"Help! My Man Won't Marry in Brown!"

They tried to make me wear a brown tux
I said, No, No, No ...

"He won't do it." You hear the wail all over the country. Men, it seems, pose a real challenge when you consider that chocolate brown is probably the most dominant color in weddings, regardless of season.

Or maybe it's more accurate to say women hesitate to pair black and brown, and men, for their own mysterious reasons, find wearing anything but a black tux about as attractive as swapping Ovaltine for Bud as their pre-game brew of choice.

With matters this touchy, it's useful to investigate what might roil beneath the surface of the complicated male mind. Here's some fair bets:

- "Brown isn't a formal color." Time was, you'd wear brown for daytime and maybe church, but it was all black for weddings and funerals, and if you showed up in the dreaded brown, people'd know you got no class or learnin'. Of course, time was, you jostled up against 40 other kids in a one-room schoolhouse, poured molasses on your pancakes, and strapped a saddle to the family pig for fun.

Bridesmaids in Brown + Black Tuxes look pretty darn cute, too. Riecheru An

- "Marry in brown, you'll live out of town." Perhaps it's this ancient Irish wedding proverb that gives your man pause. "Out of town," here meaning you're doomed to country bumpkinhood, wearing homespun and knocking back dandelion wine instead of brandy on holidays. Probably not, though, since the next line is, "Marry in black, wish you were back," meaning "back at the singles bar."

- "Eh, I don't know." Translation: your fiancé is recalling some devastating faux pas he made around seventh grade: letting his mom perm his hair at home, or showing up at a small-town school in a pink Izod. Possibly, his memories of his sartorial choices for prom are none-too-reassuring either. Even if he logs almost as many hours on the PlayStation as he does at work, your fiancé now knows, as a grown-up, that powder-blue cummerbands are v.v. bad, and an 'experimental' tuxedo represents another potentially fatal misstep, this time in front of his coworkers.

- "Uh-uh. No way." Deep inside every 501-wearing loveable slob is a man who knows that, if things were different, he'd be too. Transport him to Victorian England, and this ramen-loving guy of yours would reveal his true self: a card-carrying member of some swanky men's club. He'd chow down on roast beef in front of a roaring fire, peek at a friend's poker hand as he taps the ashes from his cigar, pinch the brim of his bowler hat to acknowledge a racy joke, and dab at his ascot to remove that trace of gravy. In short, hidden inside your slouching fiancé is a secret gallant, and your wedding might be his only chance to show it. And men in imaginary Victorian supper clubs, even he knows, do not wear brown tuxedos.

Top to Bottom, L to R: Stephen Geoffrey Chocolate Parisian #282, 2 button double-breasted; same; After Six "Summit" in Mahogany Brown, 1 button single-breasted notch. FUBU Brown Stripe #155, 2-button single-breasted notch; Calvin Klein Cadbury Brown, 2-button single-breasted; Jean Yves Chocolate Premier Two Button Notch.

So, What to Do?

You have a couple of tacks, here.

Manipulation. The fact is, men look stunning in brown formalwear. (Some have said, black men look stunning in brown. Get a clue, sayers! ALL men look GREAT in it!)

While quite a few of your standard-issue rentals in black leave guys looking ever-so-slightly dated, and perhaps a tad like crows on stilts, the brown tuxes on the market are hot, contemporary and ridiculously flattering. If you have Photoshop skillz, perhaps you could cut-and-paste some of the finest models-in-brown-tuxes shots into a crowd that's cheering wildly for your fiancé's favorite football team. Then leave your creation in strategic places around the house, like his pillow. Then, and only then, bring it up in words.

Capitulation. If you take your fiancé's "no" at face value, but you're determined to put your bridesmaids in chocolate brown, you can still dress the men in brown vests and ties. Yes, there was once a rule about brown and black, and navy and black, and white after Labor Day, but every single one of these rules was destroyed on the catwalk decades ago, and not a minute too soon.

But ... brown vests and black tuxes? How will it look? Most brides are wary. Judge for yourself, but personally, I'd call this one of the more elegant color combinations out there.

You can always go to After Hours' "Create-a-Tux" tool and try out different browns and blacks for yourself. I find the hey-presto digital results not entirely convincing, not unlike a photo of Paris Hilton with a blue face, and yet, it might be worth worth your time.

Or perhaps more usefully, here are some photos of the brown/black combo on real-life guys (or at least, dress forms). Personally, I like the darker, less saturated browns more than the redder varieties, but that's just me.

Top to Bottom, Left to Right: After-Hours Tux Tool, Tommy Hilfiger tux with Cognac vest; Gorgeous new husband from TNBride; Chocolate Twilight tuxedo vest from Monkeysuits; Black notch tuxedo with chocolate vest set; Top2BottomKids; brown vest from MarksFormals.


If you're still not convinced, here are a few final options: pick vests in safe but still complementary colors, like latte or bisque. OR, be ultra-clever and match your guys' vests and ties to your bridesmaids' sashes, not their dresses. How much latitude does that give you? Totally enough, right?

