It’s that time again! That time when I spend the entire post talking about ME (…and The Boy…and our wedding). Well, that’s not completely true. Today, I’m talking all about the mens. The groomsmens, that is!
One of the interesting things about our wedding is that we are both “older” (I’ll be 34 and he’ll be 45 when we get hitched) so, while I lurve looking at the hip choices so many cool young guys are making for their wedding togs these days, at our wedding? It just ain’t gonna happen. See, The Boy asked his closest friends to be in his wedding party and they are each roughly his age. These are not men who can pull off that quirky bowtie/suspenders/pullover look (without it being visually painful). But The Boy and I refused to force these grown men into rental tuxes or carefully-cocked-over-one-eye fedoras.
So, what to do? Well, from the very beginning of our wedding planning process, The Boy and I had decided to forge rentals and have him wear this charcoal grey suit (with white pinstripes) that he already owns (and I adore on him). It looks exactly like this:
Sexxxy, right? And, because he has the prettiest blue eyes, I really wanted him to wear blue with it. Enter this picture:
Simple grey suit? Check. Simple White shirt (a must for a hot Texas summer wedding!)? Check. Striped tie + pocket square? Checkity check. And a wedding attire theme was born!
So, it was decided, each dude would provide a grey suit with a white shirt (the two ring bearers will do grey slacks and white shirts) and we’d supply the ties and pocket squares. I found the PERFECT ties for the little boys at Burlington coat factory (for a whopping $6.99 each!) and scoured men’s suiting stores until (miracle!) I found the coolest striped ties at Express for the big dudes.
Unfortunately, my tightwad ass stopped me from buying the ties when I found them – after all, they weren’t on sale (and while $39.99 is a killer deal for a silk tie – it wasn’t the dealio that I was looking for). So, a month or so later (when I had a 15% off coupon in my hand) – the ties were gone! There were only three ties left and I needed four! ACK!
Luckily, The Boy was with me and came up with a great solution. The three groomsmen would wear the tie and he would pick a tie from the same color family but in a different pattern. Boom! Done. And even better? When we got up to the register, the ties were on sale for half-off. That’s right, instead of spending $120.00 on ties (as originally budgeted for) we spent only $60.00. Bam!
Here’s The Boy’s tie:
And here’s the groomsmen’s ties:
Tulle Nation, how did you tackle the “what are the dudes wearing?” issue? Who made the ultimate decision? Did you score a killer deal? Share away!
Brian says
As informed as I am now about attire, I knew crap back then about groomsmen-wear. So I took care of my suit, got exactly what I wanted, invested some moolah in a great suit … and then realized that we couldn’t possibly match the boys on our budget.
So we put them in something completely different – only matching item was the vest – and no one cared/noticed/bothered to say anything. I guess what matters most is that (A) the groom looks kickass in whatever he’s chosen to wear and (B) that he stands out from his boys, whether it’s subtle or not.
p.s. we checked out those Express ties too for Best Man Justin’s wedding … but went with JCrew ties in the end. dig your style.
Gie Walker says
So thankful i’ve read your post, i like the outfit of your husband of course you too, my auntie has the same age of you and your husband, age doesn’t matter as long as your both happy.