Todd Remis was less than pleased with his wedding photographers, who missed the last dance and bouquet toss at his ceremony. Now the Manhattan groom wants them to pay: He’s suing for $4,100, the cost of photography, as well as $48,000 to restage the entire wedding so it can be shot by someone else.
Problematically, the big day went down in 2003, and in the years since, the couple divorced, with the bride shipping back to her native Latvia.
While the case is extreme, Mr. Remis has captured the public imagination as a “groomzilla,” the guy who out-fusses his bride on “his” big day, drawing the ire of his wedding party and possibly his bride.
Groomzillas are as wearisome as their female counterparts, but a new breed of groom-centric bloggers and wedding planners is hoping to redefine the zilla moniker and shift attitudes around male involvement in the pinkest of industries in the process. They resent that men who express even the slightest interest in planning their weddings are being perceived as divas, especially since grooms, not parents, are increasingly funding the lavish nuptials.
“Any guy that cares about his wedding is now labelled a groomzilla. I don’t think that’s fair,” said Dave Soldinger, an L.A. producer who blogged every step of his lengthy nuptial journey – 17 months’ worth – at Temple of Groom.
Punning on the iconic Indiana Jones flick Temple of Doom, the blog features heroes every boy remembers, with a twist: “By the power of Grayskull, I’m not a Groomzilla, I just care about my wedding,” proclaims He-Man. “I pity the fool who doesn’t care about his own wedding,” Mr. T chimes in.
Mr. Soldinger, 29, contemplated every part of the process, from biggies such as the venue, photographer and bridal registry, to nuances including Gocco-printed invites, sky lanterns and the garter toss. (He deemed it “hokey.”) Things heated up when his fiancée Rebecca picked as her colours yellow and white, hues that brought to mind the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mr. Soldinger’s most hated football team. “I couldn’t allow that to happen,” said the Baltimore Ravens fan, who coyly drew up a colour board that added purple into the scheme. Problem solved.
While he believes the wedding industry is “allowing men to infiltrate,” Mr. Soldinger used his inaugural post to voice his own reservations about being so enmeshed: “Sometimes I wish I could be the guy that just shows up, says ‘I do,’ drinks some alcohol and unwraps wedding presents my wife registered for. God knows it’d be much easier for me. But I’m not that guy,” he wrote.
Mr. Soldinger said that “brides love” a man who’s engrossed in the process, within reason – the dress is off limits.
There’s a big difference between obstinate groomzillas and grooms who care about the details: “Brides love the latter,” said Brian Leahy, who blogs at The Groom Says.
Mr. Leahy said he was “heavily involved” in his wedding last October, mostly to take the burden off of his wife. “I wanted to arrive at my wedding and know what it was going to look like, know where I needed to be when, and know that I had contributed to the final result.” Many bridal posts and a first wedding anniversary behind him, Mr. Leahy ruminated that in some respects, “We’re leaving the pink-toned, cutesy, bride-centric weddings behind. We’re making weddings more collaborative.”
