It’s finally time for the menfolk of our wedding to shine! You’ve seen me and my bridesmaids getting ready, you’ve seen what I wore, but you’ve seen nothing until you’ve seen Ben and his groomsmen getting ready! I left Frankie, the best man (or “Best of Men” as he and Ben liked to refer to his title) with the job of capturing the morning where they were getting ready without a photographer, and I have to admit, I was pretty impressed with the results that really capture the true spirit of boys getting ready for a wedding!
So while I’ve started this post with a fairly sensible photo of Ben and Frankie getting dressed, there’s even a story behind this one – this is just one photo in a series of them pulling on their socks! Let’s jump back to the start of their day though…with bacon sandwiches made on the BBQ (of course) and gift exchanging.
If you’re interested in seeing more posts from our wedding day, check out the posts below:
First, (or so it appears…I’ll explain that statement in a second!) Ben had his gifts from me to open. I struggled with choosing something special for Ben – I wanted something that was meaningful but was actually useful. I settled on this leather strap watch from Etsy, engraved with a message and our wedding date. It came in a gorgeous leather pouch too which was a nice touch. I also picked him a pair of wooden cufflinks, also from Etsy, with our initials and wedding date as his shirt needed them, and this pin that I actually bought over a year before in Disney! We’d gone back and forth on theming our wedding to Disney’s Up (or at least partly, I couldn’t go all out themed!) but in the end, we just threw in a few Disney touches here and there – Carl and Ellie’s love story is so poignant that I had to include this pin as part of Ben’s ensemble. Here’s a few close up pictures of his gifts from later in the day:
Continuing with the gift exchanging, and now I’ll explain a quick story – you might notice some strange (stranger than usual!) expressions on the boys’ faces. Well, it turns out they’d already all opened their gifts and cards before realising they hadn’t taken photos, so they rewrapped them and staged a photoshoot of them opening them again!
Frankie, the best man, received a little pocket watch from Personalised Gifts Shop engraved with our wedding date, his name and “Best of Men” and a pair of socks to wear on the day; Alex got a personalised beer tankard and a pair of socks too. Each of the groomsmen had these socks as part of their outfit, organised by me to get them all sorted!
Ben’s dad and my dad both got an engraved whiskey glass with a miniature bottle of whiskey for the morning too, although they got ready separately. My dad also had a pair of wooden cufflinks personalised with “Father of the Bride” and our wedding date.
And onto their full outfits! We decided that since we weren’t going too smart for the wedding and wanted a more casual, relaxed feel to the whole day, that they weren’t going to wear full suits. Instead, we wanted a slightly country vibe with a bit of an American feel to it. I found these jackets and waistcoats on Marc Darcy – they’re the Andrew in moss green – then we paired them with a pair of chinos from Next, which we allowed them all to choose in their favourite cut, and their own pair of brown leather shoes. The plain white shirts came from Hawes & Curtis – Ben’s had shirts from them before and really likes the quality, so they made our shortlist very quickly. Aside from that, all they had was a simple red tie and a gorgeous buttonhole designed by our florist and family friend, Jane.
So it turns out trying to get photos of them all together and looking sensible is hard – here’s our best option, plus one of the more interesting ones 😀
