We're at the six week countdown to the wedding and time is beginning to slip away.

Our weekends between now and the big day are jam-packed with activities. While many of those plans are related to our wedding, several of our friends are celebrating milestones as well, including marriages and babies.

This past weekend, we had a doubleheader - wedding on Saturday, baby shower on Sunday. It was great to see old friends and catch up, but the events were also a stunning reminder of how much gets heaped on women folk during these milestone events.

My good friend and former roommate was married on Saturday. He moved to Switzerland a couple of years ago, but opted to have his wedding on American soil. However, with his work overseas, his bride-to-be was forced to do much of the planning and legwork on her own. She managed to do a great job and look beautiful. I was impressed.

On Sunday, we woke early to travel to my hometown in the Twin Ports to shower my long-time friend with gifts and well-wishes for her baby that is due to arrive this August. Women filled the basement of her church, touching her swollen belly and sharing their words of wisdom about giving birth and child rearing. We ate quiches, cake and watched her open one onesie after another.

Meanwhile, her husband and her sister-in-law's boyfriend played golf.

My mom commented on how "typical" that scenario was. "The woman goes and endures all of this to collect items for the home and baby while the guy goes out and golfs."

I had to laugh. I've been to enough of these estrogen-packed events to know that she's hardly exaggerating.

With our own wedding showers approaching quickly, we are trying to take a different approach to try to include my fiance Chad and other guys as much as possible. Chad will be at all three of our showers (painful for him perhaps, but infinitely more tolerable for me). He has permission to be in the garage for two of them, but for our third shower, my sister and bridesman (that's right man) are throwing us a "couples shower."

Gone are the silly games involving pie pans and dice and horrible dish towel/candle/lotion prizes. Instead, we'll have a Wii, a dart board, and drinks. Our friends of both the female and male variety are invited and it should be a pretty good time.

To me, it makes more sense. It's not my wedding, it's our wedding - why shouldn't we both be involved?

One of my male friends argued that it's my wedding and our marriage, but I don't agree. Other than picking out wedding attire for the ladies, Chad has been involved in each step of the wedding planning process. He's given his input on the menu, tasted cake, put items on the registry and even designed the invites. He hasn't complained and it's been a major stress reliever for me to not have to make all of the decisions on my own.

I'm not sure I can get him to appear at a baby shower when we start having kids, but you can bet I'm sure gonna try.

TELL US: Have traditional roles for men and women changed when it comes to these milestone events?