Wedding Blog

Mr. Bear Cub isn’t exactly a tuxedo kind of man. And that’s OK - I love him for it! I want him to be comfortable on his wedding day; I want him to take pride in what he wears. You know, just so long as it’s nice. He usually wears whatever he grabs first out of his drawer (of crumpled t-shirts), and usually the clothes that fill the drawer were bought by either his mom (several years ago) or me (now). He just can’t be bothered with shopping for himself, unless it involves Gore-Tex or eVent material, high-performance wool, or anything found for a steal at an REI scratch-and-dent sale. That’s Mr. Bear Cub’s style, and I love him! That makes it a lot easier for me to find his wedding day attire. He’s a practical guy - being able to wear these clothes after the big day is important.

At first I imagined him in a dark brown suit for the wedding, but then I saw this:

above two photos from Vallentyne Photography

Perfect! A dark brown velvet/corduroy sport coat plus British khaki slacks fit the bill! Last September, before Mr. BC & I moved to Chile, we hit up a J.Crew in Portland to see how they could help us out. It being fall, the corduroy jackets were in season! I can totally picture Mr. Bear Cub using his corduroy jacket to teach in when he’s a professor at a university some day.

above two images from J.Crew

But since this is more of a formal affair, the darker chocolate brown is the way to go with the jacket! We got him the washed corduroy sport coat in “stout”, a crisp white button-down shirt, and Mr. BC picked out the tie himself!

The “ensemble” - waiting safely for us in Portland!

We only recently found the rest of his outfit - the slacks. I prefer to catch the sales on J.Crew whenever possible, and these slick slacks were on sale for $70!

above 3 images from J.Crew

While Mr. Bear Cub claims to not know anything about fashion, he must have good intuition - he absolutely loves a good pair of linen slacks. He likes to call them his “weekend pants” because of how comfortable they are! The Irish-linen suit pant from J.Crew is quite a bit nicer than his normal “weekend pants”; they’ll be upgraded to conference- and weekend-lounging-status after the wedding.

As for the kicks, at first I had no idea what Mr. Bear Cub should wear. I have enough trouble finding my own shoes, let alone his! I certainly don’t know anything about “wing tips” or whatever they’re called. All I knew is that I wanted his socks to show. I love a good socks ’n’ peep-toe peep show, wedding style! Plus Mr. BC really really likes socks. A lot. Sooner or later I’ll need to complete his look with the snazziest of snazzy socks. He wanted to wear Bircken-socks (Birckenstocks with socks), but I put the kibosh on that. Besides, he needs to be comfortable dancing in these shoes!

grad students have all the fun

So I hit up my other old faithful (besides the usual J.Crew), and found these stylin’ sneaks!

source: Patagonia, via REI

Perfect for the outdoorsy guy who just so happens to look sharp! Patagonia has some great footwear for men that don’t always frequent Wall Street, but still want to get some dual-use out of their “nice shoes”. As soon as he put them on, Mr. BC didn’t want to take them off! These will probably turn into “weekend shoes”.

Now we have a bigger challenge: grooms-dudes & dudes-of-honor style.

source: Vallentyne Photography

Did you go against the tuxedo grain? Where did you get your groom’s wedding day attire from? How do you think Mr. BC’s attire is shaping up?