Colophon

The Site:

Groomify was founded in March of 2008 and helmed by Tom Biro. It was created after Tom found that while there were tons of wedding-related sites on the Internet, pretty much none of them really catered to guys. Some had guy “options,” others offered the same content it did for brides with a different “skin,” but none really focused on the details that would be of interest to the groom - hence the “groomify” name. Well, that was after a temporary bout of insanity that had the site’s original name, “Groomist,” pushed to the side (yes, we own the domains, because we know you’ll ask) out of utter deference to our pals at guy-friendly Thrillist and the -ist network of sites that Gothamist LLC runs, and the fact that Groomify is just a darn better name.

The Software:

Groomify is powered by WordPress, styled with Brian Gardner’s amazing Revolution Pro Media Theme and our own hacks. Major props to Dynamic Drive’s Gradient Image Maker, which was used to build the background. The logo font is Rian Hughes’ DF Sparrowhawk, as featured on the ever-useful Veer. Nifty image editing and finishing is primarily done with Picnik. The design port of Revolution Pro Media for Groomify Forums provided by RFDN.

Polling provided by Lester Chan’s WP-Polls plugin, and the badass graphic scroll on the main page is courtesy of Jason Schuller’s Featured Content Gallery plugin, built on top of Jonathan Schemoul’s Smooth Gallery software.

Photography:

Original photography credits vary and will be published accordingly, but some stock images courtesy of morgueFile.

Special Thanks To:

Our eternally helpful Web host is Alex Yuriev at Zubrcom, whom I’d recommend for hosting needs of any size.

Inspiration:

All kinds of props go to the aforementioned Thrillist, DailyCandy for making such a huge move in the female-focused marketplace, Uncrate for making shopping cool for guys, David Singer for absolutely killing it with Hockeyfights.com, among other places. Most of all, thanks to Lara for actually wanting to marry me and get me churning on this idea.

Other Credits & Thanks:

Props to Eric Rice for pointing out in the most quick way how to get a nifty iPhone icon set up. Huge kudos must also go to Jason Calacanis for providing a great example of getting things done, as shown when I had the pleasure of working with him at Weblogs, Inc. As always, props to Lauren, Jon, John with an “h,” Chris, and a host of others for listening to be bounce random-ass ideas off them at various hours.