The Ultimate Groom Point: surprise gift for the bride (or groom)

As far as I know, this isn't a thing. I mean, it may have been a thing at one time or another, like a traditional thing, but it's certainly not a modern day thing or anything.

But to be sure, I snuck over to TheKnot's Q&A with Carley Roney and found both a Q and an A on that precise topic. Carley's response?

"It is an optional tradition for the bride and groom to exchange gifts -- the night before the wedding, the morning of, or once the festivities are over."

Aha, there it is. Traditional. Optional. Which means, considering all those last minute things that are not optional, it doesn't happen that often...

...but if I can reach out to the gents for a minute here: Men, here is your opportunity to shine. Chances are, unless you yourself are a wedding planner, and you're marrying a woman who lives in Antarctica with no internet access who's arriving the morning of the wedding ... she's done more work to get here. She's put in more hours, made more phone calls, visited more venues. This is your chance to say, in a very personal way, "Despite all this chaos, I haven't forgotten that this day is about you and me, and I want to thank you for everything you've done to make it happen."

Our destination wedding made things a little tricky, but with a little help, I was able to make it work. I had the gift shipped to a friend's office in New York and asked now-brother-in-law Patrick to pick up a gift bag and some tissue paper the morning of the wedding. Partway through getting ready, I sent one of my boys upstairs (the girls were directly above us, actually) to deliver the gift: a coffee mug camera lens that 2Es had been raving about for months (but hadn't bought, for whatever reason) with a handwritten note. She never expected it.

Only $24 on Photojojo. And that's not 2Es, by the way. That's just a well-lit stock photo woman with a similar tint of hair.

The mug is so authentic-looking that one of our photographers mistook it for one of his lenses -- until he realized that it was completely hollow. The gift also came with this plastic dinosaur, which became the mascot for the wedding and lives on a mantle here at the house.

Dino-myte

If your bride is into photo gear like 2Es, check out the Photojojo store for cool, cheap gift ideas (as well as sweet props for photo sessions).

Ladies -- if your groom hasn't already splurged on his attire, maybe slip him a pair of these kick-ass mustache cufflinks before he slips into his tux. (Starting at $60 from Uncrate)

As Carley suggests, it need not be extravagant. Lord knows you've spent enough money getting to this moment, so it's really not about that. It's about showing your better half that you know precisely what this day is about. And if the gift comes with a mascot, so be it.

Dealing with Vendors Who Can't Deal

Occasionally in wedding planning, you'll run into people who require what I like to call *special care*. 2Es and I ran into one such person -- one of our vendors, in fact -- who, for whatever reason, made it impossible to work with him. (We'll call him Alex.) And had we been asked to fill out one of those comment cards following our experience, we might have responded with the following:

Alex was the one and only person we worked with in the course of the sixteen months that I genuinely disliked. The man actually drove me to punch a wall, for chrissake.

Why, Brian? What would drive you to do such an aggressive thing? Did the wall crumble from the blow??

Alex's company offers services for a whole range of events, and weddings are not their primary source of income. Hence, Alex finds weddings/brides/grooms to be a nuisance and often too much trouble for what they earn per event. But rather than suggesting to his superiors that they raise their prices or cut weddings from their scope of services, Alex gave us attitude. He gave us curt answers to all questions, didn't speak to us for months, and then surprised us with unfavorable news the week BEFORE our wedding. That was when I punched our living room wall. And I'm not the kind of person who punches walls. I've seen those guys in movies. They're highly repressed or 'roided up or in serious need of a hug. I get plenty of hugs. But Alex drove me to that place when he asked us to pull up our contract and indicated a loophole which allowed him to conduct himself like a total jerk-off. 

Alex could have ruined our wedding, but we wouldn't let one person interfere with this occasion or sixteen months of planning or any of the million other things that matter more than one sour a**hole. 

So what did we do? Well, we did three things (outside of punching the wall), and I would recommend them to anyone who's battling with a vendor or manager or contact person and is unable to come to a sensible resolution.

1. Find someone who can say SUCK IT, ALEX without saying SUCK IT, ALEX. We have a few ball busters in our circle of friends, but one in particular stood out. We asked this person (we'll call her Alexa) to handle all correspondence and communication with Alex in the week that followed. We didn't need the stress. We communicated through someone logical who could sense our frustration and respond more rationally, professionally and calmly than we ever could.

2. Signal the troops. Once Alexa was fielding Alex's phone calls and emails, we alerted our family members of the unfortunate situation. We told them what they needed to know and only what they needed to know. We described the tight situation Alex had put us in and where we had been forced to compromise. And, most importantly, we asked them to not bring this up at the wedding. We just wanted them to be aware, we said, to keep them in the loop. 

3. Avoid contact ... eye or otherwise. We avoided Alex like the plague on our wedding day. Our amazing day-of coordinators took charge of the situation and immediately diffused all of the negative energy. They addressed his questions; they went to him when issues arose; and at the close of the evening, they paid him. It was a huge gift to us to get Alex off of our hands. 

Our precautions may seem extreme in hindsight, but we accomplished two things: (1) we avoided any incidents at the wedding, and (2) we're now able to laugh at the whole thing. And laugh at Alex. Sometimes we just sit on the couch, TV on mute, and laugh at Alex: at his sourness, the phone conversations we had with him through gritted teeth, and the thought of him having to deal with more and more weddings as time goes on. 

