At first, David Betesh didn’t even want a wedding. Too showy and performative. But three months after proposing to his girlfriend, he discovered that not only did he want one, he needed mini Yorkshire puddings with prime rib and horseradish cream at the event. He requested an ice sculpture of the couple’s two dogs lounging in a cocktail glass. And he was very specific about the vibe he envisioned.
“Pretend we’re on the Titanic,” he told his fiancée, “and we’re sinking and we’re drinking Champagne.”
A growing groom economy is ready to make those dreams, and more, come true.
The wedding industry that’s created demand for everything from caged doves to ceiling flowers finally is turning its attention to men, reminding brides of four important words: It’s his day too. This season, expect groom glam (hot towels and straight razor shaves), choreographed groom walks to the altar, personalized groom’s cakes, groom mood boards, groom concierges and, maybe, grooms carried around like Cleopatra.
“We found that no grooms were really being catered to whatsoever,” said Fletcher Kasell, half of the fashion label Tanner Fletcher, a New York brand that began offering more options for grooms three years ago. “The wedding industry is a sea of white dresses.”
Now vendors ignore grooms at their peril. When Peter Petrella and his fiancée toured wedding venues near their home in Winter Garden, Fla., they were wowed by one site whose bridal suite boasted six couches, five mirrors, a connecting bathroom and an outdoor space.
But the groom’s quarters? “It was about the size of a walk-in closet, it had one speaker and three chairs,” said Petrella, 28, a theme-park performer. He was told that he and his six groomsmen were not allowed to get dressed on site, but they could pretend to do so for pictures. Petrella noted this on his 52-page wedding spreadsheet. The venue lost the sale.
Outfit changes and groomsman photo-ops are de rigueur for some, while others express their newly empowered groom voices through the deployment of personal themes. Golf, for instance.
For Sean Fernando’s wedding at Adare Manor in Ireland last year, New York luxury event planner Marcy Blum helped the groom stage a golf competition on the grounds of the nearly 200-year-old castle landmark-turned-resort. To play the course, the site of next year’s Ryder Cup, the groom divided the wedding guests into two teams vying for the “Fernando Cup,” with matching jerseys on each side.
Fernando, 43, who works in the tech industry and lives in New York with his video-editor wife, invested about $15,000 in his wardrobe, which included a bottle-green jacket for the rehearsal dinner, a black tux for the ceremony and a pink tux jacket for the “Pink Pony Club” party that followed. He finished his wedding-day look with a brooch, ruling out a boutonniere. “I’m not going to prom,” he said.
Some brides are still adjusting to grooms with louder opinions.
“I thought he was just going to sit there and say, ‘I like blue,’ ” they tell Blum. But the involved groom helps set a healthy precedent for a marriage and reflects a desire to build a true union, she said. “You’re going to have kids with this person, or at least be with them for the rest of your life, so you don’t want to be unilateral. At least try to use it as a testing ground for how well you can partner on things.”
Last year, Adler Marchand started a groom concierge service in Fort Lauderdale. Marchand, who danced down the aisle to Kendrick Lamar at his own wedding, serves as a kind of valet turned therapist turned fixer. He’s raced to find ivory shoes for a forgetful groomsman and led a prayer to calm a jittery future husband. When a newlywed clashed with his wedding planner, Marchand helped the groom walk off his bad mood, driving slowly behind him in a golf cart and periodically offering water. The guests were none the wiser.
“Every groom needs a groom’s assistant, I don’t even understand why it’s not a common thing,” said former NFL safety Duke Ihenacho, who spent more than $2,000 to hire Marchand for his Los Angeles rooftop wedding last year.
Bridal magazines have long graced grocery aisles, but now there are publications marketing to the husband-to-be. Garden & Gun, the Southern culture magazine, recently delivered its first wedding issue to its male-leaning readership. Ads for the digital publication sold quickly, mostly to travel companies, while stories included a feature on a honeymoon destination with fly fishing and sporting clays. The title exceeded expectations by driving high six-figure revenue in its first three months, its publisher Christian Bryant said. A promotional email announced: “A brand long rooted in bourbon and bird dogs is now backing the groom, and it’s working.”
Garden & Gun’s next wedding issue will feature groom’s cakes, which often appear at rehearsal dinners in the south. Cake artists have created specialized confections such as a Yeti cooler cake with a fishing rod, a cake rendering of Citi Field, a cake with a duck in the reeds and a cake with handcuffs and a firearm.
Grooms have shown Boston-based wedding planner Keri Ketterer Walter a specific tartan, a herringbone fabric swatch and “wallpaper that kind of looked like the scales of a trout” for decor inspiration, she said. One groom insisted the invitations include a reference to the snickerdoodle cookies he bakes with his fiancée.
An activist groom leaves traditional voices of authority—mothers and mothers-in-law—contending with one more decision-maker.
“Our clients, who are very sophisticated and smart, are going to be like, ‘This guy’s going to raise my grandchildren, and I want to make sure I’m aligned, and if I’m not, I’d better be careful,’ ” said high-end event planner Bryan Rafanelli. “I’m the coach, right? I’ll be like, ‘Just take a deep breath on worrying about the size of the butter plate.’ ”
Of course, some men have always cared about wedding details and gotten at least as involved as the bride. And groom-groom weddings are a male enterprise all around. But whether straight or same-sex, weddings now are pushed to represent both sides of the altar.
When PJ Magerko-Liquorice and Jordan Millington-Liquorice married in rural southeastern Pennsylvania four years ago, they curated whimsical and personal touches. Deepak Chopra, who officiated, wore a jacket embroidered with an image of the night sky the day the couple met. Their weekend offered drag performances, a crystal bowl sound bath, a disco nap break and 32 custom looks for the wedding party featuring florals, feathers, corsets and capes. They were going to put their white dog Miss Honey in angel wings and have her deliver the rings via zipline, but then decided it’d be too terrifying for all involved.
“I really do hope that more couples feel a more equal part in collaborating and having fun together and exploring,” said Millington-Liquorice, 32, a photographer and director.
Some grooms are taking it a step further, parlaying their weddings into personal branding.
Sam Noyer, 28, who is planning his wedding party this summer in Tuscany, is assembling his own pre-wedding shot list. “The guys in the bathroom and they’re getting ready and they’re dancing and having fun or have a drink in their hand,” said Noyer, a New York content creator who recently found an online niche as a groom influencer.
Another groomfluencer, Ethan Lounsbury, 27, was stunned by how quickly he monetized his social media posts directed at husbands-to-be. He -raked in more than $15,000 in a couple of months with content for a jewelry insurer and a wedding-betting app, where guests can wager on variables such as who will cry first and the length of the best man’s speech. One such post drew 250,000 views in two days.
He’s planning his July nuptials in Columbus, Ohio. “Who knew I would even care about colors at our wedding?” he said. “We’re pulling the wine pinkish red color out of the bridesmaids dresses into my tie, and we’re incorporating it into the napkins.”
As for Betesh, 36, the groom who channeled visions of the Titanic: His fiancée, Rachel Hodin, was happy to see her commercial real-estate broker boyfriend so invested in their event. Plus, Hodin, 37, a freelance writer who chronicled her “groomzilla” experience for Vogue, admires his gold-plated tastes. She did overrule him, though, on a flowerscape he described as “minimal ’90s, minimal Japanese, minimalist Charlie Sheen in ‘Wall Street’ vibes.”
“I can’t help myself,” Betesh said. “I have opinions.”
