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post #61 of 88
11/27/12 at 11:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaplan View Post


Good idea. You could also find some footage of actual weddings like that of Kate and Wills last year. Plenty of well dressed guests, none of them matching.
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post #62 of 88
11/27/12 at 12:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorothea Brooke View Post

Belragazzo, it was a great opportunity cost, but you still looked like a Prince.

The Prince of Jersey Shore, perhaps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaplan View Post

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
This matching wedding party inanity is probably the worst in all of styledom. Tastelessness of an Ed Hardian scope. Good thing it's pretty confined to the US ;-)
When and why did this even become a thing?
Since I don't know, I'll happily speculate: At some point in time, with the increased casualisation of style and dresscodes, people looked to older wedding photos for inspiration for how to 'dress up' for the big event. Not recognizing the finer details as actually being differences (single breasted vs double breasted suits, tie patterns that come off as solids when photographed from afar, etc) it must somewhere along the line have been wrongfully concluded that people in those pics all wore the same. Of course, b&w photography will not have helped.
For instance, at a glance the guys here may come off as similarly dressed, but they're far from identical:
wedding-1920.jpg
And maybe some industrious clothing stores saw their chance to perpetuate this misconception to sell a bunch of identical, crappy outfits.
OP, how about getting hold of some classic movies with well dressed people in wedding scenes, watch them with your wife to be and subbtly point out how everybody looks better for not being forced into some tasteless uniform?
Start with Four Weddings and a Funeral
3776_5.jpg
and The Godfather
Godfather4Party.jpg
Good luck :-)

Great post, Kaplan, thanks for those pics. Part of the problem is that dressed used to be more standardized. Men wore morning dress to weddings, and morning dress is already pretty closely proscribed. So to modern eyes, men might look like they worked out a group theme together, but that's just how everyone dressed for formal events back then. They aren't "matched" any more than a bunch of political candidates work out matching outfits before appearing on stage for a debate or some other political theater. It's just dark suit, white shirt, simple tie for everyone.

I haven't done a study of it, but I would imagine that the main culprit for the craze towards matching outfits, even when going away from the traditional morning dress and into the abyss of fuchsia accessories, is the wedding planning industry. They make more commissions when they can convince the bride and groom to foist $2k or more worth of expenditures on crappy clothing upon their loved ones. Insisting that everyone match guarantees that clothing purchases must be made for the occasion. And they know just the perfect place to fill all of your gaudy clothing needs!
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post #63 of 88
11/27/12 at 12:44pm
Manton had an excellent article on Wedding Attire that talked specifically about not having the groomsmen all match.

It used to be found here:
http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/Tutorials/AntongiavanniWEDDINGATTIRE.htm

The article also used to be here:
http://www.thelondonlounge.net/gl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6562

It even was listed here at one point:
http://www.styleforum.net/a/what-should-i-ask-my-groomsmen-to-wear


All these links to the article are dead now. It's too bad because I was saving it for when my brother gets married. I had some great pictures as well of non-matching wedding parties. Anyone remember it or have a copy?


Searching online, this is all I could find of an example of nonmatching groomsmen:

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post #64 of 88
11/27/12 at 1:22pm
Thread Starter 

You guys have been pretty helpful. Has anyone else noticed how this topic has clearly defined the more alpha vs. the more beta male posters on this forum. surely i am not the only one

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post #65 of 88
11/27/12 at 1:25pm
Thread Starter 

this "going along to get along, happy wife happy life" mentality is partly responsible for the increasing emasculation of the american male

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post #66 of 88
11/27/12 at 1:32pm

Are the bridesmaids dresses matching? How many groomsmen? How many bridesmaids?

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post #67 of 88
11/27/12 at 1:34pm
Thread Starter 

3 bridesmaids 3 groomsmen. the chicks will all be wearing the same purple but different dresses(depending on body types)

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post #68 of 88
11/27/12 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigasahouse View Post

Manton had an excellent article on Wedding Attire that talked specifically about not having the groomsmen all match.
It used to be found here:
http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/Tutorials/AntongiavanniWEDDINGATTIRE.htm
The article also used to be here:
http://www.thelondonlounge.net/gl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6562
It even was listed here at one point:
http://www.styleforum.net/a/what-should-i-ask-my-groomsmen-to-wear
All these links to the article are dead now. It's too bad because I was saving it for when my brother gets married. I had some great pictures as well of non-matching wedding parties. Anyone remember it or have a copy?

Use the Internet Archive to get copies of old web sites that have since disappeared:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070206012354/http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/Tutorials/AntongiavanniWEDDINGATTIRE.htm
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post #69 of 88
11/27/12 at 3:52pm
Quote:
this "going along to get along, happy wife happy life" mentality is partly responsible for the increasing emasculation of the american male

 

As a reasonably happy, thoroughly emasculated, American male, I can say there are worse things. Like going through life alone.

