Making Groom's Men Look Pretty

You know who is limited in the wedding? The groom!

Either you spend tons of money on a suit AND make your groom's men spend equally as much (not cool), or you rent a tux. As a person who has never been involved with renting of tuxes before, I had no idea HOW limiting it is!!

Seriously.

Okay, so there isn't just one place to rent a tux, but when you have a bridal party spread across the states, you can only pick ONE place that has thousands of stores: Men's Warehouse. Plus, they let you return to any of their stores, which is a huge benefit to our out-of-state wedding. Now, I am not here to put them down, but talk about limited selections. Their selection of rentals were available in these colors: black, chocolate brown, white, ivory, and gray. And for gray, there is only ONE style of suit.

Jose and I decided to do gray tuxes on his bridal party (that being one of my accent colors to red & teal), paired with teal accessories (tie, pocket hankie, etc.). We went into Men's Warehouse yesterday to finally decide on what these guys will be wearing.

At first I wasn't feeling the gray tux too much. It wasn't bad at all, but I just wasn't excited about it. Granted, Jose was modeling a size too big around his body AND sleeves that were too short. Haha. Picture that ;) He wasn't wearing the shirt, the pants, the tie, and vest -- so it was hard to really picture it. After he tried a suit jacket closer to his size (though it was a different color), it became much easier. THEN we had to pick the colors for the shirt and vest.

The vests. Aaaaugh. The only gray vest that matched the jacket well was soo tacky. Jose agreed and we looked at each other troubled. We knew we needed to pick something. We came across these tuscany vests that had the coolest patterns:

I looooved the texture and design on them, but my joy was quickly shot down when the silver vest did not match the gray tux material. Jose and I decided we needed more time to think about it and started to leave.

Before we reached the door I started thinking out loud: "Y'all don't have to wear a gray vest, right?" Jose munched on my words then asked "Well, what color could we wear?" And I thought about the red the woman had suggested -- matching the bridesmaid's. I knew they had the tuscany vest in red.

We turned around and grabbed the vest swatches we had left on the woman's desk. After finding the red, we held it against the gray suit. Hmmm -- not bad. I looked at Jose's face. Okay, he wasn't feeling it. "What do you think?" Jose: "Don't you think it's kind of... gloomy?" Maybe he said dark, but you get the idea. I could see what he meant, and yes, it made it more "formal" feeling, but at least we had an option now! Then he said "what about a white vest?" So we started exploring that, went and grabbed a teal tie, put the ensemble together and thought "Nice!!" It looked much more bright, day time, and modern. The white vest didn't blend with the white shirt because it had that awesome pattern

Excited that we were both so pleased with it, we decided: Let's do it. OH! And to the brides out there: it is highly recommended that men should NOT WEAR WHITE if the bride's dress is IVORY. Thank God we overheard the woman say this to another couple before us because she hadn't asked me about my dress and we were ready to select the white. We exchanged the white vest for ivory and decided it still looked good. Ironically it gave it that vintage look (but kept it modern with the teal tie).

And this is what it looks like!

With my fiance's photoshop skills, he put the ensemble together from Men's Warehouse's website. So my advice is: DON'T GIVE UP. Even though you may be limited in renting a tux sit down and just throw ideas out there. The woman who helped us was really sweet, but she wasn't pushing us for ideas. The more you collaborate and brainstorm, the more creative you'll get and you'll end up putting something together without having to be a fashion expert. At first, we gave up too easily and became frustrated instead of looking at what options we DID have and how we could make those work. Have a few colors you're willing to consider, and try them out! One is bound to work :)

I'm a fan!! What do you think?