You hear a lot about Bridezillas re impossibly controlling or demanding Brides making everyone participating in their wedding conform to their precise expectations.
Most of the time the Groom’s participation in a wedding is somewhat more passive and less choreographed. Do Groomzillas exist in straight or gay couples??
I worked really expensive, fancy weddings and receptions in college and I have been to many hundreds in total. I never saw a Groomzilla. There is surely some example out there because dinosaur porn exists but they have to be exceptionally rare. Most men want as little to do with the actual wedding process as possible. It is all about the bachelor party and then just getting through the ceremony in standard rented clothes after that.
Bridezillas aren’t super-common either although they do exist and I have witnessed it personally a few times. More common are the Mother-of-the-Bride-zilla or the Maid-Of-Honor-zilla. Some of them take their supposed roles way too seriously and project too much. Those are the ones you really have to watch out for if you don’t want to take a dessert fork to the back in the middle of the first dance (I kid but not really; you would be amazed at how outlandish and abusive some women can be once they think they have control and get a couple of drinks in them).
There were a few cases where the father of the bride apologized for his wife’s or daughter’s behavior after it was all over and slipped us all some generous tips for putting up with it. All is forgiven at that point but it never worked the other way around.
I don’t think there are men who are specifically into controlling the wedding. There are however some men who into controlling every aspect of the relationship and the wedding plans would fall into that.
My guess is, since the bride’s family still pays for most of the wedding (that is the way it still works, isn’t it?), the bride has much more say into just what goes into the wedding, whereas the groom pretty much just shows up in a tux, says, “I do,” and walks off with his new wife when all is said and done. Thus, groomzillas are very rare.
I encountered them a few times when I was working at a bridal shop. They were pretty awful, though not necessarily focused on the same things as the traditional “Bridezillas.”
A friend is currently planning her wedding to a “Groomzilla.” He seems like a perfectly nice, normal guy in general, but he has a lot of opinions about the details of the wedding. He wanted the ultimate in formality (white tie and tails), and was intimately involved in choosing the bridesmaids’ dresses (with a long list of rules about what type of dress could or couldn’t be chosen). There are many other details he is dictating as well. It’s not out of character for him–he is a very detail-oriented person in general, and thinks that if you are going to do something, like throw a party, you should go all-out. He had an extremely detailed scheme for a surprise proposal, as well.
I doubt that’s much of the reason (in many cases the bride’s parents don’t pay anyway), I think mostly men just don’t care about whether the ink on the name cards is more teal or more turquoise. Plus some women think they’re entitled to their stupid “princess” day and men don’t get those messages from anywhere.
I work in the wedding industry.
Yes, they exist, and I’d say in about 10% of couples we work with, the groom is the one driving the whole experience. Making the decisions. About 5% of those would probably qualify as “Groomzillas,” though I personally hate the term “bridezilla” as I find it pretty damn irritating and offensive. I would describe a groomzilla as a man who is choosing to make things much more difficult and complex than necessary in order to make some kind of point.
I had a man who made, I think, all of the decisions for his wedding. He chose his fiancee’s dress, the venue, the food, the band, the flowers, the colours, the favours, the invitations. I believe his fiancee was allowed to choose her own makeup and jewelry. But I’m not confident on that point. He was a pain in the ass to work with–not because he cared about the details of the wedding, but because he called us every second day complaining about some detail or another, second-guessing every decision, changing his mind about everything all the time, and so on.
So yes, they exist, but with some caveats. I will generalize to say that most men are not particularly interested in the “accent details” of a wedding (to which I mean things like the colour scheme, flower arrangements, centerpieces, decorations, favours, invitations), but many are more interested than you would think about consumables and entertainment (food, band, bar). Very few women are “bridezillas” in any way, and even fewer men are really “groomzillas.” But I have seen it a couple times. And I will say that there are quite a lot of men who are more involved than you would think, even if it’s only to have strong opinions on a certain segment of the wedding.
This is not the standard any more, except in particularly wealthy families or exceedingly old-fashioned and traditional groups. Much, much, much more common is for the bride’s parents and groom’s parents to provide contributions and the couple provides the remainder of funds themselves, and plenty of couples pay for the wedding entirely themselves. But I would say that “the couple and both sets of parents all contribute some” is the most common by far.
Missed this the first time. I think it really depends on the age of the people involved. My friend and her Groomzilla are in their mid-30s, and the bride and groom are paying for their own wedding after living together for two years. The groom makes a lot more money than the bride and will be paying for the lion’s share of the proceedings.
Most of the people I know who married after age 30 paid for their own weddings. Parents contributed little or nothing, financially.
My first husband was, but it was entirely in keeping with his character and our life in general. He and his mother chose and arranged everything. I was allowed to choose my dress, within certain parameters but everything else was his choice. It was definitely his wedding, I was an accessory.
We were married less than two years before I finally woke up and left and if you’re wondering WTF, yeah, me too.
American style weddings are an abomination for everyone involved. They have very little to do with the actual vows being taken or the relationship that should be the primary focus. Instead, it has devolved into some type of perverse reverse-debutante party that is all about superficial details that no one will remember a day after the whole ordeal is over.
You have aggressive future brides and her friends that fret about the last things they should be concerned about and relatives that are spending money that could be much better served to help with the truly important things. Few people do that though because it takes emotional maturity and financial foresight.
It does fuel an aggressive industry though and let’s people know how much their relationship counts based on the quality of flower vases on the shared tables nobody wants to be at in the first place.
Like I said, I used to work expensive, fancy weddings. I would usually do four on a weekend. We tried to make everything special the same way that Disney World does. Every time I heard a bride say “it is my special day!”, I would think, that is lucky for me because I have another special day coming up in a few hours. They all are.
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that it’s all about the party to some people. I recently read a few dumbass articles, one about a woman who threw a “wedding” for just herself since she didn’t have anyone to marry. Well, not the ceremony, but the reception. And she wore a wedding dress, she didn’t just consider it a party INSTEAD of a wedding, it was all wedding-y.
Then there was another article where a father was dying and so his three or so daughters all had a fake wedding ceremony so he would have a chance to walk them down the aisle and “give them away” (they used that phrase, which is stupid under all circumstances but in this case it’s also completely nonsensical). Yeah it’s sad that the dad was dying, but how does a fake wedding even make sense? How is it even on their radar?
And then there are people who renew their vows. Or have a quickie wedding and then later have a big one. Such nonsense.
Oh, absolutely, now that there are same-sex weddings. Do you watch Modern Family ?
I’ve seen a few groomzillas on Say Yes to the Dress.