It’s Valentine’s Day!
This fashion-forward line, BLACK, by Vera Wang is excellent for a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner. If your guy hasn’t picked out an outfit, this one has “class” written all over it. It’s also the perfect sophisticated look for the groom or groomsmen at your wedding.
This post is for the grooms.
There is one VERY preventable problem sweeping through wedding days. This is a dangerous thing that can cause a groom to be late to his own wedding, instilling wide-spread panic and anger in the hearts of family members. We’ve seen this time and time again and today is the day we stand up and say “No more!”
Dudes. Learn to tie a bow tie BEFORE the day of the wedding. If you don’t know how to do it, your groomsmen won’t know how to do it … all that pre-ceremony lounge time you thought you had will be taken up by fixing crooked, lumpy ties. Those photos of you are going to be forever, you don’t want to look lumpy.
The solution?
Step one: Pat yourself on the back for the great decision on wearing a real bow tie and not a clip-on. Your coolness level will skyrocket the second you untie that sucker at the end of the night.
Step two: Pick up your tux the night before the wedding, giving yourself plenty of time to practice.
Step three: Grab a mirror and follow along with this tutorial.
Step four: Look great, feel great and be on time for your wedding! Congratulations and send us pictures!
Long gone are the days when a groom’s only apparell decision was “What color tie and vest do I get?” And even then, we all know who really makes the call on that! At the Idea Show, we get our favorite formal wear experts together in one room to show you, er your groom, all the ways he can customize his look. We even have a bar at the show just to help calm his nerves a little.
Men’s Wearhouse and Tuxedos, Gentleman’s Choice, Exclusive Tuxedos & Dresses, and Tip Top Tux will all be at the Wedding Essentials Idea Show. Now you can avoid driving to 4 different stores and just come to one place!
Check out some of our favorite groom looks from our ‘For the Mister’ Pinterest Board:
Outdoor, backyard, garden wedding grooms…
Can’t go wrong with the classics…
Artistic spin the classic bow tie…
Not as formal as a tuxedo, and we love the printed tie!
“How do you feel about this color?” She directed the laptop towards me.
“Sure.” I said with eyes fully glued to my work.
“Sure? You don’t even know what color it is!” Truth be told I didn’t. I didn’t know what it even was she held up. It could have been a plate of puppy dogs and I still wouldn’t have noticed.
“Blue.” Her eyes met mine as she walked off in a huff. It wasn’t really just a lucky guess. I knew the colors of our wedding. I knew the style we were going for; I helped plan it. So why was I uninterested now. Nearing the wedding, I couldn’t care less about the details I worked so hard to help plan in the beginning.
I think a lot of guys and girls can relate to this sentiment. I think that guys really do want to help with weddings in what way they can. Here are a couple of ways to get or help keep your fiancé interested in wedding planning.
First, find a gateway. Say I had a friend who never had sushi before. After badgering and pestering finally they say, “Sure I’ll try it.” We go to a Japanese restaurant and they say, “Nothing too weird, go easy on me.” So I order a plate of ikura or salmon egg sushi. That would be the end of their interest in sushi.
Weddings aren’t always a natural fit to the male demographic. We grow up with action figures and sports. We watch James Bond and Jackie Chan; weddings and design are not on our minds much. That doesn’t mean it is hopeless. Find something that your fiancé is into and go from there. Maybe he is into music; talk about a list of songs for the dancing. It may be a little early, but that doesn’t matter if it helps to bring your fiancé in. Sometimes television is a gateway as well. Reality shows can be very addicting if you find the right one.
Second, make decisions together. This one can be tough. If your fiancé is uninterested, this will be like pulling teeth but it is important. Think about a wedding like a television series. What happens when you miss some shows? All of a sudden it becomes very hard to jump right in and be interested. Same with planning a huge event like a wedding. There is so much that goes into it that if you don’t keep him informed, how can he be invested?
Finally, listen; really, really listen. I was super excited to help with my wedding. Being out of art school, I knew a lot of people who could help us out. Unfortunately between mother, future my mother in law and future wife I was left out on the decisions. What was frustrating is that it was never considered to take my professional photographer friend instead of the other choices. It was never an issue of how big I would like the wedding to be. The fact that I’m not a big fan of chicken wasn’t a hindrance to the Chicken Florentine entrees. I know this happens with everybody’s choices. Sometimes people go with this, sometimes people go with that but when I feel as though my opinion doesn’t even matter, why would I give it?
Why should the girls have all the fun wearing crazy shoes down the aisle? This groom and his groomsmen rocked FiveFingers at a recent wedding in Elmwood Park. (Note the groom with the dressier black and white design.)
Photo by Lane Weddings (preferred vendor) via All About Weddings Omaha.
From Miss June:
Sharp. Dressed. Man.
I found it! The perfect tuxedo combination. Not without the help of my close friend, and bridesmaid, Felicia. She’s amazing at being a friend, and amazing at making all the choices I am too indecisive to make. She’s there to offer a logical opinion and politely tell me I am almost to at the “crazy” level. She was just kidding.
So, it’s done! It’s in the books and money is down. It’s going to be a classic look to go along with the rest of the wedding. The tux’s are black, with Mr. June’s being a light pearl vest and tie on a white shirt and The Gents will be looking handsome in black vests and ties. That’s another thing, I call them “The Gents.”
The road to this classy look was yet another over-analyzed aspect to our wedding. I went to many (every) tux shop in town, compared prices and colors, and went with TIP TOP TUX. I would highly recommend booking with a tuxedo rental store at a bridal show. We received $50 off every tux, a couple free, and some other incentives thrown in. Prices were raised from when we looked at the tux’s in the store, but at the end of the day we saved about $20-30 a tux at the bridal fair.
Take someone with you when you go to pick colors, and definitely bring a swatch of the dress colors. My dress is a shade of champagne that is not quite gold and not quite silver, and was incredibly hard to match. We found something that worked, though, and that’s what’s important at this point in wedding planning … making a decision and moving on to the next.
Next up, finding the perfect flower girl dress. : )
A big trend for 2012 is doing a twist on the traditional tux. Instead of plain black for your guy, think about charcoal grey, dark brown or a subtle pinstripe to update his look. Consider a jacket with a black sheen on the collar. The sheen detail looks great in photos.
We saw these Men’s Wearhouse looks on the First Look Runway. What’s your groom going to wear?
