Wedding Wednesday: When the Bridezilla is actually the Groom

Pretty much anytime someone learns that I used to own and run a wedding business, they inevitably respond with some iteration of the following: “I bet you had to deal with SO many crazy brides!"

It's usually a shock to them, then, when I tell them that only one of my company's many weddings involved a good old fashioned Bridezilla monster of a woman.  For the most part, I tell them, the brides we worked with were gracious, flexible, low-key, laidback, and downright delightful.  I even made lifelong friends with a couple of them.  The others?  Lifelong acquaintances.

So no, I can't say I have that many Bridezilla stories with which to entertain you today.  But have you ever heard of a Groomzilla?  Because this story is about one of those.

There were the 4AM emails I'd receive from him, double-checking every aspect of the planning, every detail of the budget, every this-and-that of the cake flavors.

There were the objections to our florist's vision boards, to the bartender's wine list, to the venue's lighting.

But perhaps nothing was as puzzling as his critique of our hair stylist's work on the bride.  Our team had gathered around our home office's work table for a meeting with the bride and groom one morning when we debuted the bride's wedding day look; the groom had insisted on seeing it beforehand.  He wanted to make sure it was to his satisfaction (interestingly, the bride was very 'whatever' about the whole thing).  I'll never forget the look on his face when we wheeled her around for the 'ta-da!' moment.  Nonplussed, he hemmed and hawed, as we waited with bated breath for his verdict.

"It's just...."

"I'm not sure....."

"I don't think...."

"I wonder if...."

Our entire team had a stifle our collective laughter when he was finally able to put his dissatisfaction into words, gesturing toward her hair.

"I just wonder if you could do something about these pesky fly-aways."

Ultimately, we pulled off an ultra-fun, big-budget wedding for this couple a few weeks later. The bride and groom thanked us profusely, and were ultra-gracious toward me and our entire team. The groom was relaxed, calm, cool and collected throughout the wedding day. And the bride looked gorgeous! “Pesky fly-aways” and all.

🤦🏻‍♀️