The countdown to the wedding seems to have got faster over the last couple of months. Even though I totally expected the time would fly by, I’m still kind of shocked that it’s less than 4 months – only 3.5 months to go, people! – until the wedding. It didn’t help that January was pretty much completely written off for me thanks to flu and subsequent resulting infections. I did precisely zero things for the wedding during this time – I was barely managing to get myself out of bed, let alone to work, most days.
Actually I tell a lie. It turns out I did do something in January for the wedding: in a delirious flu state I ordered random things. It was part-surprise when a box of sweetie jars, personalised coasters and teeny tiny photo frames turned up at work for me. It turns out that you shouldn’t read photo frame measurements when you can barely fill your address in – anyone know what I can do with 5cm tall frames?!
Anyway, onwards! My dress was picked out and bought over a year before the wedding. I’d sorted the bridesmaids not long afterwards with dresses and shoes. I’d even had my shoes for approximately, um, 4 years. Yes, I know. Like I’ve said before, we’ve had plans to get married for a long time! But the boys on the other hand, nada. Nothing. Barely even an idea.
Okay, let’s be fair to them. Ben and his best man Frankie did go on a shopping trip to try jackets, but Ben refused to try much on – he doesn’t like shopping at the best of times, especially when it’s all focused on him.
Fortunately, I was there to rescue them. It got to mid-December and I decided that they really needed to get sorted. So I pulled up my secret Pinterest board with all the groom outfits I liked (I plan to make all my secret wedding boards public after the wedding – I just don’t want friends and family seeing all my ideas before the day!), got sizes off all the men, and scoped out groomsmen websites myself.
This post is actually giving away a bit about the wedding as I’m going to reveal our loose theme now: English country garden. Although we’re not being very strict with that. There’s also going to be a surprising colour thrown in there hopefully, and elements from around the world too, including American barbecue and the paper cranes you might have spotted on my Instagram. We’re keeping it pretty casual, not necessarily sticking to all the traditions, but the underlying theme is going to be English country garden wedding.
Ben’s having a best man, a groomsman and both our dads, all wearing the same outfit. The size range between all these different people is really quite broad, so I was having to look at both ends of the scale. We’ve always liked the look of tweed and wool groomsmen outfits between both of us, so that was my starting point. The thing with tweed and wool is that they’re really good at keeping you warm; the problem with that is that our wedding is at the end of May – it could be slightly chilly and pouring down or it could be boiling hot. I’ve heard rumours that our area once had snow on that exact weekend many a year ago. Good old English weather.
He’d also said a while ago that he definitely wanted a waistcoat, and I liked the idea because it means that they can remove their jackets if it’s warm but still look like they’re marked out as grooms or groomsmen. So far we haven’t had definite decisions on their “accessories” like ties and shoes (I’m all for the bow tie!), but those are things that aren’t needed quite as imminently.
I was debating between hiring and buying, but we decided in the end that buying would be best since the price difference just wasn’t worth it. We’re also hoping that they’ll all get to rewear the different elements of their outfits in future sometime too and I think that’s quite likely based on what we’ve picked.
So I’ve scattered some ideas of English country garden themed groomsmen outfits throughout this post – ones I’ve looked at and considered, one potentially the same as or very similar to the one that the men will be wearing, you’ll have to wait and see what we chose in the end! The only thing now to do is find an outfit for Ben’s cousin, William, the page boy who will be 7 at the time of the wedding.
