I’m not an expert on wedding planning. I don’t have style, I ignore minor details, and I’ll never accept ‘oyster’ as a color. But, I love my wife. So, when the time came to plan our wedding, I was with her every step of the way. There are millions of people like me, who, while outside the target readership for an article on ‘Where to Wed to Fit Your Theme,’ still care deeply about the biggest day of their lives and devote a great deal of time to planning their weddings. 

In A Groom with a View: What I Learned Helping My Wife Plan Our Wedding, I explore the wedding planning experience from a layman’s perspective. Most wedding content, be it books, podcasts, movies or Pinterest accounts, is designed for brides. I documented my experience to provide a fresh perspective on the subject matter, foregoing an academic “how-to” in favor of a relatable, funny, and reflective “why-do” approach to the wedding industrial complex. 

A Groom with a View delves into the antiquated traditions surrounding weddings, the unanticipated vendor scams couples face, and the endless stream of small decisions you never knew you’d have to make. I share thoughtful observations on modern weddings, reflecting on why these traditions persist and how they evolve, what value they bring, whether they’re necessary, and the benefits and dangers of romanticizing and commodifying weddings through popular culture and social media.

My voice is that of a curmudgeon, an old soul at odds with his generation, but one whose identity is a product of the time he grew up in. I am, for better or worse, inescapably Millennial, and the ideas I grapple with while planning a wedding parallel the internal conflicts felt by many of us in the Internet Age. Loaded with insightful cultural commentary, actionable advice, and more dad jokes, wordplay, and personal revelations than my wife would prefer, A Groom with a View will forever change how you think about weddings.