 

From the perspective of >30 years marriage to the same woman:

 

When we got married I was still in grad school. I wore the only suit I had. The same one I wore to my interviews to get in grad school, and the same one I wore for my job interviews when I graduated. My best man had been in the working world for a few years, has always been a clothes horse, and I am sure he wore a much nicer suit. There was never any question that I would tell him how to dress for that or any other event. I like to think he would have ignored my uninformed suggestions if I had. My other male friends were either in my boat- no job, no money to spend on a special suit, or his boat- working but far from the means to get some crazy suit just for the wedding. They wore the suits they had, some nicer than others. They looked nice.

 

Looking over old wedding photos a few years ago I realized that I still had my suit, so I wore it for our 30th anniversary. What can I say? It was a cheap suit I could afford at the time.

 

My wife did the standard bride "been planning this for years" thing. I was amazed that she had any idea what to do, since I had none. So she and her mother handled everything, which was fine with me.

 

If your friends are early enough in their careers you could try objecting on the grounds that you do not want to force your groomsmen to lay out money for suits they will never wear anywhere else. Note also that nice suits are expensive. These weird wedding outfits, since they are one-time items, are made to even lower standards than the cheapest suit someone in early career might otherwise buy. Neglecting the color schemes, they look like the thrown together junk they are. Take the approach that you want the groomsmen to look good, and that is unlikely to happen if they show up in purple "wedding" suits.

 

In other words, propose that you do not want to inflict on your groomsmen the same waste of money to which she is consigning her bridesmaids. To claim that it is fair, some women do manage to look reasonably good in their costumes. In part this may be because women can wear a wider variety of colors and styles without looking ridiculous. Men cannot. Not my rules, but that is the way it is.

 

Now, all the married men join in the phrase that keeps the marriage happy "Yes dear"

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post #70 of 88
11/27/12 at 4:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by quaker13 View Post

You guys have been pretty helpful. Has anyone else noticed how this topic has clearly defined the more alpha vs. the more beta male posters on this forum. surely i am not the only one

 

Yes, "Alpha Male" was the first term that came to mind when I read your post on a clothing forum asking for advice on how to convince your fiancee to let you be the one to pick your friends' outfits for the wedding.  facepalm.gif

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post #71 of 88
11/27/12 at 5:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by New Shoes1 View Post

Yes, "Alpha Male" was the first term that came to mind when I read your post on a clothing forum asking for advice on how to convince your fiancee to let you be the one to pick your friends' outfits for the wedding.  facepalm.gif

Burn.
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post #72 of 88
11/27/12 at 5:29pm
lurker[1].gif
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post #73 of 88
11/27/12 at 6:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaplan View Post

And maybe some industrious clothing stores saw their chance to perpetuate this misconception to sell a bunch of identical, crappy outfits.
OP, how about getting hold of some classic movies with well dressed people in wedding scenes, watch them with your wife to be and subbtly point out how everybody looks better for not being forced into some tasteless uniform?
Quote:
Originally Posted by unbelragazzo View Post

I haven't done a study of it, but I would imagine that the main culprit for the craze towards matching outfits, even when going away from the traditional morning dress and into the abyss of fuchsia accessories, is the wedding planning industry. They make more commissions when they can convince the bride and groom to foist $2k or more worth of expenditures on crappy clothing upon their loved ones. Insisting that everyone match guarantees that clothing purchases must be made for the occasion. And they know just the perfect place to fill all of your gaudy clothing needs!

This is exactly what I was thinking that it's probably no more complicated than that. Just seeing an opportunity to make some money and being able to convince those who normally wouldn't know otherwise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by New Shoes1 View Post

Yes, "Alpha Male" was the first term that came to mind when I read your post on a clothing forum asking for advice on how to convince your fiancee to let you be the one to pick your friends' outfits for the wedding.  facepalm.gif

lol.
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post #74 of 88
11/27/12 at 6:08pm
Hey Quake-- my gf of 1.5 years (20 years my junior and smoking hot) has been begging me to marry her. She says I can show up in my underpants if I want as long as I go through with it. satisfied.gif
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post #75 of 88
11/27/12 at 6:29pm
^ I am in a similar boat as you, though mine is only 8 years younger. I'm much more agreeable than some of the other alpha males in this thread, however, having agreed to limit the number of bridesmaids I allow to service me in the hours preceding any nuptials to no more than 3.

The things we do for love.
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Styleforum › Forums › Men's Style › Classic Menswear › Wedding planning update: Please help me convince my fiancee that my groomsmen do not have to be carbon copies of my best man