Lifestyle | Menswear | Shirts

Dress Shirt Tips for Wedding Season

Giorgio D'Antonio

The All Important Dress Shirt For Weddings

Some­thing Old, Some­thing New, Some­thing Bor­rowed, Some­thing Deo? Yes it’s that time of year, wed­ding sea­son is full of “I do’s” and based on my ball park esti­mate, you’re like­ly to attend at least four wed­dings between now and Labor Day. Whether attend­ing your old col­lege roommate’s wed­ding, or a grooms­man for your best friend’s big day, or even your own wed­ding? What­ev­er the sit­u­a­tion, wed­ding style has gone from wear­ing your aver­age white but­ton down and black tuxe­do, to a real state­ment moment for many.

For exam­ple, lets start with the groom, the man of the hour. Who says you’re just an acces­so­ry to the bride? Okay, maybe you are. But the most impor­tant woman of the hour, will be gaz­ing at you lov­ing­ly and the last thing you want to do is show up wear­ing a stan­dard run of the mill, non fit­ted shirt.

It’s time to step it up a notch for your big day and go cus­tom. After con­sid­er­ing the loca­tion of your wed­ding, weath­er, and col­or scheme (check with the bride on this) you can nar­row down your options eas­i­ly on our web­site. Every detail can be cus­tomized to match your style. With all that being said, check out some basic rules that we try to fol­low our­selves.

Groom Boutonniere wedding dress shirt

Dress Shirt Fundamentals for Weddings.

Assum­ing this is a for­mal occa­sion and you’re part of the inner cir­cle, you’re going to want to go with a White or slight­ly off White fab­ric. Tra­di­tion favors con­ser­vatism in these type of events but it doesn’t mean you can’t still spice things up. Read on for a cou­ple options we high­ly rec­om­mend.

If you’re going bow tie, we have a tra­di­tion­al col­lar and a wing col­lar to pick from. If we had to pick, we’d say go with our tra­di­tion­al for­ward point or our club col­lar if you want to add a bit of style. Stay away from the short­er (mini) point col­lars. These col­lars are a bit too con­tem­po­rary for for­mal affairs such as this. You can also opt for an Eng­lish Spread or a Full Cut­away if you intend to pair your shirt with a Full Wind­sor tie knot.

Groom wearing bow tie wedding dress shirt

Explore the details in your wedding dress shirt.

In terms of cuffs, go with French Cuffs (square or angle cut is fine). And we rec­om­mend avoid­ing pock­ets, unless you need them for func­tion­al­i­ty. If you need imme­di­ate access to eye­glass­es, pen­cils, or your wed­ding ring – stow them away in your jack­et.

In terms of a plack­et (def­i­n­i­tion — the lay­ers of fab­ric that hold the but­tons and but­ton­holes in a shirt), you have two real options that will win you major style points:

French Plack­et with Studs – Sim­i­lar to the French (def­i­n­i­tion — but­ton front shirt with­out a sep­a­rate pieced plack­et) in con­struc­tion with studs in place of but­tons.  Remem­ber, that you’ll need to buy the studs sep­a­rate­ly.  Tiebar is a great acces­so­ry site that sells tons of dif­fer­ent styles.  Like the wing tip, we don’t adver­tise this style but we can build it.  Sim­ply spec­i­fy ‘French Plack­et with Studs’  under ‘Oth­er’ dur­ing the Mea­sure­ment process.

Cov­ered Plack­et – Our favorite for wed­dings… a very for­mal style plack­et with an extra piece that cov­ers up the but­tons on the front of the shirt.

Fabrics we recommend:

white poplin fabric

Cas­tiglia White 100s — $100

A true clas­sic. This white pin­point is soft­er and lighter than an oxford but able to ful­fill the same duties. It’s rugged enough to wear on a hike yet equal­ly suit­ed for the board­room.  This type of pin­point is  born for wear and tear but soft and sleek enough for for­mal affairs. Beyond the wed­ding, this shirt will get heavy rota­tion from day one and nev­er com­plain — nor will you.

white herringbone
Tes­si­tu­ra Mon­ti White Prince Rose White Large 140s

Prince Rose White Large by Tes­si­tu­ra Mon­ti — $140

The grail dress shirt.

We some­times get the ques­tion, “What’s a great for­mal yet under­stat­ed wed­ding dress shirt?” This folks is it. As not­ed pre­vi­ous­ly, it comes from Monti’s exclu­sive Prince Rose line (as high as it gets). The her­ring­bone pat­tern gives it a bit of bold­ness while still remain­ing ground­ed. It’s tex­ture and feel is but­ter rich. It’s not an every day wear and that’s okay. Keep this one in the bullpen as your go to for any event that requires you to look 3 times bet­ter than nor­mal.

If this is more a des­ti­na­tion or casu­al themed wed­ding, then by all means try some of oth­er 200+ fab­rics. We still rec­om­mend lighter col­ored, lighter weight sol­id broad­cloths and poplins. In the end, you’ll have a shirt to com­mem­o­rate your big day and most impor­tant­ly — no dis­ap­point­ing looks from the future-in-laws or your bride.

A wedding dress shirt for the Groomsmen:

The rules above are applic­a­ble to all but we want to give a spe­cial shout out to the Groomsmen – start­ing first with the Best Man. He is the one entrust­ed to make sure the groom actu­al­ly shows up on time with a wed­ding ring, keeps his cool and can make it through the cer­e­mo­ny with­out falling over.

With that being said, your out­fit should com­pli­ment the groom’s with­out steal­ing his thun­der. If he’s wear­ing a two-piece tux, you should NOT be wear­ing a three-piece tux. If you’re think­ing that maybe this isn’t that impor­tant, con­sid­er this. The incred­i­bly expen­sive pics from that pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er will end up get­ting seen by EVERYONE until who knows when. Face­book, Twit­ter, Insta­gram, Pin­ter­est, albums on cof­fee tables, blown up images above fire­places. They will be for­ev­er seen by mul­ti­ple par­ties.  Don’t be ‘that guy’.  It’s his day, not yours. 

See if he’s amenable to hav­ing all the grooms­man wear the exact same shirt, or allow for a lit­tle bit of per­son­al touch  with col­or and cus­tomiza­tion. Cus­tom shirts also make for great grooms­man gifts.  Some fun options are our mono­grams, which they cus­tomize on our plat­form. It’s as sim­ple as gift­ing a Deo eGift Card with an amount he’s com­fort­able with and voila, the grooms­men gifts are done.

Economical options for the Groomsmen:

White Super Dobby
Screen Shot 2015-05-27 at 9.48.33 PM

White Super Dob­by — $95

Now, if you’re one of the lucky few who gets to just show up, drink to your hearts con­tent and dance with the crazy aunt, con­sid­er your­self lucky. It’s your time to shine and take some risks. You’re not behold­en to the groom’s for­mal style or the grooms­man uni­form, so pick some­thing that will set you apart from the rest. We’d rec­om­mend one of our mul­ti col­ored grids or ging­hams.  

magenta windowpane

Magen­ta Win­dow­pane Twill — $158

No mat­ter what the sit­u­a­tion, we’re here to make sure you don’t find your­self in one of those chain stores among the high school prom goers. Now that would be one divorce I wouldn’t mind.

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