And no, the wall did not crumble from the blow, but it did leave a noticeable impression in our living room wall. We've named that impression "Alex's Clenched A**hole." 

Crossing the Aisle, Vol III

A quick note to grooms before we begin:

Grooms, if you're going to investigate the bridal blogs on your own, please remember to use the buddy system. Let's keep incidents to a minimum. Thank you. 

OK, this week's groom-approved assortment features two new tie companies (well, new to me), a New Zealand wedding and a new man-friendly honeymoon destination. Let's get this ball rolling.

Groom-Approved Links on the Bridal Blogs

THE BEST COTTON TIE
via East Side Bride
"The best" cotton tie is a rather bold statement, but ESB's hit the nail on the head with this two-tone tie from Pierrepont Hicks. Also scope out the other unique designs on PH's website.

NEW ZEALAND WEDDING BY SUTHERLAND KOVACH STUDIO
via Style Me Pretty
Sombreros, a pinata and some groom-approved hand-drawn and hand-crafted details. And whatever Thornycroft Dark Ale is, I want one.

KATHRYN LOVES... GENERAL KNOT & CO.
via Snippet & Ink
OK, we just agreed that the Pierrepont ties were "the best," I know, I know. But S&I plugged General Knot & Co. on the blog this week -- a definite contender for the "kick-ass tie manufacturer" title. Check out the groom-commissioned ties that are different but still coordinating.

LET'S GO GLAMPING: HONEYMOONING AT MONTANA'S PAWS UP
via Offbeat Bride

Men, prepare yourself. You might want to get married all over again just to book another honeymoon at this upscale camping resort. And on the activities calendar? Rappelling, ATV-ing, and Zorb Balling.

Pop and (Pad)Lock: How Americans Can Go Bigger with Romance

It's true, there is something inherently European about etching your initials into a padlock, affixing it to a railing on a bridge, and tossing the key into the murky and slightly pungent current of the canal below. These acts of padlock love, in which lovers proclaim and seal their commitment to one another (oftentimes to mark their engagement), are slowly making their way into the states; but we can't begin to compete with our neighbors across the Atlantic, whose railings and fences and benches and whatnots are literally shrouded with locks.

And it's no surprise that the love shackles that now appear on the Brooklyn Bridge, for instance, are clipped on occasion -- hacked off the railings like cheap, drugstore padlocks left on gym lockers overnight -- removed by the goons at the Department of Transportation, who ignore the sheer romanticism behind these acts of vandalism and adhere to the rules of the historic structure.

Geez, this is more un-American than universal health care.

Of course, we can't blame the DOT for putting a stop to an emerging trend; the fact is, love padlocks haven't caught on simply because they're not American enough. This is an indication that we need something even more permanent, more impressive, more patriotic. We're the United ******* States. We don't indulge in simple, unadorned, old-fashioned romanticism; no, we build a ******* Subway chain restaurant.

alternatives to padlocks for americans who need more

1. Open a Subway. If permanence and security are what you're after, why not go for the gold and join the largest fast food franchise on the globe. At the close of 2010, Subway actually surpassed reigning champion McDonald's as the world's most proficient feeder of hungry people. Nothing says I am committed to you forever like making your 2Es a Subway franchisee and making her financially accountable for the success or failure of a restaurant built on the novelty of fresh-made sandwiches. Total cost: upwards of $78,000.

2. Reconsider your padlock placement. Perhaps you and your better half don't have $15,000 in start-up costs. That's fine. If you're going to join in the padlock pandemonium, why not think more carefully about where you chain your bike. Ditch the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge and consider some areas where it's highly unlikely that department officials will intrude -- like a serial killer's basement ... or a community library ... or a school in a low-income neighborhood. You could litter that playground with padlocks and (I guarantee you) return decades later to find those locks untouched. Total cost: $3.99 plus tax.

This busted merry-go-round is a padlock gold mine.

3. Osama Bin Laden's hide-out.

4. The Winter Garden Theater. True romance doesn't come in the form of a steel ring clasped around a germ-infested handrail overlooking the Seine. Hell no. True romance is premium orchestra musical theater tickets. Show your honey how long you're planning to stick around and purchase two tickets for 2086 -- an early 75th Anniversary gift. And if there's any Broadway show with as much (inexplicable) staying power as your marriage, it's the (inexplicable) smash hit, Mamma Mia. Seating is apparently limited. Total cost: $423.60, plus 75 years worth of inflation.

The tables have turned: our trainer goes Brian Williams on us

A couple months ago I invited our fitness trainer Damon to join us on TGS and give us the scoop on getting in shape for the wedding.

80% Diet, 20% Statham:

a groom's guide to looking good & feeling good

Weeks later, Damon proposed that I do the same for him. If I declined, he would make me do 50 additional burpees in front of the class. Being the cocksure man that I am ... I did the interview. 

So check out Damon's own blog for a Q&A with me and 2Es as we give our thoughts on training. Please note that we received a "push-up coupon" for each compliment to Damon or his program; each push-up coupon entitled you to subtract a push-up from each circuit the following morning. As you can see, we're swimming in coupons over here.

LVPF: An Interview with Brian and [2Es]

If you'd like more information about Damon's boot camp program in Los Angeles (particularly brides and grooms hoping to get fit for their upcoming weddings), you can email me or Damon directly at damon@lvpf.net.