244 More Days

Let’s talk about men’s attire.

Men’s attire may seem like a no-brainer when it comes to wedding planning. You may think there are only so many options and that you just have to pick one option and be done with it. On the contrary, selecting attire for the groom and groomsmen can take just as much time and detailed selection as the bride’s gown!

When initially considering our vendor for men’s attire, I knew we had to pick something accessible to the groomsmen on the east coast. It was immediately obvious that our best option was the well-known and prevalent Men’s Wearhouse. Not only are they everywhere, but they are also very accommodating to wedding parties that are scattered around the country. Here are the reasons why Men’s Wearhouse has proven to be beneficial:

1. They allow you to register your wedding party with a group number that can be used at any location to connect the groomsmen to the account.
2. They have a very user-friendly app that allows us to track our group with our group number to see who has been fitted and who has not. You can also email all of the men through the app. Pretty nifty!
3. They are very attentive and allowed Steve to try on styles in which he was interested and see styles in person for his groomsmen. Being able to see and feel the fabrics and colors makes it much easier to make choices than just seeing it in a catalog.
4. Their website features a “build-a-tux” feature where you can assemble the exact pieces you want and get an idea of what the ensemble will look like.  It’s super fun and addicting.

And with a whole catalog of options, where do you even begin to narrow it down? Well with the formality level of your wedding of course! Are you have a casual wedding on the beach with bare feet and oodles of organza?  Or a black tie soiree of diamonds and satin?  Other major factors to consider include your season, event venue, bridesmaid attire, and color scheme.  Summer and spring weddings might find the men in cream or gray while fall and winter weddings may inspire black, chocolate, or even navy tuxes.  Some causal weddings may be full of men with suspenders instead of jackets and sneakers instead of dress shoes.  Some creative weddings may feature men with superman t-shirts in place of button-down shirts or broach pins instead of floral boutonnieres.  It just depends on what “suits” your style.  (See what I did there?)

But it’s not just about the pants and jacket!  You have ties, socks, vests, cut of the coat, shoes, cufflinks, lapel shapes, coattails, shirt collars, buttons, and pocket squares!  Did you know that if you ask for a black vest, there are 20 black vests to choose from….and they are all different?!  It can be overwhelming, especially for a groom who may have been mostly out of the planning game until this stage.  I definitely sat back and let Steve make a lot of the choices, but the staff and I also gave him some style suggestions along the way.

With all of these choices, there are so many different combinations of color, pattern, and texture that can create the perfect look for your wedding.  Although we can’t give away much of what our men will be wearing, I will say that they will be dressed to impress with a clean and classic James Bond look.  Their style will complement the ladies to perfection and complete the elegant feel and theme of the wedding.  Steve will definitely stand out in a special tux ensemble that he hand-picked!  Unfortunately he won’t get to see the finished product until a few days before the big day!

So, to hold you over in the meantime, here are some of my favorite inspirational looks for men’s attire.  🙂

 

❤

375 More Days

Let’s chat about wedding planners….or a lack thereof.

A lot of vendors have asked me if I have a wedding planner.  My answer is usually: “kind of”.  I am fortunate enough to have a grandmother that used to own her own wedding business and was in the world of weddings for 20+ years.  Although she retired from that business, she still has countless connections and a wealth of knowledge about everything that has to do with weddings.  My grandmother is serving more so as my wedding consultant and is typically the first person I call when I have a questions about any wedding topic.  Did I have to “hire” her?  Nope.  She has been waiting for this since I was born.

This situation is, of course, not typical for all brides.  Would I have hired a wedding planner if my grandmother was not a former bridal consultant?  I would have thought about it, but ultimately I would have probably not.  Honestly I can’t imagine what it would be like if I hadn’t grown up surrounded by weddings, brides, dresses, flowers, etc. since I was born, so I can’t accurately say what I would have done.  But I do know that there are so many resources and great tools to help brides get by who don’t want to pay for a wedding planner.

The most popular tools are online wedding planning platforms.  Let’s compare and contrast the big ones, shall we?

