Why You Should Book Your Groomswear Early

When should you book your groomswear?  Steve Bishop explains why it's wise to do it sooner rather than later...

It doesn’t seem 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 in terms of prioritising and of course budgeting.  To say choosing outfits for your groomsmen is often the last thing on the wedding to-do list is an understatement.

In addition we have seen a worrying trend. Bookings are now taking place much later than is advisable, often resulting in disappointment due to a lack of availability or an “oh well if that’s all that’s left that will do” type of mind set.  Given that we launch new products for the next wedding season at the Earls Court Wedding Show, usually held around late September or early October (many clients would have met us there), it seems a shame not to benefit from a full choice.

Only recently (May 2010) we had a visit from a couple who met us at Earls Court 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 extremely popular in 2010 so we advised people to visit and reserve outfits early.  Their wedding is in July 2010 on one of the busiest weekends of the summer, so unfortunately for them the suit style that they wanted was simply too popular and therefore unavailable.

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 and accessory colour that we launched at last year’s wedding show. Unfortunately we were unable to find an alternative, as the weekend of their wedding is seeing very heavy bookings in all of the modern suit styles.

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

So if you want specialist goods offered by a specialist company, visit them, listen to their advice, rule in or out certain suit styles and book as early as possible.

Article by Groomswear Specialist Steve Bishop

Image Courtesy of Hugh Harris

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