The Summer Wedding Guide for Grooms

At Favourbrook, our personal shopping service is dedicated to this very task. Our experts have decades of experience outfitting gentlemen for a wide variety of sophisticated formal weddings and will be able to guide you through the best options for your particular circumstances. To book an appointment simply email sales@favourbrook.com or call +44 (0)20 7493 5060. It's advisable to get this whole process rolling at least two months prior to the big day. While alterations are usually turned around within a week, you'll want to leave plenty of time to ensure that all the details have been carefully seen to, especially if you are outfitting your groomsmen.

Typically, most morning coats are woven from wool, and sometimes cashmere, and while this might seem counterintuitive for a summer wedding, wool is actually a fantastic fabric for regulating temperature and moisture. All of our morning coats are lightweight in any case.

Waistcoats

The degree of personality and individualisation to be had with a waistcoat is almost endless. Starting from the silhouette - single-breasted or double-breasted - and moving on to front and rear fabrics, our made-to-measure service will ensure that your waistcoat will be truly unique. But if that all sounds like decision overload, we have literally hundreds of off-the-peg styles cut in a variety of fabrics that will look equally as polished and sophisticated. Linen styles work especially well for summer weddings, and the long, smooth parabola of a double-breasted shawl lapel is the perfect foil for the crisp lines of a morning coat. Whether plain cloth, or patterned, you won't be short of options.

One thing we Brits do well is pragmatism, so let's get straight to it. For a summer wedding, whether in the UK or abroad, a linen suit is without doubt the ensemble that ticks all of the boxes. Lightweight and almost always cut without any internal structure, it drapes beautifully and has that natural crumple that downplays the formality of the suit silhouette. Not only that, linen holds dye well, particularly the pastel tones which slide right into a summer sartorial setting. At Favourbrook, we have created linen suits in a wide variety of pastel tones this season, all of which are perfect for the discerning groom or guest. They're smart and traditional yet with a touch of that aforementioned Mediterranean savoir-faire.

Where shirting is concerned, a crisp white shirt is never a bad option with summer tailoring. It allows the tie to be more prominent by creating a strong contrast. Pastel alternatives are perfectly acceptable but we would probably opt for a contrast white cutaway collar just to frame the face that little bit better.

To wear a tie or not to wear a tie will boil down to the dress code you want for your wedding, but we would always suggest wearing one since it offers another opportunity to individualise the look, and on a more practical level, it does help steer people's gaze to your face.

The Black Tie Wedding

One very popular trend we've been seeing in the past few seasons is the black tie wedding. Not a traditional format per se, but many grooms are deciding to tie the knot in both traditional and alternative black tie. And why not?! It's beautifully smart, and decidedly the most glamorous of the three options. The classic black tuxedo jacket and satin stripe trousers also make for a svelte silhouette, and the addition of a pleated dress shirt and bow tie just add to the sense of occasion. There are also many twists on the classic black tie that you can opt for, such as an embellished silk dinner jacket, or a velvet dinner jacket for example. Both options inject an element of colour, texture, and of course, personality. 

The great thing about black tie is that you don't necessarily have to choose it over the either two formats. Instead, make it a second look. We have encountered many grooms who planned on wearing a morning suit for the wedding itself and the requisite formalities during the day, but who then changed into black tie for dinner and dancing. The very best of both worlds! Brides have been changing looks forever so why not the grooms?!