The rise of the groomzilla

We've all heard the bridezilla stories: the woman who made her bridesmaids dye their hair brown, so she could be the only blonde in the bridal party; the one who started weigh-ins for her bridesmaids six months before the ceremony; the bride who made all her friends write a letter explaining why they should be maid of honour ...

Now it turns out that grooms are muscling in. Yep, groomzillas exist and they're scaring us ...

"The dress looked like something that my grandmother would have worn back in the 1920s. It was hideous, absolutely vile. And if there's one thing I don't like it's vintage dresses. It was the antithesis of what I wanted my bride to look like on her wedding day," Koch said.

He even wrote an article for London's Evening Standard explaining why he took it all so seriously.

"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?"

He went on to confess they squabbled about everything from pew-end flowers, the guest list, the first dance ("no ballads, no indie and definitely no schmaltz"), the wedding cake ... He also admitted to becoming obsessed with his own appearance in the lead up to the ceremony, doing a 100-press-ups-a-day and turning into a no carbs-eating fitness freak.

"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, Top Model-style. (My verdict? One of them looked “too pale”, so back to the shop the outfits went.)"

Surprisingly, Christian is not alone in his wedding OCD. Earlier this year, the annual David's Bridal "What's on Brides' Minds" survey revealed that 83% of grooms are now taking a hands-on approach to wedding-related decision making.

Leigh Rust, 32, of Terry Hills in Sydney, recently confessed to Fairfax Media to being a Groomzilla when it came to his 2010 nuptials.

“Yes, I'm a control freak!” says Leigh. “I planned it all: the proposal in Thailand, where I hired an entire beach and restaurant just for us; the engagement; our lavish James Bond-themed wedding, and the around-the-world 11-week honeymoon.

“I just wanted it all to get done. I had a clear picture in my head – I knew what I wanted. Sara likes lots of things; I just picked one thing, ticked it off my spreadsheet [yes, it was colour-coded] and moved on to the next. We did do some things together, like the flowers, but usually I had the final say. I did, however, let her pick her dress.

“I just wanted Sara to enjoy her special day, but she did think I was overdoing it with the smoke machine and pyrotechnics."

Meanwhile, Julia Lorenti is the wedding and events manager of Miramare Gardens in Terry Hills, revealed that in her experience only about 10 to 15 per cent of grooms want to arrange the entire wedding themselves.

“The grooms can be as bad, if not worse, than the brides,” she said. “[One] groom, who had booked his wedding a year in advance, called every single day in the lead up. Most of the calls were random and irrelevant questions. This same groom then asked me if he could bring a Taser so that, if at anytime during the wedding something went wrong, he could Taser me to keep me on my toes. And no, he wasn't joking.”

And not surprisingly, male celebs are big on it too. According to Katy Perry, Russell Brand was a bit of a Groomzilla for their wedding, demanding that everything be monogrammed at the reception; while Michael Vartan gushed after he got engaged:  “I’m excited about throwing an engagement party, I’m excited about choosing the bridesmaid dresses, and what kind of knives and food.”

Oooooh-kay ...

Sweet or SCARY? 

No one likes a stranger in their wedding photos. Okay, maybe not no one - the bride and groom are never too chuffed about a photobomber, but the people looking at the photos love it. In fact, we love it so much we've gathered some of our favourite ones for you to click through right here: