Reclaiming the Tux

I wasn't going to make a blog about this, but I've told the story to a few people now and every time I hear myself tell it, I realize how stupid it is, so I'm sharing it with the hope that you might be able to take something from it someday.

Last weekend Brahm and I went to Moore's to pick out wedding tuxes for him and his groomsmen.  I didn't really know what to expect but I was picturing him trying on a tux or something, but here is how "tux shopping" works at Moore's.  This might be slightly out of order as my memory is not so great:

1.  You go in and tell them you want to order tuxes.  They give you a catalogue to look at, and show you some mannequins, and say "pick the one you want."

2.  They all look basically the same.

3.  They take the groom's info, and the bride's info (at this point I was like "wtf is going on, why does Moore's care who I am whatsoever?  Oh, perhaps in case they can't get a hold of the groom and there is a tuxedo emergency, I guess that makes sense a little bit, sort of"), and the names of the groomsmen.

4.  You pick the tux you want. 

5.  You pick the style of vest you want and then the colour.

6.  You pick the shoes you want.

7.  They tell you what shirt to order, and also select some black socks and a tie that matches the vest and a pocket square that matches the shirt.

8.  You pay a $40 deposit and they tell you to come in 3 months before the wedding to get sized.

This is very different from dress shopping.  It takes half an hour or less.

Okay so anyway the weird thing that happened was after Brahm paid the $40 deposit the guy put together an info pamphlet with his receipt, and the confirmation number to give to his groomsmen and said "I'll give this to the bride, as she usually likes to hang on to this" and I took it and stood there and wondered if I should just be polite and pretend I actually cared about hanging onto this information but then I was like "screw it, I in no way support the effed-up wedding 'gender roles' of Western society where the groom is like 'duhhh what is wedding' and the bride is like 'sweetie, please remember to go get your tux sized tomorrow.  I packed you a lunch and printed out directions to Moore's and programmed a reminder into your calendar because you CANNOT BE TRUSTED to remember to do the easiest thing in the world if it is wedding-related'" so I decided to take a mini-stand in front of the Moore's guy and gave the pamphlet to Brahm and said "You take this, I don't care about it". 

The Moore's guy reacted by saying "Oh, an uncontrolling bride!  Very uncommon!"

At the time, I felt kind of smug about this comment.  Haha, yes, I AM an uncontrolling bride, thanks, we are awesome because we are planning our wedding together, yay yay we are the best.  But now, I have lost my smugness (mostly) and am just annoyed that this is what's become of modern wedding culture.

Ladies - have we become so obsessed with wedding perfection that we cannot trust the ACTUAL EASIEST THING of the whole wedding, sizing and picking up tuxedos, to the men who are going to be wearing them?  Seriously?  How is that not like not trusting a guy to dress himself in the morning?  Please, let's give these guys some credit.  If a man is getting married, I am going to go out on a limb and say that he is responsible enough to figure out how to dress himself for this very important day without his future wife's supervision, and if he isn't - you've got a whole other problem on your hands.  And - call me crazy - he is probably responsible enough to inform his friends to also pick up their wedding attire as well.

Gentlemen - if your future wife is actually trying to supervise this ridiculously simple task, please tell her to calm the frig down and trust you on this one.  (Side note - I have this wedding planning book from the 70's that actually says the best man is supposed to be the equivalent of today's "day-of" wedding coordinator - what happened???  Extra side note - the gender-specific language on that website proves my point.)  Your wedding is one of the first major rites of passage that you are going to go through together - why not plan it together?  Guys - can you please take a stand against the modern wedding industry and Reclaim the Tux?

Of course, there may be special cases where the groom is the kind of guy who is completely absentminded and does need a reminder from his partner - but this should be the exception, not the norm.  I refuse to believe that the majority of men are so disorganized that they can't be trusted to do this.

I have a feeling Moore's took my info so they could call me and tell me to remind Brahm of various tux-related information closer to the wedding.  I will be directing them to call him personally.