Grooms looking beyond the boring traditional black tuxedo

When it comes to wedding outfit shopping, brides seem to get all the attention.

There’s New York Bridal Fashion Week, a three-day extravaganza where brands showcase their newest designs. There is a reality television series dedicated to dress shopping called “Say Yes to the Dress,” which has been running since 2007 and has led to multiple spinoffs.

Major cities are replete with bridal boutiques, and buying the bridal gown is often considered one of the first steps in the wedding planning process.

But what about the men getting married?

“I can’t tell you the number of times we get calls a couple of weeks before the wedding,” said Michael Andrews, who has been dressing grooms since 2006 at Michael Andrews Bespoke, his luxury clothing shop in New York. In October, he opened the Groom Shop, also in New York, dedicated solely to the groom shopping experience.

Since the start of the pandemic, when comfort clothes predominated in everyday fashion, Andrews said he has noticed that more grooms are requesting looks for the entire wedding weekend, as multiday wedding celebrations have become more popular, as well as an outfit to change in between the ceremony and reception.

“People in their day-to-day are kind of dressed down, but whenever they’re looking for an excuse to get dressed up, they’re really doing it right,” Andrews said. “Men recognized that their wedding day was an opportunity to express their personalities.”

And many grooms are averting the traditional black tuxedo and crafting custom looks in collaboration with designers.

Travis London, an interior designer who got married in Miami in November, started planning his wedding outfit as soon as he got engaged. He has nostalgia for the weddings he grew up watching and reading about in the magazine Martha Stewart Weddings, which, he said, is why he always knew he wanted an all white outfit for his wedding despite the fact that he loves color.

“I still wanted to feel masculine, but I wanted to play on all the ideas of what a bride will wear,” said London, 35.

“The guys always look the same — a black tux,” he added. “The dresses of the women were all so detailed, so ornate, so beautiful.” Designer Jerome LaMaar custom-made a sheer top for London that included a train embellished with buttons. He applied pearls and rough-cut Swarovski crystals to the top by hand. The outfit also included a crown custom made by Soull Ogun, a founder of L’Enchanteur, a jewelry brand.

The custom look took about three months to complete. “My destiny, my calling, is to make clothes that have a little more flavor and show men they can play with color and textures and shapes that feel good for them,” LaMaar said. “This is their day, too — put the effort in so the person you’re marrying sees that it is an equal conversation in the relationship, through fashion and style.”

For his look, Drew Gehling, 41, chose a custom green velvet tuxedo from Michael Andrews Bespoke to match the nature aesthetic of his summer camp-theme wedding in September. Gehling, an actor, frequently wears tailored costumes in the Broadway shows he appears in. He knew that he wanted to have fun with the fabric and the color of his wedding tuxedo, and that he didn’t want a suit off the rack.

“I understand how empowering it can be to wear something that is made specifically for your body at a specific time,” Gehling said.

He added personal touches to his tuxedo, including his wife’s initials embroidered on the sleeves.