Image by Caroline Taylor 2010
This week we tackle what exactly it is that terrifies men about weddings?
By Andrew Shanahan at Staggered.
On first inspection you’d probably think a wedding would rank somewhere between, “Small Girl With Ice-Cream” and “Parcel Delivery” on your average bloke’s internal list of terrifying situations to be confronted with. But when you start to break it down the Big Day contains a number of situations that rank wayyyyy higher on the Terrifying-O-Meter; perhaps even somewhere between “Rooney Broken Bone” and “Getting Things Caught In Zips.” So what is it that’s giving your groom, best man or father of the bride a nasty case of wedding nerves.
Walking Down The Aisle
Sounds stupid doesn’t it? The bride’s the one who has to do the aisle-walking dressed in the big frock and pokey shoes and yet the father of the bride is the one who’s sweating over it. Why? Well mostly because it’s his big moment. All those eyes turn towards him, he has to stick to that weird slow-walk rhythm and he knows that at the end of the aisle he has to hand his daughter over to some spotty oik he’s only met twelve times.
How to combat: Practice makes perfect on the walk and try and have the big, “You know I’ll always love you Dad” talk a month or so before, not in the car on the way to the church.
Saying His Vows Right
I do, just two little words that give men more problems than nearly any other. In this case though it’s not the weight of the ceremony or the pressures of commitment that petrify him, it’s the sheer bloody simplicity. Someone says the words and you just have to repeat them, that’s easy! Exactly, so you’d be really stupid if you messed them up wouldn’t you?
How to combat: Get hold of the text of the wedding ceremony you’ll be using and go through it a few weeks before. You can even practice if you like. Then it’s up to the registrar or vicar to put you at your ease. Fortunately, they’re nearly all very good at their job and if you schedule in a meeting a few weeks before then they’ll help put you at your ease.
Wedding Speeches
This one is perhaps the most understandable. After all, writing a wedding speech is difficult enough when you consider the formalities and the etiquette you need to observe and that’s before you factor in that it’s supposed to be eloquently emotional (the groom/father of the bride) or effortlessly entertaining (best man). Twin that with most people’s natural hatred of public speaking and you’ve got the perfect storm of fear.
How to combat: If they’re struggling to write it send them to a professional speechwriter like Burn The Toast for help with their speeches for weddings. Alternatively, move the speeches to before the dinner, restrict everyone to toasts only or cancel them altogether.
Commitment
Ahhh, where would the romantic comedy genre be without this old trope, that secretly men fear the idea of living with a woman more than they fear sharks, or fire, or sharks on fire? It’s almost unheard of for men to actually act anything like the male characters from Friends. The closest most men will ever get to the commitment question is when one of their more laddish mates says, “You know that means you can only sleep with one woman for the rest of your life?” A question that’s easy to contend with because the friend in question last had sex in 2001.
How To Combat: Ignore it. He’s bought the ring and gone down on one knee, he’s not about to flit now.
Confetti
It’s evil stuff.
How to combat: Fire.
Staggered is the UK’s leading men’s wedding website and the perfect place to find proposal ideas, stag do pranks and stag do ideas, mens wedding suits and wedding speeches. We can even tell you about lolcat proposals.
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