Make Style a Top Priority

Top tailor and menswear specialist Stephen Bishop puts male fashion as a top priority on the wedding to-do list and suggests ordering early to miss disappointment.

Images courtesy of Hugh Harris

Are men important? Absolutely, yes.

Not that it seems to matter what we do or say to convince a bride, or indeed a groom, that the men within a wedding party are of equal importance – with priority and of course budgets being set accordingly.

The choosing of outfits for your groomsmen is more often than not the last thing on the wedding to do list.

In addition, we have seen a worrying trend. Weddings are now booking much later than advisable, often resulting in disappointment due to lack of availability or an  “oh well, if that’s all that’s left that will do” type of mind set.

But it’s such a shame, especially when all the new products for the next wedding season are on display at Earls Court Wedding Show from September/October. Many Hugh Harris clients meet us there and it seems a shame not to benefit from full choice.

Only recently (May 2010) we had a visit from a couple who met us at Earls Court in 2009 and fell in love with our brand new suit range designed for us by William Hunt, Savile Row.  It was obvious that these were going to be crazy busy in 2010 so we advised the couple to visit and reserve outfits early.  Their wedding was in July that year on one of the busiest weekends of the summer and unfortunately for them, the suit style that they wanted was simply too heavily booked to be available for them.

So choose something else – we hear you cry. That isn’t so easy when the WHOLE wedding colour scheme has been based on the suit colour and accessory colour that we launched at last years wedding show. Did we find an alternative? No – as the weekend of their wedding is seeing very heavy bookings in all of the modern suiting.

Why don’t we carry enough stock – will be another question you will be asking.  With regards the couple mentioned above, I had ordered triple my original estimates based on the response from the show and the early bookings that we saw.  Had the couple in question visited only a few weeks earlier we could have included them in our final buying planning for this summer.

Top suit buying tips

• Specialist companies offer good advice: listen to what they say
• Take time to visit them in person
• Start to rule in or out certain suit styles
• Book as early as possible.

You’ll find lots of inspiration on our Groom pages!