony/reception stuff. That way we have one person in charge of certain tasks and the other person is the helper for those tasks. Seems to work well for us, and hopefully this is helpful for other couples.

Also, we have been using an online wedding planner that has made planning our wedding much easier. It's called My Wedding Workbook, and it is really great because it lets us store and manage all our budgets, guest lists, RSVPs, thank yous and every single event detail (down to the measurements of my tux) for all our wedding events ... including bachelor and bachelorette parties, bridal shower and honeymoon. Plus it's free wedding software, so we don't pay anything for it. (And, if you're a professional wedding planner, I've seen that they even have online wedding planner software called My Wedding Workbook Pro ).