Welcome to The Groom’s Guide, our expert-led handbook to help you navigate the proposal, the wedding and everything in between. Find all the stories here.
For most of their lives, men don’t normally discuss weddings. But once you get engaged? Suddenly everyone becomes an expert with some critical piece of advice. Your prospective father-in-law, your boss, your gym buddies, the couple that’s been together for 30 years who’s eavesdropping on you while you’re out to dinner. Whether or not you welcome their often misguided tips is up to you, but there’s one subset of the population who grooms-to-be should absolutely heed: the newly married guys who just went through the same thing.
Anyone can wax poetic about the memorable eccentricities of their own nuptials — You must get a roaming saxophonist! Our midnight snack was pickle pizza! — so it’s best not to accept that style of advice, lest you spend months planning (and paying for) a copycat wedding. However, knowing which parts of the process are severely overrated or secretly underrated, according to men who have all the ups and downs fresh in their minds, can help you and your betrothed steer clear of any lingering regrets after you tie the knot.
That’s why I recently spoke with a group of men, all of whom were married within the last three years, and asked them one simple question: If you were able to redo your wedding, what’s one thing you would change?
Here’s their advice, which runs the gamut from tailoring wisdom to the person you absolutely must hire for the big day. Most of the guys were adamant that they had a perfect wedding, but it’s telling that they all still found some tweak that would have made it even better.
You Painstakingly Picked the Food, So Eat It
“Eat the food. You try a million dishes. You pick the perfect menu. The day comes, and you are running around like a chicken without a head. You don’t eat. Everyone says the food is incredible, but you wouldn’t know. You were busy getting ripped from one conversation to the next all night and never had a chance to sit and eat. You also likely got more tipsy than you should’ve as a result. Except you’re so tired that said tipsiness just translates to yawning during speeches.” — Charles, 38, married October 2025, 125 guests
You Don’t Need 100 Photos of the Wedding Party
“The one thing I’d change is less time spent on wedding-party photos. You don’t need 100 pictures at multiple locations (she agreed we spent too long taking pictures, although the party bus was fun). Get a few good shots and get back to cocktail hour, because in the end you’ll probably only pick like 20 pictures for a wedding photo album and barely, if ever, look at the rest again.” — Chris, 31, married May 2023, 250 guests
Skip the Morning-After Breakfast
“We would have kept our farewell doughnuts and coffee event the morning after shorter or cut it entirely. We were so exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally the morning after our ceremony and reception that it was extra draining to say goodbye to all of our guests.” — Luke (34) and Mike (35), married October 2024, 100 guests
Get a Day-Of Coordinator, Even If You Don’t Hire a Planner
“Hire a day-of wedding coordinator to handle the inevitable last-minute problems. We didn’t have one, and there was a lot of anxiety, like when the DJ didn’t show up on time. That fell on me to figure out because the girls were too busy getting their hair done to deal with it.” — Brad, 31, married September 2023, 180 guests
Overcommunicate With Your Vendors
“Big wedding guy. Love weddings. And I loved our wedding. All the things we cared about — the people, the place, the party — were present and accounted for. All this to say there isn’t much I would change. But I wish I would’ve gotten back in touch with my vendors (photographer, DJ) close to the wedding date to check in and reiterate our preferences. When you first vet those folks, they’re in sales mode and tell you everything you want to hear. But they’re super busy people who do this every week, so by the time your wedding rolls around, they might not remember all the little specifics you asked for: a genre you’d like to avoid at the reception, no pictures of your uncle’s new girlfriend who no one likes and only got invited on a technicality, etc. Overcommunicating with those folks will only yield better results.” — Walker, 38, married January 2024, 75 guests
Interrogate Your DJ
“Your DJ does more than just play music all night, they are your emcee for the event. They are directing the crowds, they are bringing the liveliness and keeping everyone entertained, and they are soundtracking the most important night of your life! So take the time (and money, if need be) to find a good DJ. Interview, get a good vibe, ask questions of your DJ. In my opinion, everything else (food, venue, weather) can be worked around and made up for by a top-notch DJ to score your evening.” — Andy, 31, married October 2025, 200 guests
Decide Early Which Details Matter, and Which Don’t
“One of the few things we would change is be a bit more detail-oriented about the wedding-planning process, but still allow for vendors to do other planning themselves (like tell the vendor what music we wanted, but let them pick the specific songs instead of us). I think we rushed a few planning steps since we are a bit older and just wanted to cross off a lot of the planning process early, and we missed a few minor things about integrating all of it (some tables a bit closer to each other, maybe additional decoration for the church). But there were a few positives from this that turned into special moments, like we allowed longer for pictures than we actually needed and ended up having an hour extra to just hang out with friends and family who I wouldn’t have talked with during the day otherwise for more than 15 seconds.” — Kola, 35, married August 2025, 70 guests
Don’t Delay the Honeymoon
“We purposely chose not to go straight on our honeymoon following our wedding, and that was probably a mistake. It was brutal to come down from the high of our union and celebrating with our closest friends, only to return to the monotony of work just a few days later. We should have kept the good vibes going and taken off for at least a week to enjoy our new status as a married couple. Our honeymoon was still amazing, but it didn’t quite capture the magic of the energy had we jetted off in the days following our wedding.” — Geoff, 35, married May 2025, 15 guests
Trim Your Guest List
“Keep the invite list down. The entire day is spent talking to people. Endless talking. There’s no time to enjoy it when you spend 90% of the night making painful small talk. You don’t get to spend time with your bride. Your day is spent on opposite sides of the party pretending to care about what people are saying to you. All. Night. On. Repeat. Before you have the chance to come up for air, someone else grabs your arm. It’s a true horror show. We had 125 at our wedding and that was small for us considering 80 of that was family. That was still far too many. F’in Italians.” — Charles
Wait to Tailor Your Suit
“Don’t do any significant amount of weightlifting or weight loss between your tailoring and the wedding day. My tuxedo was hella baggy and the pants sat way too low because I forgot I had it tailored the year before when I was trying to get yoked, then switched to running and had slimmed down.” — Brad
Enjoy Your Newlywed Bliss. If You’re Lucky, It Only Comes Around Once.
“We would not have rushed into our next big purchase after our wedding. We started searching for a new house to buy and wish we had taken a break to enjoy the smaller joys and experiences of being newly married.” — Luke and Mike
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