Wedding Blog

Dressing the Beach Boys - Part 1

The other day I was talking about how tough it is to dress groomsmen for a destination wedding in the Caribbean. Finding examples of hot—or should I say cool?—beachy groomsmen helped a lot though, so off I went.

The first things I bought, and the easiest, were their purple shirts. To keep things light and airy, I chose a very pale shade of purple and made sure the material was very thin and breathable.

I found these Calvin Klein shirts at The Bay (the Canadian version of Macy’s) which just so happened to be having a sale—buy three or more men’s shirts and get them all for 40% off. Shazam!!

Now for the hard part. What color should the pants be?

Most of the beachy groomsmen in the pictures I had seen were wearing khaki pants which looked lovely with their blue, black and white shirts. With purple though…?

Mmmmm… not so much. The color tones just do not work together. How about black?

Nah. Too dark with that light shade of purple. So I tried a lighter shade of khaki:

Not bad, not bad. But there was one problem: if the groomsmen are going to be wearing this, what will Mr. Breezy wear? I wanted him to wear a matching jacket and/or a different colored shirt to make him look a bit different from his guys. But with these pants, a jacket wasn’t an option, and a white shirt would make him look too washed out all over.

Then it struck me that GREY was the answer! The colors would look fab together, and the dressier pants would be a better match for our bridesmaid dresses than khaki pants. However, finding grey pants is easier said than done.

Luckily our tenacity paid off and what’s more, there was a matching suit jacket! Hallelujah!

Then I remembered a tie I saw at the same store where I bought the shirts. Lo and behold…

… it couldn’t have matched more perfectly! So I snapped up three for each of the groomsmen… and it just so happened that there was another 40% off sale. Boo-yah!

I had another minor snafu as I considered what color belt to put with this combo, but only white worked so I went with one from Aldo. Here it is all together, with the belt:

For Mr. Breezy, I had bought a pale purple shirt too, but it had subtle pinstripes on it instead of being solid purple:

But when I put it up against the tie he wants to wear (one he already had), it didn’t feel right. Unless you were looking at it really closely, the shirt looked like a faded version of the groomsmen’s shirts.

I know with certainty that the guys will lose the jackets and ties as the night goes on, so I put together Mr. Breezy’s outfit with a white shirt instead. That way he’ll still look groom-ish.

Mr Breezy still likes the pinstriped shirt so I think we’ll have to make him do a fashion show to determine the winner (any thoughts?).

Anyway, here is the combination with the white shirt:

I don’t have the bridesmaid dresses anymore to compare since I had to mail them to my girls so they could have alterations done if necessary. But if you will recall, they are the exact same color as my shoes, so…

Even though they’re not all the exact same shade, it still works.

And there you have it. Beachy, purple and not a khaki pant in sight. It was quite the challenge putting all the pieces together but I think this might just be a brand new chapter in the book of beachy groomsmen-wear. I hope they like it, and hey, if they wear pieces of it again one day, BONUS!

Did you find dressing your guys to be even tougher than dressing your gals?