“The dress of the bridegroom is regulated by that chosen by the bride; if she wears a white veil, he is expected to appear in black trousers, dress coat, which may be either black or blue, white waistcoat, and white cravat; or, if a naval or military person, in full uniform. If the bride should prefer to wear a bonnet, the bridegroom should put on a frock-coat of black, brown, or other tasteful color, and light-colored waistcoat and trousers.”
from: “The Bazar Book of Decorum.
The care of the Person, Manners, Etiquette, and Ceremonials.” 1873
It’s no longer 1873, but to this day, the bride generally determines what the groom wears – at least to some extent – and the groom has minimal leeway as to what that is. Chances are he’s going to wear either a black tux or a dark suit unless he’s in the military, in which case he wears his dress uniform. If he’s of a Scottish or Irish background, he may choose to wear a kilt. Unless you’re willing to buck every trend going, that’s about the limit, though, and how far the groom may stray from the standard is usually determined by what the bride chooses to wear.
Still, there are options for the fashion-forward groom who wants to show due decorum and still have a bit of personal pizzazz. Take, for instance, this handsome stand-up collar tux from Jean Yves Mirage:
Better yet, I’ll take it and put it on Mr. Twistie.
See you later. Much later!
I wore a fairly traditional type of gown, but The Beard wore a brown pinstriped number that was just a few clicks shy of a zoot suit. I’m sad to say that I did have a hand in picking it out, but only because he’d waited quite a while and I was starting to get a little worried that we wouldn’t have enough time to get it hemmed and so on. The thing is, besides wanting to wear brown, he seemed to have zero interest in choosing the menswear.
I do think it’s pretty unfair to have the groom’s attire (and the groomsmen’s, for that matter) be completely subject to the bride’s wishes, especially given that he’s not even allowed to *see* her outfit until the day. However, I can’t seem to break my admittedly liberal mind of some of the traditional constraints.
At a wedding where my boyfriend was the best man, the bride had vetoed the groom’s idea of having pinstriped tuxes. I think pinstripes are fine, but when my boyfriend suggested that all the guys should just wear their best suit, whatever that may happen to be, I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around it. Perhaps because, knowing my bf’s friends, I know some of them would take the opportunity to wear something completely goofy just because.
And, maybe that’s not so bad. But I just can’t seem to let go of the idea that they should all at least match, somehow.
I wore a traditional gown, but Mr Pencils wore a tan suit with a very light stripe to our morning wedding. I was a little doubtful about a tan suit at first, although I’d liked the examples I’d seen from other (mostly beach) weddings. But it was what Mr Pencils wanted. (He chose it himself, I wasn’t there. I only helped with choosing his shirt and tie.) And I think it worked. He looked very handsome, and happy, and comfortable. I think he would have been uncomfortable in a morning suit, and I don’t think men should wear tuxes in the morning. We asked the other men in the wedding party to wear a suit, we didn’t care what color. The men didn’t match, but we didn’t take any of the traditional photos with everyone lined up, and during the ceremony they weren’t standing in a line behind the groom, they were holding up the chuppah, so it looked OK. Matching is overrated–the bridesmaids didn’t exactly match either.
When my mother and step-father got married this July, my mother wore a pink satin dress with a silver lace overlay. I don’t know if that’s why my step-dad went with white tuxes for himself and his groomsmen, but it certainly looked sharp.
If nothing else, it was sensible for the weather – the last weekend in July was rather warm, so the light colors we were all wearing helped keep us cool long enough to scramble into the air conditioned hall, lol.
Is it just me, or does that guy look like he should have his hair in a pony tail and be throwing knives around on a submarine whilst teaching a blonde with unfeasibly large knockers to shoot baddies through her tears? Cool suit.