Theknot.com

At first I was a big fan of theknot.com.  I signed up immediately because I was a sheep and basically fell prey to the company with the most marketing.  The Knot is highly publicized and has its hand in pretty much everything in the wedding world.  However, after trying out its various features I was starting to get frustrated.  It’s true that The Knot was just a supplement for my wedding binder, but I was planning on using it to help me calculate some of the larger pieces of my wedding, such as the guest list and budget.  Here are some things I found:

1. The budget tool is rather confusing and not as fully-customizable as I thought it would be.  It did not include all of the features that I had already included on my budget rough draft in my binder or in the spread sheet I had on my computer tracking payment dates.  I wanted a tool that would combine all of that.  The Knot was “knot” that.  (See what I did there?)  😉
2. The personalized website option is pretty awesome.  We created our wedding website through The Knot and it has proven to be useful and efficient so far.  It allows you to customize text, add photos, and The Knot donates money to charity when people buy things through the registry on your website.  Oh, and it’s free.  Not too bad!
3. They have a lot of inspiration photos.  It is basically Pinterest, but not quite as expansive.  They even have a way for you to collect pictures that you like and save them.

Weddingwire.com

After using The Knot for quite some time, I finally decided to investigate the elusive Wedding Wire.  It’s an incredibly user-friendly and, in my opinion, more thorough wedding planning site.  It’s similar in concept but there are a few notable differences.

1. It includes added bonuses like song lists and forums.
2. You can have a virtual binder through the website where you can keep pictures, notes, files, songs, etc.  This could, in fact, replace an actual physical binder.
3. It has a rockin’ guest tracking system and budgeting tool!  Both are thorough and detailed, which is perfect for my OCD/Type-A personality!  I am able to keep track of payments, possible vs. actual costs, and get a full stats report of my guests, their gifts, and their responses all in one magical place.
4. You can collect your vendors all in one place and write them reviews instantly.  You even get rewards for reviewing them!

If you haven’t guessed, my vote and recommendation is for Wedding Wire.  No offense to The Knot, of course.  It’s completely based on preference.  I still have our wedding website set up through The Knot and I am going to leave it that way, because it really is great for that.  I encourage anyone who is planning to look into both before committing to one or the other!

So, in conclusion…do you NEED a wedding planner (a.k.a. an actual human being that dictates what you should be doing when)?  Not necessarily.  Go with what works best for you.  But for the record, there are oodles of fantastic resources that can truly help you put together your perfect day.

❤

And so it begins…

So here I sit, a future bride, a wedding-obsessed fiancee, counting down the 500 days until I say “I Do”.  All of the years spent daydreaming, researching, and watching My Best Friend’s Wedding on a loop are now finally going to pay off.  But what has gone into this so far?  I got the ring and the “go ahead” to start planning my dream wedding, so where did I start?

I bought a wedding planning binder.

You may think “oh, those things are bulky and unnecessary and online wedding planning is the way to go!”, and you may be right!  However, I have gotten enormous pleasure out of writing down every thought, scribbling in every budget number, and saving every expo flier in my big bulky binder.  It is well thought out and easy to stay organized if you really plan on using it.  I am a list maker, so there are definitely some “list” pages missing, but I have found the “Notes” pages to be useful for this.

I went to Barnes & Noble about a hundred times before I got engaged, taking various girlfriends and cups of iced chai with me to help me scour every page of every binder they had looking for the perfect one.  Once I thought I had made up my mind and I said “yes!” to Steve, I went with my mother and sister/MOH to make the purchase.  When I stood in front of the shelves and grabbed the one I had my heart set on, that fickle enemy called doubt conflicted my mind.  “Did this one really have everything?”
“Was there another one that had more of what I’m really looking for?”

After several minutes of deliberation with a binder in each hand, my sister grabbed the “after-thought” binder, put it back on the shelf, and stated “let’s go”.  It was then that I knew I had originally made the right choice (both in binder selection and Maid of Honor selection).  🙂

Of course, I still signed up with theknot.com and I utilized some of their resources, such as their free wedding site creator and their inspiration boards.  But my binder is my real planner.

❤