What’s New In Grooms’ Wear

BY PAUL SCHINDLER | This week, in what could be judged a canny bit of counter-programming, Li-Lac Chocolates, a West Village chocolatier in business since 1923, used the occasion of Bridal Week, when top designers introduce their latest wedding dress collections, to unveil the first same-sex chocolate wedding couple.

The chocolate mold, representing two grooms in tuxedos, is two feet tall and contains roughly 12-and-a-half pounds of the good stuff.

The company would almost certainly hasten to add that they love brides too; the release announcing the grooms also noted that it has launched a line-up of five Chocolate Tasting Menus and six Chocolate Platters that allow couples to plan for what Li-Lac terms “an extraordinary chocolate tasting event.”

A wedding, that is… of two men OR two women.

“Chocolate has always been a part of wedding celebrations, along with the iconic bride-groom cake topper” said Anthony Cirone, president of Li-Lac, which has shops on Eighth Avenue at Jane Street and at Grand Central. “So we like to think of having the world’s first chocolate Groom-Groom as another small step toward full equality.”

Master chocolatier Anwar Khoder, who runs the company’s bakery in the Industry City section of Brooklyn, explained, “Developing a chocolate mold of this size was not a simple undertaking. The process involves hiring a sculptor and working with an engineer to design a mold with structural integrity. It took us several months to complete the project.”

Time well spent, no doubt.