Wed, 31 Aug 2011 5:11p.m.
By James Murray
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
A wife I shall have in December, all I need now is a fortune.
I have endeavoured to be an avidly interested groom. I think acting as if your wedding is all down to the bride and playing it cool is really just a bit sad. When men act like this they are really just being a bit weak and not feeling it’s cool or manly to care about whether they want gerberas or roses, that the colour theme clashes with their sunburn or whether to get more wine than beer.
The whole wedding preparation has kind of gripped me, so in some ways I am the most suited of our reporters to go to the Fashion Week Wedding Show.
In other ways of course I am the least suited person to comment on wedding dresses – it’s really the last thing a groom should be doing.
The dresses on display here are of course very high-concept, compared to the average wedding dress. There’s no Big Fat Gypsy Wedding styles on display – not a meringue or electric light in sight.
Backless is a popular feature and many of the dresses are slinky rather than the type which poof out at the bottom.
But my attention peaks when the Crane Brothers collection is revealed. These tailors from Auckland’s High Street are making my wedding suit (only the best of course). I shopped around quite a bit for this purchase and found them to have the best customer service as well as being competitively priced.
By the way – I promise with hand on heart they didn’t chuck in a free pair of cuff-links for that wee plug.
Their suits are crisply cut with slim fitting tapered trousers. I watched a Facebooked wedding recently where the groom and his groomsmen wore really long jackets with baggy trousers – everyone looked really awkward, they clearly new how bad they looked.
There was a variety of levels of formality on display – going from a smart jacket and trousers to suits that could double as work gear to more traditional affairs teamed with bow ties.
This was a good event for people spotting – I saw Antonia Prebble for the second time. I thought I had a Rachel Glucina moment on my hands as she was writing notes furiously… a wedding on the cards? But my research so far hasn’t even turned up mention of a boyfriend. She was sitting right next to the lady who writes About Town for the Sunday Star Times, so I guess if anyone would know it would be her!
The best bit of this show of course, were the toddler bridesmaids – who got their own rounds of applause as they came down the catwalk. An older lady dressed as the mother of the bride got the same treatment – until everyone realised it was a bit patronising and stopped.
She wore a black hat that looked like a worrying cloud on the horizon.
Slightly worrying attire for a wedding!