We’ve all heard of the infamous bridezilla: the wild demands that can end friendships; rules dictating what guests can and cannot wear; wedding bulletins to be followed to the letter.
However, catching a glimpse of the groomzilla can take you quite by surprise. You soon realise nothing will be done unless you appease his every demand. And, dear reader, I can tell you from first-hand experience: heavy is the head that wears his crown. In this instance, a plastic tiara, produced at the end of my maid of honour’s speech and placed on the head of my very own groomzilla. My husband, Adam.
Things got off to a stellar start. We visited the venue, tasted the food and decided on a cake. It was all going swimmingly.
But as our planning continued, my groom-to-be’s interest increased. The printed stationery hadn’t yet been organised. Adam stepped in, and a series of unfortunate events unfolded. Every idea I had was met with a scoff: “No, darling, you don’t understand.”
“I think we should hand-draw all the place cards,” he suggested. I delightedly bought a calligraphy pen and ink and set to work. When I showed him my first attempts, they were met with a grimace. “This is terrible. It looks like Cadbury’s chocolate writing!” I couldn’t believe my ears. Apparently, even my handwriting needed art direction.
Then there were the limoncello shots, to be placed at each setting. “Let’s tie ribbons around each of them,” he said. During an initial inspection, a flaw was discovered. “They need to be double-tied.” There was no rhyme or reason. My patience was wearing thin.
The cherry on top of my groomzilla cake was the sleeping arrangements the night before the wedding. My maid of honour and I ended up at my parents’ house on their fold-out double bed. She was a new mum with a bad back; I was the bride. While the springs dug into us, Adam and his best man slept in our bridal suite, cocooned in the pillowy cloud of the king-sized bed.
On the morning of the wedding, they were ordering room service, wearing our hotel slippers and dressing gowns. Meanwhile, we were having toast and tea rustled up by my mum and getting our hair and makeup done, absolutely shattered from the previous night.
But was mine an isolated case? Speaking to others about their experiences, I discovered that I wasn’t alone.
One wedding planner suggested that a groom’s demands could be a last-minute scramble to put his own stamp on the big day: “I think the nature of the beast is that they don’t really understand the process, or they haven’t paid attention to it as much as the bride.”
Then comes a delayed spark of interest: a deluge of emails with changes, leaving everyone around him tearing their hair out.
