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.

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.

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:

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.

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:

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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 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.