HitchDied

Tux Sux

| 7 Comments

Collin and I went to a Men’s Warehouse tuxedo shop today to work out what the dudes in our wedding are going to wear.  It was a really crummy experience.

First of all, for a store entirely devoted to selling and renting tuxedos, you’d think they’d have more than FIVE options. But they don’t. It’s all cheap black, slightly-less cheap black, white, gray, brown. A brown tuxedo is the most exciting thing you can get.  I’d lean on the z key to express my boredom, but the angular look of all those z’s in a row would be too visually exciting for this situation.

Second, the woman helping us was cold and dismissive of my opinions.  I said I don’t care if the guys wear ivory or white shirts.  She gave me a look like, “Oh, ignorant child” and said, “The shirts match the dress.”

Then she asked what the wedding colors are, and I told her mixed metallics. She made another face. Does she not know that mixed metallics is a wedding trend of wedding trend listworthiness?! I can’t find that list right now, but I am sure I saw it! I’m HIP, Men’s Warehouse Lady! Don’t judge me.  ANYWAY.  She said, “Then I guess you’ll be putting the groomsmen in black vests.” “Or silver.” I suggested. “No, you’ve got ivory shirts.”  Like silver vests on ivory shirts would clash so badly my wedding would need to be called off.

Instead of defending my right to mix cool and warm colors, I said, “Well, I think we want cummerbunds anyway.”  This was the wrong approach.  Men’s Warehouse Lady really wanted to talk me out of cummerbunds. Don’t I know they are out of style? Don’t I know vests are more attractive? Don’t I know my groomsmen will hate wearing cummerbunds?

I probably should have walked out of the store at this point. But instead I signed up to rent tuxes, with white shirts and black cummerbunds.  So I’m going to have a hopelessly old-fashioned, clashing wedding, and send far too much money into the hands of a store that is inept at customer service.

I’m not really putting this one in the “win” column, but at least I can put it in the “done” column.

7 Comments

  1. Eff that noise. Cummerbunds are totally dashing. I like vests, too, but a cummerbund is classic. Like the amazing bow tie, it’s not the only good option, but it is, for sure a good option.

  2. I tried to get Jon to go with a cummerbund tux — I like the classic look — but he wanted a vest. (I was worried vests would look too prom-like, but they actually looked awesome.) I refused the white-vest-for-groom thing because it looked terrrible on him, so all the dudes looked dashing in black vest-tie combos. Turned out it wasn’t hard to figure out who the groom was at all without the color cue… go figure.

    We ultimately decided that the rental looked sufficiently dumpy on Jon that he would purchase something nice for the special day — he got a slimmer cut tux that took about 20 lbs off of the rental look and used the shiny shoes and the vest and tie from the rental place (groom rents free with X other tux rentals). We didn’t use men’s wearhouse due to lack of options, but the place we went had customer service that was just as pushy and unhelpful. Really unfortunate these places are the standard. This is an awesome thing to have done, though! Well done.

    • We chose Men’s Warehouse because a friend had a good experience with the fit of their rentals, which was Collin’s main concern with renting tuxes to begin with.

      Collin is still planning on buying a tux. You can convert the “free rental for the groom” into a “buy a suit free” voucher that you can use two weeks before or one month after the wedding. He’s probably going to use that to buy another everyday suit, and take the risk of ordering something for the wedding online because it is the only affordable way to get a customized tux like he wants.

  3. Selfishly, I am excited the dudes don’t get any metallic action because I don’t want to compete with a sparkly vest. Also, cummerbunds are BOSS! Dudes can wear vests all the time but cummerbunds are rare and delightful.

  4. I am not a big fan of the vest. For some reason a cummerbund seems more upscale to me. I think you made a good call there.

    Obviously I’ve never rented a tux from Men’s Wearhouse and neither has the Beagle. But we did buy his suits from there and we had great service. I really think it all depends on what store you go to and what salesperson you get. Sorry to hear you got the short end of the stick.

  5. OMG! We did ivory shirts (because my dress was ivory) and silver vests (because the boys refused to wear lavender and those were essentially our “colors” if you want to boil it down to that). No one said anything while we were setting it up but about 3 weeks later I get a phone call from Men’s warehouse just “confirming” that I wanted the ivory and silver because they never do that. I stood my ground and then doubted myself for about 5 minutes before remembering that I didn’t care and the boys definitely wouldn’t care. Guess what? No one noticed on the wedding day and most of our photos are black and white anyway! So yeah, don’t trust fashion opinions from men’s warehouse.

Leave a Reply to Robin HitchDied Cancel reply

Required fields are marked *.


Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.