Unless this is your first time reading MftB — in which case, welcome! — you know that I’m a HUGE advocate of exploring alternative wardrobing options. As tempting as it is to head straight to David’s (if you’re on a budget) or a fancypants upscale bridal salon (if you’re not), why limit yourself? There are great wedding-y dresses at tons of shops, online and off!
Ideally, the guys in your life should also take my advice to heart. While I am a big fan of Men’s Wearhouse because their service tends to be uniformly excellent, their tuxes tend to leave me cold. When it came time to help The Beard pick out duds for the dudes, I decided to start my search anywhere but on the mainstream menswear sites. The end result? We found these great striped suits for about a hundred bucks each. Just shy of zoot suits, they added a touch of…something to the wedding lineup.
Photo by the amazingly talented Corinna Hoffman
The lovely Toni recently e-mailed to share some snapshots of a wedding she attended and dish about the menswear. The guys sourced their tuxes from Volcom, of all places. If you don’t already know, Volcom is a clothing company/entertainment site/surf, skate, and board collective whose tagline is “youth against establishment.”
It’s also definitely not the first place I’d look when choosing wedding-y menswear, but after seeing the photos Toni linked to I wouldn’t knock it. You also can’t beat the price — I found the tux pants for $60 and the tux jacket for $77 $110. The fit is modern (i.e., slim and kind of slouchy) so it won’t appeal to everyone, but if your guy is hoping to find NOTHISDADSTUXPLZ it may be just what he’s looking for.
The point is that the alternatives aren’t always what you’d expect or where you’d expect them to be, but they’re out there, nonetheless! Searching for them is particularly worth it when you’re on a budget, you know you definitely want something that’s a little out there, or you’re just not feeling the stuff you saw in the shops. Like I say in iDo: If you can imagine it, chances are good that someone, somewhere is selling it.
FYI: If you, like me, live close to Salem, MA, you may be interested to know that the city is currently hosting 250 cast and crew for the filming of “Bride Wars,” a movie starring Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, and Candice Bergen. The cast and crew will apparently venture downtown today to enjoy all of the weirdness this tourist
hey, at least salem is a tourist trap-and-release town
I’m always a bit amused by the fact that Salem has all the touristy witch trial things, considering it wasn’t Salem Town but Salem Village where the ruckus got started in the first place. Salem Village later changed its name to Danvers, so the place that kept the name got the notariety. Of course, when things got too big for Salem Village, Salem Town and several other surrounding enclaves got drawn into the whole mess, but Danvers (as it’s now called) is where it all started.
Why yes, I am a great big geek with a lifelong fascination with the witch trials. Why do you ask?
Topic: I’ve long been of the opinion that adding the word ‘wedding’ to anything is considered worth an extra minimum ten per cent to the price of anything retail. Clever shopping and a creative mindset can save you a bundle on a day that doesn’t look just like everyone else’s. That’s what I call a good idea.
Oh my lord. I was a tour guide in Salem for years, so I can only imagine the shenanigans today. Probably a little less than Halloween, and a little more than when they dedicated the Bewitched statue.
Twistie, there are some sites in Salem proper related to the Witch Trials. As you probably know, Judge Jonathan Corwin’s house is there, the earliest bits of the House of Seven Gables were extant by the time of the trials, and Bridget Bishop’s apple orchard was there (now a restaurant, which is supposedly haunted and is also where I got married. In an unrelated historical note, Alexander Graham Bell also preformed significant experiments with the telephone there as well.). Then there is the graveyard in Salem, containing the graves of people involved in the trials.
But yes, Danvers kept things very quiet. If you ever tried to drive through Salem in October, you’d probably think they were on to something. But then again, I’m an old fuddy duddy and had quite enough of the Salem brouhaha.
I’m with you, Emily. There’s stuff going on in Salem all October long, and it happens that some of my relatives were visiting our new home in that particular month. Naturally, they wanted to see Salem (though for some maritime and non-witchy historical stuff). I begged them not to make me take them there, but they wouldn’t listen. The streets were insanely crowded, there was nowhere to park, and I will never, ever do it again.
Residents of Danvers (like me) are very proud of our Salem Village heritage. Salem was able to make money out of the Witch Trials because they didn’t devistate Salem the way they did Salem Village.
I guess I’m a geek, too.