Mattel has scheduled a meeting with an engaged couple from Scottsdale, Arizona, who want to create a same-sex wedding set complete with cake, flower girls and two grooms.
The toy company has created the iconic Barbie and Ken doll sets since the early 1960s.
“This toy brought so much joy and happiness to my 8-year-old niece, and there are thousands and thousands of families just like Nick and [me]. I just had to do something,” said Matt Jacobi, according to Fox 8 Cleveland.
Jacobi and his husband-to-be, Nick Caprio, are planning a May wedding.
Their two nieces will be flower girls.
They were searching for a birthday gift for their doll-loving niece Natalie, who is 8, earlier this month.
They wanted the gift to “be meaningful to her and somehow connected to the wedding she will be a part of,” Jacobi also said.
Finding none suitable, the couple created their own set — by tossing out the Barbie from a traditional Ken and Barbie wedding set, and inserting an extra Ken doll.
“It’s going to come up in your family no matter what,” Caprio told ABC 13 Eyewitness News of Los Angeles.
“As more same-sex couples are having kids, your kids are going to have kids in the class that have gay parents and things like that, too, so it’s not that huge shock anymore,” he added.
The couple posted a photo on Instagram of their makeshift set on December 8, tagging Mattel in the post.
“Hi @mattel! Happy Holidays. We had a difficult time finding a same sex wedding set to give to my niece for her 8th birthday. She and her little sister are flower girls in our upcoming May wedding. We thought it would be special to give her something with a little meaning behind it. What a bummer you don’t make one with two grooms. Anyway, we had to get creative and make a couple purchases. I hope our custom gift inspires you to make a #GayWedding set!” the December 8 post read.
The post worked.
Mattel responded — as did large numbers of people on social media, some of whom shared concern about the idea of a gay wedding Barbie doll set.
“Mattel has been wonderful and we are meeting with the head of Barbie design, their design team and marketing—either next Friday or the first week of January,” Jacobi told Good Morning America.
Why?! I’m a gay man and I find this sort of thing ridiculous. I know I’m not the only gay man to feel this way. The problem is that when any of us express concern or criticism of this sort of thing we are immediately shut down and accused of “internalized homophobia”. ? pic.twitter.com/J6jCR7rkF7
— John (@John99634962) December 17, 2018
If the toy company decides that there’s money in it, they will do it.
— Ron Gross (@rongross52) December 17, 2018
CNN will be promoting this as gift of the year.
— Sean Ziff (@ziff_sean) December 18, 2018
Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and regular contributor to LifeZette.
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