Confessions of Groomzilla

Christian Koch is getting married tomorrow. From vetoing the dress to choosing the flowers, he’s one of a new breed of men who take control of the big day.
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Christian Koch25 May 2012

The bridal dress is a wear-it-once-in-your-lifetime garment; a symbol of innocence, purity and Disney-princess perfection. Tradition dictates that the groom doesn’t see it before the big day, lest he wants decades of misfortune. And if he does happen to glimpse the matrimonial frock, tradition also dictates that he is gushingly complimentary about it.

This isn’t what happened one Friday night last November. My bride-to-be and I were idly sitting on the sofa, me bemoaning the lack of box-set action, her whizzing through her BlackBerry photos. Then the thunderbolt struck. She accidentally flicked too far, and my eyes chanced upon the one picture I should never see — a photo of her trying on a wedding dress. My jaw dropped to the floor.

What appeared before me was nothing like how I imagined my wife looking on my wedding day. The vintage number had frilly bits. Lace galore. A jaunty birdcage veil and a phlegmy, off-white colour. It looked like something her Nan might have lost (and not bothered to find) during a Blitz bombing raid. What in the name of Kate Middleton’s appliqué bodice was she thinking?

Love and marriage, love and marriage. If only they did go together like a horse-drawn carriage. Ask my girlfriend and she’d say ever since the moment I proposed in a moonlit Jamaican cave in late 2010, the engagement period has been one long chain of pre-nuptial tension and strife. In our eight-year-long courtship, we’ve hardly ever argued.

But since the ring’s been on Suzy’s finger, we’ve had squabbles over pew-end flowers, stand-offs about which friends should make the guest list and lost our cool over bunting (of all things). According to my girlfriend, I’m a “groomzilla” — the masculine version of the tyrannical, slightly psychopathic bride who rules every aspect of the wedding like a matrimonially obsessed Mussolini. And if I’m being totally honest, she has a point.

My so-called “groomzilla-ness” has graced every minute of our wedding, from my stance on the first dance (no ballads, no indie and definitely no schmaltz) to decreeing that the day will be a cupcake-free zone. Along the way, I’ve become a Don’t Tell the Bride obsessive, built up an impressive iPhone photo album of table decoration ideas and morphed into a 100-press-ups-a-day, no carbs-eating fitness freak.

My fiancé should have known what was coming when we looked at venues last year. Hotel wedding planners were stunned when I turned up with spreadsheets and lists of questions.

Things have worsened the closer we’ve got to W-Day. I’ve vetoed two pairs of my girlfriend’s shoes (including some plastic Vivienne Westwoods she’d had her heart set on) because they made her almost look as tall as me. I’ve dropped strong hints about what her hair should look like. I also insisted the bridesmaids visit our flat so I could judge what they looked like, Britain’s Top Model-style. (My verdict? One of them looked “too pale”, so back to the shop the outfits went.)

There’s more. It took two months of pleading before I gave in to her choice of wedding car. I’ve scrawled red pen over every draft of our invitations and STDs (that’s “Save the Dates”), making sure everything is emblazoned with our “wedding font”. I also refused to get a wedding ring for myself and questioned whether the florist (despite her 11 years’ experience) had calculated enough flowers. And if the DJ lets so much as one finger stray from my carefully chosen iPod playlist, there’ll be trouble.

Then there are the readings. I believe it’s impossible for any passage of flowery prose to encapsulate the way a couple truly feels about each other. I initially suggested Jay-Z’s 99 Problems or Dadaist Hugo Ball’s “sound poetry” (sample line: “gadji beri bimba”) just to mess with the congregation’s minds. My girlfriend was aghast; her visions of a dream wedding becoming as trampled as leftover confetti. She proffered Philip Larkin’s An Arundel Tomb, some mawkish old codswallop about a grave, thinking the parent-hating misanthrope might appeal to my cool sensibilities. It didn’t. We’ve now come up with some (admittedly) amazing compromises but not without many painful, protracted evenings scouring lyrics on laptops into the small hours.

