The new Brickheadz 40383 Bride and 40384 Groom sets arrived just in time to sit down and build them together with my wife on our wedding anniversary. Do they have everything we need to customise a happy couple on their wedding day? Read on to find out…
I would like to share a little bit of personal news with you. It’s not directly related to LEGO bricks, but stay with me. I’m sure we can find a way to bring it around.
Yesterday was my wedding anniversary. My 22nd. Apparently, copper is the substance of choice. Of course, this means that is not only my wedding anniversary, but also that of my wife, Ann. For 22 years we have been living together, and through a combination of communication, cooperation and compromise, we have seen each other through better and worse, renovations, demolitions, constructions, parturition, education, examinations, infants, toddlers, tweens, adolescents and now we seem to have two children who are, in the eyes of the law, adults. And we continue forward, on this adventure of life.
Last week, I had a box of Brickheadz land on my doorstep, courtesy of the LEGO Group’s AFOL Engagement Team. One, the Lucky Cat, I presented earlier in the week. Today, I would like to look at the other two: The Bride and the Groom. Billed as ideal gifts for a couple of LEGO fans, both of these Brickheadz come with additional elements that allow you to customise them for different skin tones, hair styles, colours, veils and hats. Our anniversary seemed to be the ideal day to bring them out, and spend some time putting them together with each other.
Back to Brickheadz
Customising Brickheadz actually quite a bit of fun. In 2018, 41597: Go Brick Me provided the parts needed to build a stylised version of yourself, and was a breakout hit of a set. I attended a fan event, where the entire parts selections in the brickpit came from this multiples of this set. But time moves on, sets retire, and new ones come to take their place.
These two sets, 40383 (Bride) and 40384 (Groom) are meant to be customised to resemble the bride and groom on their special day, and lots of hints are provided to achieve these variations.
Lets start with the things these sets have in common: Both sets provide base instructions for a common ‘base coat’ of clothing: a white wedding dress with a veil for the bride, and a suit for the man: it can be black or navy blue, and the option exists to add a top hat as well. Several skin tones are supported: Reddish brown; Medium Nougat and Stone yellow (tan); and there are three options for hair (including an optional moustache): Bright Yellow, Reddish Brown and Black . Both sets come with a base, and a variety of ‘roses’ – the 5 petal flower element which was introduced last year. They are designed to be placed on the bride’s dress, in her hair and in the lapel of the groom.
There are some elements making their debut today: the printed elements used for the Bride’s dress, and the printed shirtfront on the Groom. It turns out that while I had not seen 1×2 curved slope elements previously, this was not their first appearance. A variety of curved slopes, and tiles are available in all of the supported colours for all models. That said, they look great as the sleeves for the wedding gown. There are a number of offset plates available as well, to facilitate attaching glasses. Only the square rimmed glasses are provided in these sets. The round rim glasses remain limited to the Go Brick Me, and Harry Potter Brickheadz sets. However, beyond the printed parts, there are no new elements. Some of the elements have different element IDs than their equivalents in Go Brick Me, however.
Both sets come with four bags of parts – 306 elements in the Bride, 255 with the Groom. I have mentioned the common features. Both sets only depict one common hairstyle: curls to the side, along with a veil for the Bride, and a left part for the groom. If you are looking for more variety than this, I would refer you to the instructions fo the 40384: Go Brick Me set. You might need to invest in a few extra parts.
Ann and I sat down for the afternoon, and set about building each other as we remembered from that Saturday Afternoon, twenty two years ago. Of course, we both have light skin, as well as brown hair. As such, there is a degree of similarity between the final effect for both figures. On the day, Ann carried white roses, and wore gold earrings. There are a number of white flowers in the Bride set. They are also present in bright red, bright yellowish green, bright reddish violet, and warm gold. Spare gold rings, or silver ink studs can be used as ear rings to complete the accessories.
Why did we choose to get married two days after Christmas? Dates were limited at the reception centre, and we were not going to wait for another year… For those wondering if it made it easier, being able to go to the Boxing Day Sales to shop for an anniversary present, it does not. It did, however, allow the Christmas Block buster movies: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings to become annual dates for us, ensuring baby sitting while our children were young.
After building, we both found ourselves with quite a few parts left over: with medium nougat, and reddish brown elements, suitable for faces; and black and bright yellow hair elements in the leftover piles.
But is it complete?
While providing a significant number of options for customisation, there are a few things that the set did not enable us to complete. Referring back to the photo above, I had a beard back when we got married. Now, beards can be a vexed question with Brickheadz – indeed there are several pages in the Go Brick Me instructions dedicated to providing examples of a number of beard styles (and alternative hair). Looking around the streets of Melbourne today, I believe that beards are probably more common than a lone moustache (except during November, when many people around town take to growing one in order to raise awareness of men’s health). To implement these options does require diving into your parts supply. I feel however, that the exercise is worth it. you might find it necessary to change the height of the flower in the Groom’s lapel. There was an adequate supply of leftover 1×1 black plates to lower it one plate, allowing a full width beard to be added in. Another option is to add a narrower beard. What do you think?
Having a wide variety of flower colours was useful – being able to bring the bride in line to the colours chosen for the day, as well as using these to add to the trim of the dress as well. The Bride did not come with a tiara, which might be necessary to help LEGO coincide with reality. Unfortunately, the stem that comes on the previously released tiara is not long enough to be secured by the hole in the centre of the flower, and an alternative way to secure it might be necessary. Or just use the warm gold flower to symbolise it!
There are limited hair colours provided in the collection. If you are looking to customise for someone with red hair or grey, you might wish to order this set of pieces through Bricklink.com or pick-a-brick on lego.com in the appropriate colour.
All in all, despite these omissions, the sets are reasonably complete for the majority of couples getting married, and being able to a little additional customisation is part of what LEGO building is all about. They are certainly more readily customisable than the minifigure based 2018 Wedding Favor set, 40197.
It has been too long since we both sat down to play with LEGO Together. I asked Ann how she found the experience. “I liked the diversity and the ability to customise the figure.” She gave the Groom 4 out of five Arbitrary Praise Units. Why only four? “If it had beard options…” I also gave the Bride four out of five abitrary praise units.
These sets are due for release on 1st January 2020, and in Australia will sell for $AUD19.99/$USD12.99/£12.99/€12.99 each, keeping both sets well under the 10c/piece price. Of course this is not surprising given the number of small elements included. No doubt these sets will start appearing at many weddings, AFOL or not, over the next year or two.
How would you use these sets? As gifts for the Bride and Groom? As a cake topper for your own wedding? as a general parts pack? However you might choose to use them, I am glad that the Brickheadz line is not completely defunct. Why not leave your thoughts below and until next time…
Play Well!
I would like to thank Ann for joining me in this review, and also for the past 22 years of love and support – I am looking forward to where the future will take us. Thanks also to Daughter, T. for some the photography used.
The sets reviewed here were provided by the AFOL Engagement team of the LEGO Group, for pre-release, review purposes. All opinions are our own!