Surprise! It's Our Wedding!

Back in August, there was a quote-unquote so romantic! story in the news about a man who surprised his girlfriend by planning their entire wedding. They had talked about getting married in Las Vegas and announcing it after the fact, but in reality he was doing all the planning himself. He asked her questions about who they should invite to their "dream wedding", what the decor would be, what kind of songs she would like, and so on. Then he did everything, including lining up vendors, a venue, and all the guests, and surprised her as she walked into the room. Surprised her as in, "Will you marry me? Right now?" Then everybody applauded, her friends (who were in on the secret) whisked her backstage to get dressed, and they walked down the aisle.

Public response to this event was generally either "Oh, I love surprises! Isn't it so romantic and thoughtful of him!" or "Wow, she didn't get any say at all into her own wedding? That's kind of creepy and weird." I fall squarely in the "creepy and weird" category: I just wouldn't want to be put in a position like that, where the options are to say yes, or to face massive public humiliation (and to humiliate many of the people I love in the process.)  Most of what I read on the "not cool" side happened here.

Today's Globe and Mail has a related story, about a couple who surprised their guests, instead of each other. Invited them to a party, then said "Hey, guess what! We're getting married! Right now!" And as part of the whole theme of "surprise weddings," they interviewed Shawn and Colleen Lippert about his choice to plan the whole wedding as a surprise.

Turns out, planning a wedding wasn't as much fun as he first thought:

With the benefit of hindsight, Mr. Lippert said he wouldn’t recommend any man plan a wedding for his bride, let alone a surprise wedding.


“It’s a lot of work and stress. I took all that pressure away from her. She even slept that night – I didn’t.”

So I guess now we're supposed to think he's a hero, for taking all that pressure away from her? For losing a night of sleep for her? When she hadn't even asked him to, and had no idea what was going on?
 
Did it ever occur to him that maybe she would have enjoyed planning the wedding? That maybe she wanted that last night of staying awake all night with excitement?
 
Basically, that whole quote says to me "Wow, I am so fantastic. I took on a woman's job, and it's hard! Guys, don't do this, you might end up losing some sleep!" Not "don't do this, because your girlfriend might not want you to," but "don't do it because it's best left to the ladies, let them have all the pressure and stress." 
 
Terrific. Very romantic. Ugh.