Question: So now that you've gotten down to the bottom (all three of you), how do you plan to handle the brown/black dilemma?

Tags: brown tuxedo, chocolate tuxedo, wedding tuxedo

Love (Them) Cuffs: It's All in the Wrist

Images from Modern Bride

You don't have to look at many fall bridal magazines to notice all the wrist action. In fact, after you see couple dozen of these blushing brides with big bracelets, the bride who goes without almost starts to look like a featherless bird.

Where does all this come from? Well, giant-sized jewelry (even paste will do) has fashion directors enthralled. Rings that loom over three fingers? It's laughable. And yet ... charming.

And while most brides aren't going to don a 2-inch diameter costume ring to be in step with the times, the cuff's another matter. For one thing, it seems like the missing piece we've always needed to set off those sleek, toned-down silhouettes of today's more minimalistic strapless gowns.

There's an 80s throwback feel to it, too. These aren't dainty little straps around the wrist: these are punk princess baubles. Sure, they might be comprised of precious metals or more, but their aesthetic is hardly nostalgic or demure. In fact, for all the sparkle, it's practically industrial. Bonus: a chunky cuff slenderizes the arm.

Playbook for This Look

Be Discreet. Chunky means lots of volume, not big beads. This is not the place for dangly charms, hunks of rose crystal or beautifully chaotic nests of silver wire that detract from your dress. On the other hand, seed pearls, crystals, and silver and gold are perfect, as long as they're arranged simply. Let the materials take a step back, while the overall shape steps forward.

Go Wide. Skip the girlish little chain around the wrist and go for cuffs or many-stranded bangles. Or: pile two substantial bracelets on top of each other. They don't have to match!

Hello, Handsome. You want classic, repetitive metallics or monochromes: a bracelet tailor-made for today's revised menswear craze. Avoid floral inlays or distracting flashes of color ... but just plain flash is more than fine.

Top to Bottom, Left to Right: Smoky Gray (Steel) Peyote Cuff, LiTelle at Etsy, $33; Linear Bangle by Sonja Bene, price available on request; 11-row rhinestone bracelet at Michelle's Vintage Jewelry (sold). Aarikka Finland Cuff at Michelle's Vintage Jewelry, $45; Wide Dimensional Rhinestone Bracelet at Michelle's Vintage Jewelry, $198; Elizabeth Showers Teardrop Cuff. 'Freedom' bracelet in sterling silver by Wayan Asmana at Novica, $110; Yemenite filigree sterling silver cuff bracelet by Dekel at Etsy, $490; 'Rivers of Life' bracelet in sterling silver by Made Sriasih at Novica, $88.95.

Tags: wedding trends, wedding jewelry, wedding bracelet

Maggie Sottero Rocks the Red Gowns

Red wedding gowns are cool, right? A lot of us who couldn't actually pull the trigger and walk down the aisle in a full-on red dress really admire them.

There's a drama to a full, elaborate bridal gown in red that no other color can match. It's like the visual equal of "Like Water for Chocolate." Or a Jerry Hall lipstick, capable of moving a face from girlish to womanly in a few strokes. Or a seductive twentysomething Madonna at a dinner club (according to Rupert Everett). Okay, I could go on, but you get the point.

So it was cool to hear from a reader, Shelene (thanks Shelene!), that Maggie Sottero had come out with a lot of red dresses, with some stunners. "A lot" is about the same as "two" for a lot of design houses, but Maggie Sottero had more. Which is nice, because it seemed like colors might be cooling off a bit on the bridal world.

Top to Bottom, L to R: Amara Royale, Fiorenza, Stella. Brittanya, Capri, Amour Brooch. By Maggie Sottero.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

I really like Maggie Sottero. The dresses are mid-priced, so if you really, really want one, you can probably pull it off. And there's a whimsy and a playfulness with them I just don't see much of elsewhere. When you look at bridal gowns on the catwalk or magazine ads, you get the impression that picking the perfect wedding gown is roughly the same as taking over an aging nuclear power plant. There's much too much seriousness. And a lot of stale heroin chic. The overall effect can be really ... yawn.

 

Maggie Sottero isn't afraid to get over-the-top romantic, but there's a lightness there. And some gowns are obviously influenced by Europe's bolder colors ... and Bollywood (yay!). So even if you're slightly chicken about what you actually walk down the aisle in, there's plenty of fantasy material to chew on, just in case that Sassy Punk Girl takes over during that all-important moment when you hand over the credit card.

 

Personally, I drool over that gorgeous, drop-waisted Stella with the sexy red belt. I would so wear that, if my hips approximated the model's instead of advertising my awesome childbearing abilities. And that's another of the cool things about these gowns: even as an accent, red gets used in some fresh ways.

 

Take a look at their current collection (be prepared for a big page load ... but it's so worth it). Which of the red (or "red-like") gowns are your favorite? The buzz seems to center on Amara Royale, but let's be all scientific and take a poll.