Top 5 Wedding Suit Mistakes Every Groom Should Avoid

Franco Uomo has suited over 4,000 Grooms for their big day. We’ve done every look and every combination for everyone from sports players and executives to the “average joe” who knows that a wedding day is your day to be anything but average.

Over the years we’ve seen grooms (and their fiancés) make the same mistakes over and over. Sometimes the result is tragic, but more often than not we see grooms and wedding couples miss out on a big opportunity to do something not just right but great.

Here are 5 of the biggest mistakes that we see grooms make and what you should do instead:

Mistake 1: Renting Your Wedding Suit

Far too often, the groom’s suit is an afterthought. While the bride spends months going into every bridal salon in town before buying an elaborate gown a year before the wedding day, the groom ends up walking into a rental location and having a tacky “shark suit” or baggy tuxedo lightly tailored to his size.

The result is a generic “uniform” look that fails to flatter the groom.

Believe it or not, it’s also a waste of money. While it might seem like the economical thing to do for the “I will never wear a suit like this again” gentleman, the truth is that every man should have a perfectly tailored suit in his closet to wear to special occasions. It’s a right of passage, a form of initiation to manhood, and the most important thing for a groom at his wedding.

A wedding is the perfect opportunity to invest in a perfectly tailored suit that a groom will not just wear for a day, but for the rest of his life. With “unlimited lifetime alteration” policies and “removable lapel” options that covert tuxedos into regular suits after the wedding, custom suits like Franco Uomo’s Signature Wedding Suits do a unique job of balancing sensibility with turning the groom into the King of his wedding.

Franco Uomo Groom’s Joe & Chris wearing Signature Custom Tuxedos with complementary Custom Bow Ties.

Mistake 2: Being too trendy.

It’s important to remember that as much as your wedding day is “in the moment,” that your pictures need to last a lifetime. The last thing that you want is for your kids or grandchildren to look at your wedding photos decades later and laugh at your fashion choices.

Today’s “cools suit trend” will always be tomorrow’s embarrassment. When choosing your wedding suit style, it’s important to stay somewhat reserved and classic so that your wedding look will last a lifetime. Your wedding day is a moment in history and it should be able to stand the test of time.

This doesn’t mean that your look shouldn’t have style or even be contemporary. It only means that you should pick a stylist or suit maker that knows how to incorporate a current trend in a balanced way.

Mistake 3: Copying someone else’s look.

Every groom should start his wedding suit process by doing research and finding inspiration. What do you like? What don’t you like? What look fits your wedding style the most?

However, things almost always go wrong when a groom comes to us and says, “Make me this exact look.” Every suit should be styled for the man who wears it and a good stylist will know what style elements also compliment your body, posture, and complexion.

Even if a suit style is a good fit for you, why copy a look when you can have a Signature custom look designed for you and you alone? Your friends and family will both notice and appreciate the authenticity. Your wedding day is an opportunity to be a king, but as we have said before, you should be “a king unto yourself.” The highest form of yourself. Your personality, at its highest and greatest expression. Standing there, your look should say, “I have myself together and I am ready to take responsibility for myself and the family that I will create.”

Franco Uomo Groom Wen wearing a Signature 3pc Custom Suit with Custom Bow Tie, Pocket Squares, Accented Shirt Buttons, and Tuxedo Lapel.

Mistake 4: Matching the groom with the Bride’s Maids.

When choosing color accents for the groom, it’s common to take inspiration from the nearest color fabric; the brides maids dresses. However, we think this is a mistake.

The Bride and Groom should be the King & Queen of the wedding; the Groom’s Men the bodyguards, the Bride’s Maids the… serving friends. The last thing that you should do is style the groom in coordination with the Bride’s Maids when his job is to compliment the bride.

One of the ways that we do this at Franco Uomo is to first give the groom his own distinct color (like a navy suit with a custom navy lapel) and then incorporate the color of the gown into his look by making a custom double bow tie or pocket square using extra fabric from the actual gown. We recommend bow ties for the groom because he will likely be the only one wearing a bow tie as most guests wear neckties, giving him a further distinguished look.

Franco Uomo Groom Akshay wearing a Signature 3pc Wedding Suit with his bride.

Mistake 5: Waiting to the last minute.

In March of 2020 we opened a custom bridal gown boutique, La Donna Bridal Atelier, on Santana Row to bring our custom clothing services to the brides our grooms were marrying. We ended up seeing exactly what we expected; while grooms would often show up at Franco Uomo a week or two before the wedding, brides showed up at La Donna a week or two before the ENGAGEMENT.

Our culture has always placed emphasis on the bridal gown and the woman’s look, but times are changing. Every year we see our grooms get more adventurous with their styles and their investment. The more casual our everyday lives have become, the more of an opportunity a wedding suit has become for men to lean into our oldest traditions and the gratification that comes with wearing a perfectly fitted suit custom designed for himself.

When a groom comes in for his first fitting and he puts on his look, he stands in front of our mirror and sees himself essentially wearing a car. But the look on his face when he sees himself in that suit isn’t a look of overwhelming opulence. What he sees is the highest form of himself. He sees himself as the man that he has always wanted to be. He sees himself as a man who is ready to stand before his loved ones and take ownership of his life and his partner’s.

Making a custom look and suit takes time. Sometimes it can take multiple style consultations before the design is ready to go into production, and when it does our Signature Custom Suit is made by hand from beginning to end. From the hand-stitched horsehair canvas construction to each individual button hole, dozens of hours of labor will go into making the perfect look. And then when it comes in we further sculpt it by hand to perfectly conform to the body. It’s a process that can sometimes take 8 to 12 weeks.

Don’t wait until the last minute to start your custom wedding suit. Don’t miss out on the experience that every man should get. Don’t miss your shot to be the King of your wedding.