A WOMAN NEEDS a man like a fish needs a bicycle," goes the old feminist slogan popularized by Gloria Steinem. I can’t speak to the veracity of Steinem’s statement in absolute terms. But it might be true when it comes to wedding planning.

In terms of planning my own Big Event, I must confess that I’ve been a less-than-stellar participant — and that my fiancée seems to like it that way. I’m not happy to admit this, but I can’t help the fact that reviewing sample invitations makes my mind go numb. I don’t relish the role that has fallen to me, something akin to the Creature That Time Forgot. I simply state it as a fact.

From the minute I got into this wedding business, which involved the high-pressure purchase of an expensive piece of jewelry — a task for which I was as well suited as a fish is to bicycle-riding — I have been out of my depth. I would like to help my fiancée with the myriad difficult tasks ahead — tending to the place settings, flower arrangements, etc. — but how? These are rites that are mysteries to me.

Start with the basics: my training. I come to this momentous event with a fundamental lack of knowledge about weddings and how to plan them. The guest list for the biggest birthday party I ever arranged (a pizza party) was four, including myself. As a boy and later, the specifics of my eventual wedding entered my mind as often as the details of the earned-income tax credit. Which is to say never. At other people’s weddings or formal functions, I have been most impressed by the appetizers the hosts have served; from this I know I do not want my guests to go hungry. Once I knew whom I would marry, a rough idea of the ceremony I wanted formed in my mind. An event at which no one goes hungry. And that’s about it.

The first and most arduous task assigned to the groom is the purchase of the engagement ring. Consider how ludicrous this is. A person who has absolutely no knowledge of jewelry is asked to make what’s probably the most expensive purchase of the couple’s lives — a diamond ring. What kind of sadist came up with that idea? Before making my purchase, the closest I had ever come to the buying and selling of diamonds was during my frequent patronage of a Manhattan eatery called the Triple Diamond Dairy Restaurant, located in the Diamond Exchange off 47th Street. I’d hasten past the jewelers’ booths packing the area on my way to get my cup of mushroom-barley soup.

So with that gaping knowledge deficit, I treated this task much like a reporting assignment, researching rings over the Internet and asking all my friends what would be acceptable. Obsessed with the possibility of being taken, I finally made the buy — from a jeweler who was a family friend — with official certification. I had planned the elaborate engagement sequence carefully: 1) I picked up the ring covertly while she shopped at a local mall with my mother; 2) we drove over to Blue Ginger in Wellesley for dinner; 3) I asked her to marry me (she said yes); 4) we ate a delicious meal followed by a handshake from celebrity chef Ming Tsai. I figured I was home free. She agreed to be my wife. I was done. Or so I thought.

SHORTLY AFTER the official engagement, the apartment became submerged in reams of bizarre, phone-book-thick glossy magazines. They seemed to have materialized out of the ether. Where did she get them all? Within a matter of days, she had thoroughly studied these manuals, created a three-ring binder filled with wedding information, and launched an extensive Internet search on wedding-related subjects. Despite the obvious disparity between us in knowledge and interest level — I was peppered with questions about what kind of "save-the-date" we should distribute, for example — a disturbing pattern emerged. As much as I wanted to avoid detailed wedding discussion, I could not escape.

First, I found that my mother would frequently interrogate me about the wedding and gift registration, which caused my head to spin. "Do you want a ‘Jack and Jill’ shower?" she asked. "Don’t you think that’s a little personal?" I answered. It all sounded so foreign to me. Many of the discussions with my mother — centering on obscure relatives, pre-wedding get-togethers, and post-wedding brunches — seemed as familiar to me as the origin of subatomic particles. My solution? Put her on the phone with my fiancée.

But even then I was not free. Thanksgiving weekend I found myself in a car with my fiancée, her mother, and her sister visiting possible wedding sites. I had concocted a simple strategy. I would say as little as possible. We visited hotel after hotel. Function room after function room. Like a toddler, I slowly acquired a valuable skill. Just as small children learn how to speak by mimicking their parents, I picked up on a few key words that would give me the appearance of having an opinion. In certain rooms, I was quick to make reference to the "acoustics" and, in others, to voice concerns about the "color scheme." (I would later make use of that new capability when the time came to register for gifts.) Ultimately we ended up visiting a synagogue near her childhood home — an idea I pushed, in part, because the synagogue was close to a pizza place where I wanted to eat lunch.

For the future groom, perhaps the most frightful aspect of planning a wedding is registering for gifts. This task entails taking vital time away from a busy weekend — time when you could be, say, watching a sporting event — and spending it in a department store. In truth, I didn’t have to accompany my future wife to the actual registration. I just had to go with her on a "pre-registration visit" or "walk-through." She did this to introduce me to Crate & Barrel and Bed, Bath & Beyond, to get my opinion on dishes, china, mugs, etc. On the surface, these visits seemed innocuous enough, but for me they were torture sessions. While I managed a few times to voice an actual opinion — "Those giant beer glasses are really nice" — generally I found myself stumped. How does one distinguish between utterly indistinguishable pieces of dishware? Once, when I thought we had actually picked the china, I was disappointed to learn that this was only the "casual" china. "Fine china" was a completely different thing we hadn’t even begun to search for yet.

I tried to ape the men I saw walking around with their fiancées. How I envied those who were so learned in dishware that they could tell their companions exactly what they wanted. One Sunday, we went through the routine at Kitchen Etc. Fine, fine, fine was my mantra. Unless something had too much junk, too much finery and design, it was fine as far as I was concerned. Then we came to the flatware section. (Note: I just had to ask a colleague what the collective word is for forks and knives.) My fiancée pointed at one set of silverware and asked what I thought. I stared at the fork and knife, which seemed to be in the shape of sharks. I thought I didn’t like it, but wasn’t sure of the right answer. "I don’t know," I said. "What do you think?" She wouldn’t accept that. She said she really needed an answer. I had to go out on a limb. I went for it. "I don’t think I like it," I said, tensing up. She burst out laughing. It was, it became clear, a trap to see if I had any standards at all.

It’s not that I am completely useless. There are still some functions I can perform. All those bridal magazines have actually devised lists of tasks to help men get involved with the wedding: help choose the wedding music, pick the booze, taste the food, plan the honeymoon. Since I do have experience in listening to music, drinking alcohol, eating food, and traveling, I think I can be an asset in those areas. At best, I see my role much as the general counsel to my bride, the chief executive officer. She makes the big-picture plans and attends to many of the details, but I can veto something if I have a major concern. So far that’s worked out. Let’s hope it continues. But I’m also worried. We’re not there yet. I’m sure there’s tons more to do that I’m not even aware of.

Seth Gitell can be reached at sgitell[a]phx.com