Okay real talk y'all....this wedding stuff is getting serious. As my Macy's registry so kindly reminded me, I have 58 days left to go. When you are engaged for nearly a year, you think that you have plenty of time to get everything together...but that is NOT true. Pretty soon you've got less than two months and you find yourself scheduling mental heath days from work because you're going crazy. Throw in the added bonus of planning the wedding in a different city from where we live and I'm pretty sure I will be ready to be fitted for my straight jacket by the time the big day rolls around.
All that being said, we ordered the suits from Joseph A Bank on Tuesday, and seeing as how we've been working with them for four months on picking out the suits, I thought this would be an easy task. Wrong I was. Part of our problem with the suits has been that we both had a very clear vision of what we wanted - a stone colored light-weight summer suit. When we first began looking, the summer suits weren't out yet, so we were checking in every few weeks to see what they had in stock. As our groomsmen got measured (some at this particular store), we would call in and give the store their measurements for our file so they would be on hand when we came in to order. We ended up finding the suit we wanted in stock at another store, and took pictures of the tag to take into the store we had been working with.
On Tuesday, the boy and I met on our lunch breaks to order the groomsmen suits which, given how much we had researched them and talked to the store managers, should have been a 15 minute ordeal. Once the order was going in, the salesman got to the second suit and told us that the suit we were looking at didn't come in a 36 short, but the smallest size they had was a 38 short. The boy and I exchanged looks, but quickly decided that we had no choice but to just get the size they had for our Best Man. Then, the salesman really put the icing on the cake and said, "Oh and by the way, these suits don't come in separates."
This is kind of where I started to lose it...
"What does that mean?" I asked him. "Oh, just that you don't get to pick your pant size...you just get the pants in 6 sizes lower, so if you order a 40 jacket, you get a 34 pant..." he responds. "The executive and signature suits come in separates, but the summer suits don't."
And this is where I actually did lose it...
"Are you kidding me?? We have been working with you all for months, only looking at the summer blends in suits. You have 5 different suit options written in our file, and all of them are summer suits. Why is this the first time we are hearing about this??!!"
"Ummm...I'm sorry....uhhh..."
"No, this is ridiculous! We have been back and forth with our groomsmen, shuffling them in stores to get their sizes, collecting money from them, which we have clearly misled them about since they will all have to get extra alterations on their suits now." All the while the boy is standing silent looking at the both of us with a look of helpless bewilderment. "Well I guess just order the suits however they come! I mean, we HAVE to have suits!"
Then I looked at K and just said "I am so pissed!" The salesman kept mumbling about how he was sorry and he should have told us, and then said he would see what he could do about the cost. At that moment I could feel my eyes wanting to well up and steam coming out of my ears and nose. Before I opened my mouth again and singed him with fire, I decided I needed to go look at ties and kept repeating to myself,
Don't cry at the suit store, don't cry at the suit store....
By the time I got back to the register, the salesman was totalling everything up and turned his screen around so we could see the final order. Then he told us that they would all ship out from different locations and pointed out the estimated ship date for each suit...JUNE 15th!!!! Despite being told that suits typically come in within 7-10 business days, we were looking at over a month! I just looked at the guy and said, "June 15??" That's 3 weeks before the wedding, and they still have to get altered??? That is unacceptable. Am I right? After pretty much reading him the riot act again, the salesman got on the phone with God knows who to find out if they could ship out any sooner. The salesman assured me that they suits would be done in time for the wedding, and ended up giving us $20 of each suit (which we are giving back to the groomsmen since they have to have additional alterations).
While I am glad that they did something about the suit price, I am still frustrated that we have to jump through additional hoops to get the suits where we need them...just not something I needed at this point in the planning process. Next week we will likely be ordering our wedding bands, so please pray that it goes smoother than the suit ordeal...God knows it will be more expensive.
All that said, my dear friend Miranda did make me feel loads better later that same day when she dropped in on me at work to drop of my bridesmaid dress for her wedding (which is on Saturday!) fresh from alterations. I recounted the suit buying experience to her, and she responded with, "Oh that's nothing! I cussed out the lady at Kinko's last night because I couldn't pull up my yahoo mail on their computers to print out the seating charts." Ahhh....perspective....
So with all that said, I am gearing up for full-on bridesmaid/bff duty this weekend and lots of fun memories too. I promise to take pictures and give a full recounting of her wedding, which I know will be stunning!
Last but not least, I leave you with this lovely picture of my future husband from his bachelor weekend at the Ky Derby....this is him in the infield wearing a purple and lavender sombrero, with a bottle of whisky and a ball in chain with my name on it around his wrist. Good times.
