Suit Up!

That's right, the men in our wedding won't be naked (sorry to disappoint ladies), but they actually won't be wearing suits either...Javier and I finally made some decisions this past weekend regarding our male members wedding garb.

This has been a decision that we've struggled with quite a bit.  I think we knew early on that we didn't want tuxedos, they just didn't fit our outside Ash Lawn celebration, but I kept telling Javier that I wanted his wedding attire to feel special too.  For months now I've been sending groomsmen pics from blogs I read and he did a decent amount of browsing around himself and eventually came up with: vests.  We both liked the look, it would add a little something extra to keep the day unique and when he took his jacket off (which he inevitably would) he would still have some sweet digs underneath.  Great!  Just to be sure we headed to Joseph A. Banks to try on a vest (since I had never seen Javs in one...because he hasn't worn one since his senior prom...).

Can everyone just pause a moment to admire how good my fiance looks in that three piece suit (ignore the flip flops...)?  They didn't have a brown suit for us to try on, but we learned quickly that Javs could rock the vest :)  We both liked the three piece, but, as I said above, knew that Javs would probably take off his jacket fairly soon after our ceremony so we did a little experimenting while at the shop. 

When Javs had been looking for vests on his own, he seemed to gravitate towards the darker, chocolate look, often with a lighter khaki pant.  Did we dare?  So he tried on this tan suit with the dark grey vest so we could start to get the feel for how the contrast might look.  While this isn't perfect (because he is still wearing flip flops) and the vest wasn't exactly the color we wanted, we did feel confident that it would be a pulled together look fitting for any fashionable groom.  YAY - Javs attire decision made!

Now for the boys.  I'm (personally) still really happy with the fact that each of the lovely ladies on my side will be sporting their own dresses and looks for the big day and thought it seemed silly to have the guys counter with perfectly matching vests and ties.  I had been stock piling 'vest' pictures for a while and asked Javs to take a look and see what he liked and didn't.  In the end, he agreed that having the guys mix matched a bit would work better for our feel (and give the guys some flexibility/options for what they  decided to wear).  These are some examples of the look we are going for...

Each of the boys (best man, groomsman and the ushers - who I realized today we've never introduced you too....a post soon to come!)  will wear slacks or khakis that they already own and a vest in a brown of their choosing.  I had done some perusing on Etsy (every bride's saving grace) and found a shop that specialized in vintage men's fashion.  I saw that they had put together some custom wedding vests before and asked them if they could have vests to us by October.   They could!  and each vest would be $40 (totally reasonable based on suit rental costs or department store prices I had seen!).  We didn't want the boys to have to spend a ton of $$ on new clothes and thought this would work out nicely.  (and hey! they'll have a trendy vest to keep for future festive occasions.)

We decided that my Daddy-o would sport a brown suit of his choosing sans vest (kind of making Javs the culmination of all other male attire on the day).  Then we'll use ties to do a little bit of coordinating and connecting (orange ties: Javs, groomsman and Dad, green ties: ushers).  Whoop whoop!  Happy to cross another decision off the list and super excited to see how fabulous these boys look on the big day.