When I was about eight years old, I posed for a caricature on the streets of a northern-Wisconsin theme park. The artist emphasized the way one of my eyes squints a little more than the other when I smile, and, wounded, I swore off caricatures forever. Or until yesterday, when a coworker walked into my office waving around a sketch of a bride, a groom, and nine guys with cartoon bodies and oversize heads. Her brother, Brad, had gotten it drawn to reprint and give as groomsmen’s gifts.

I called Brad, who is getting married in Louisville in August. He said he had Googled “unique groomsmen gifts” and dug through the results until he came across a site that did wedding caricatures. He wanted to do something different than the usual gifts: “I think I have five flasks from past weddings.”

He used the site dorobantus.com, which requires you to e-mail close-up photos of each person in the caricature along with instructions of what each should wear and what pose he or she should strike in the sketch. About ten days later, one of the company’s artists will e-mail you a low-res proof of your caricature, which will be redrawn if it doesn’t match your original instructions. Then, the company will e-mail you a high-res image you can easily print—as many times as you want—in a poster size.

“I’m going to make mine 11 by 14 and frame them,” Brad says. “They’ll never expect it.”

A four-person caricature costs $99.99, going up by $20 for each additional person. Order at dorobantus.com. 

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