By organising my entire stag do with zero input from my best man, I saved him a job, too. This is due to my Baedeker-like knowledge of the destination (Hamburg) and because I refused to sport a mankini for the weekend.

But back to that dress. There’s currently a big trend towards vintage ceremonies, and I blame alternative wedding websites such as rocknrollbride.com and lovemydress.net. Thousands of women flock to these blogs to get inspiration on outré table plans, surveying soft-focus shots of snogsome spouses at fairground-themed ceremonies. So far, so kooky. However, many men aren’t fans of “quirky”. There’s nothing attractive about dressing like a consumptive charlady from Anne of Green Gables, especially for something as epochal as getting spliced.

On a joyless Sunday last January, I was dragged around an “alternative wedding fair” in Piccadilly. The enforced jollity of stalls called “Burlesque Brides” — manned by swirl-skirted girls with funny fringes and purple hair — was all too much. After five minutes, I felt like parking my lunch up on the pavement outside.

My groomzilla-ness probably stems from being a ridiculously OCD party-planner. But according to Paula Hall, relationship psychotherapist at Relate, equal opportunities are also to blame for my current madness. “Weddings have traditionally been a female domain,” she says. “The extent of the man’s role normally extended to turning up on time and getting drunk. The rise of ‘groomzillas’ are testament to more equality.”

Indeed, weddings are oft described as being “her” special day, a chance for “her” to shine and be a “princess”. All of which I’m happy with. But with men increasingly sharing wedding-planning duties, why shouldn’t we get a slice of that action, too?

There’s also the need to impress your mates. As Hall says: “Before, weddings would have been organised with the in-laws in mind. Now it’s about giving your friends a great party instead.”

Very true. With the rise in kitsch-fest weddings, I don’t want our day smeared with anything too emasculating. The groom who doesn’t stand his ground is the one who ends up in a flamingo-pink suit, making fast in wedlock to the strains of the Glee soundtrack. All of Jordan’s ex-husbands must know this feeling.

Hall recommends keeping things in perspective during planning: “You’re not going to ruin your entire reputation by having one soppy dance.”

Of course, Mrs Christian and myself both want the same thing: a legendary party that will rival Caligula’s Roman blow-outs and whatever Lindsay Lohan got up to last week. And we’re confident we can achieve that. She might have to forgo that vintage dress but I’m sure, when standing at the altar, she’ll look amazing whatever she wears. As long as I haven’t upset her so much that she decides to stand me up instead.

The Groomzilla lexicon

Bridechilla: The opposite of the groomzilla — a bride who’s so relaxed/apathetic that she thinks her wedding breakfast will involve bacon and eggs.

PMT: Pre-marital tension.

Hen-pecked: A groom-to-be who has been forced by the bridesmaids into doing a million pointless Mr and Mrs quizzes.

Fiancé trolls: Those tiresome betrothed couples who always bring the conversation back to their upcoming wedding.

Wedmin: The ridiculously dull admin that accompanies getting married and takes up every weekend prior to the Big Day.

Wedsite: A wedding website, the setting up of which involves a hefty amount of wedmin.

Groom raider: A groom too tight-fisted to splash out on a Savile Row suit who instead relies on a bricolage involving his usher’s cufflinks, his dad’s old cricket tie and a Mr Byrite suit last worn by his best man for a job interview in 1991.

Wedequette: How to behave appropriately before getting spliced, such as “We’ll only invite X once Aunt Agatha has dropped out. Or is that bad wedequette?”

alt.stag An alternative stag do for the groom’s friends who don’t like lapdancing bars or might be ladies. Note: the bride can also be invited to this. Also known as “any excuse for a big p***-up before the wedding”.

Bridesmaidzilla: An anally retentive bridesmaid who controls the wedding as if it were her own, sending 9am emails to the bride’s work account every day about booking multiple tanning salon appointments, why her shoes aren’t right and how she can’t be expected to walk down the aisle without a pedicure. Oh, and is the bride going to pay for it?

Marital muteness: What will inevitably happen to the happy couple after their wedding when they find that once the planning is over they will have nothing to talk about. Or, for that matter, nothing in common.

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