Groomsmen Assemble

Ugghhh. Really not one of my favourite parts of the wedding planning process. Where do even I begin? 

So J is so lovely, so popular, and so laid-back in life that he couldn’t decide on just two or three friends to become his groomsmen. He didn’t want to be the one to hurt someone because they weren’t asked to be an usher, and he didn’t want to exclude family (what did I say earlier about family obligations?!). So his best friend was his Best Man. Fair one. Then his two brothers became ushers. Oh, but he didn’t want my brother to feel left out. So he became an usher. And so did four other friends. This is where J doesn’t understand a wedding budget. Including both of our dads' suits, we had to fork out for ELEVEN OUTFITS. When suit hire is usually in the region of £80 and up, we were looking at a budget for the men of £880. Not including the fact that some would need new shirts, J wanted some swanky new shoes AND they would need a gift, too. Seriously J, what were you thinking?! 

But I mean, they do look pretty sharp, right?!

Anyway – you know I love a bargain. We shopped around and decided that actually the high street was good enough for our bridesmaid dresses, why not search for some suits, too? Burton stocks a fabulous range of wedding attire, and they’re usually on offer! Keep a look out for deals such as “Buy 5 suits and the Groom goes free!” or “Suit, shirt and shoes for £99!” – They’re SO reasonable and for something they can actually get a few wears out of were phenomenal! We opted to apply for a Burton store card, which entitled us to 20% off* the total bill when we decided to buy the suits rather than hire them. In total, it meant that we were pretty much getting about one-and-a-half suits entirely free!  

I wanted something to tie his outfit in with mine, so I tried to pick up on the pearly-oyster silk lining that was under the lace of my dress and found ties from eBay here. I bought a range of colours, because sometimes that site can be just a tad dodgy - and thank god I did! I bought a champagne one, with was more like yellow gold - ugh!! The tie is probably only going to be worn once, and no one looks at the label for your tie - so why splurge?! They were only a couple of quid, too!

Be brave and pop some colour on your wedding nails - mine matched with J's tie!

Ensure your lads have a crisp, white shirt, too! It may sound silly, but some of our groomsmen didn't, so that was another expense. And finally, the shoes! Men aren't usually fussed as to whether they're matching (unlike us girls!) so we just said "so long as they're brown, smart shoes - we don't care!"

Unfortunately, I can’t write much about J’s Stag Do. His best friend really let him down, and just didn’t listen to anything he said about budget/locations/events etc. Cue one month before the wedding, and they only JUST decided to settle on a weekend in Manchester to celebrate J’s last weekend of freedom. They stayed in a grotty hostel, dressed him up in a ridiculous Rocky Horror costume (because he likes Rock music, not musicals!!) and was promptly turned away from most of the bars and clubs as they didn’t accept fancy dress. J said he was happy to be home after the weekend, and the best thing about it was that they played Bubble Football. Sigh. I still to this day am certain that if he’d just left it up to me, I could’ve come up with a banging Stag for my man! 

*Correct at the time of purchase. Of course, if you do decide to take out store credit, or a loan for that matter, just remember to make sure you can afford to pay it off, before interest sets your budget way over its limit!*

KEB x