Sleeves Magazine May 2016 | Page 23

Somehow I managed to either lose or ignore the letter, email, telegram, or other missive which detailed the chosen uniform for the gentlemen involved in the wedding party. It only occurred to me that there might have been such a document during my drive to the happy couple's house on the night before the wedding. (n.b. I also managed to lose the invitation, and only knew the date of the wedding due to some rather effective detective work at the stag party (I asked the groom, and he told me). It seems safe to assume therefore that I was the one in the wrong – that there had been instructions which I had summarily failed to follow). So there I was in the car listening closely to the greatest hits of David Essex or some such collection, my rather natty slate grey suit and Prince of Wales royal twill shirt in a complimentary shade of cindersmoke lying across the back seat, putting pedal to the metal (or near the metal where the speedlimits permitted) in my delectable new brown suede brogues. I had tried them all together before leaving, and I looked at least 80% less hopeless than usual. A huge success. However, it dawned on me as I passed Thetford and Diss (just two of the beautifully named towns on the way to Norwich, where the wedding was) that at weddings the groom and his attendant fellows tend to co-ordinate. I wondered should I have brought black shoes, for example? Or a white shirt, just in case? Had there been a tie agreed upon? I'd brought a particular blue tie, partly because it was the tie both the groom and I had worn in the school choir where we met (a pleasant if sentimental touch, I thought), and partly, mostly, because it looked brilliant with the aforementioned grey stuff. But what if I was meant to have got myself a special bespoke bowtie Sleeves Magazine