Mess Bros (Moss Bros)

Member Name: kimgraham

Product:	Moss Bros
Date:	12/12/03 (1607 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easily available, special offers

Disadvantages: where do I start?

Finally I have returned after months of moving and planning the wedding!
It will probably not come as any surprise that I will choose to write some reviews on my experiences surrounding my wedding to break myself back in gently! Do not expect great things, I am so rusty I clank!

We had originally decided that the hire of morning suits for our big day would come from Debenhams. Unfortunately, my father and brother in law did not have one within a travellable distance and so we swapped to Moss bros.

It was interesting going there as a second choice, as John had already been measured etc by Debenhams and so we could compare the two.

Most big towns have a Moss Bros with a formal dress hire department. They supply quite a wide range of formalwear to suit most tastes. It is easy to only associate Moss Bros with wedding suits, but in fact you can also use it for formal dinners, a trip to Ascot, receiving your OBE etc!

The range is quite big and I would suggest calling in to the local branch and picking up a brochure so that you can peruse it at leisure over a cuppa, and decide which is the style and colour for you. It might also be worth checking if they have any offers at this stage such as Bridegroom Goes Free. At the time of booking suits for our chaps, the offer was that if you booked four suits the fourth was free for the bridegroom. However, we were told that the offer would not be running at the time of our wedding, as it is one which comes and goes, so we booked there and then, and paid in full , three months early. We thought it was worth it to save seventy odd pounds!

The brochure is well presented and you can see all the different suits modelled to give you an idea of what you might look like in a penguin suit!

Traditionally for a wedding the men wear morning suits with or without top hats and gloves. They come in a choice of colour, the most popular being grey or black with striped trousers. We chose
the latter for our male attendants and something slightly different for John so that he would stick out from the rest. More of that later, but those of you who have seen John dance will realise that he would have stood out whatever he was wearing! You can also get morning suits for boys from the age of five but my page boys were a bit younger so I had to sort them out elsewhere.

If you are not too keen on the tail coat or think it is not "you" give it a try before discounting it. It is a special day and you might surprise yourself. When we were planning our wedding John said that he felt formal dress was not "him". My retort was, " How often do you see me going round in a Victorian dress with bustle?!"
It wasn't "me" either, but that is the whole point of formal dress. It is a one off for a special occasion. John liked his in the end, once he gave up fighting!!

If you try it on and you still feel uncomfortable, there are alternatives. Moss Bros do a knee length frock coat- very Mr Darcy! And a slightly shorter frock coat called " the Goodwood". This was the suit that John chose and it looked very smart and blended well with the tail coats of the other men.

You can also get highland dress and white tie and even ordinary lounge suits, so Moss do really cater for most eventualities.

Having chosen your suit you then have to choose your accessories. As part of your hire package you get a cravat and a waistcoat and sometimes a wing collar shirt, depending on the package you choose. We also had matching hankies. I believe you may also hire shoes, but somehow that did not appeal to us and John bought a nice smart new pair of Oxfords especially for the occasion. There is a good range of colours in the waistcoats and cravats so that you can marry up ( 'scuse the pun) to the brides colour scheme. We went for gold?s and ivory and burgundy. We could just as easily have had lilac
s, silvers or greens. At this point you go into the shop to book your suits. Moss Bros
generally ask for a deposit, but we paid everything in advance. When you collect your suits you have to pay a holding deposit of £100 per suit against damage. They do this by swiping your credit card. Assuming that the suit is returned in good condition they merely rip up the credit card slip. If you cover it in gravy I suppose they will cash it!


The prices were fairly comparable to the other hire shops we investigated. We paid £70 per outfit. This will vary a bit according to which extras you have. They measure the chaps in the shop and it does not matter if it is across several branches as they open a party booking where everything is organised by one store who collate all the information. John had been measured originally in Debenhams, as I said previously. That fitting had taken half an hour and the utmost care was taken with every detail. We were, therefore, somewhat surprised by Moss Bros which was less than five minutes and really was rather slapdash.

Part of the reason for using Moss was to make it easier with our male attendants so fat flung. There was a co-ordinating branch who was supposed to make sure that everything was the same. Sadly, this is where things fell down a bit. John went to Plymouth to get his and three other suits. They had a suit missing, nothing could be done in time and so we were an usher short. My father had phoned from his branch to say they did not stock the cravat which was on our list. I spoke to a very thick sounding assistant who informed me that Moss had never made that particular cravat. She was somewhat nonplussed when I told her that we already had three! We resolved that particular crisis. Then we discovered that we had not been given enough cravat pins which entailed racing back to the shop the day before the wedding. The top button on John's shirt was hanging off so that had to be fixed. Finally we th
ought all was well and we set off for the rehearsal.


We were met there by our esteemed best man Mr Iain Wear, no less, and told him our tale of woe over the suits. When we got home he showed us his, and he had been given the wrong cravat. It was actually a very smart cravat, but apart from the fact it was a slightly different colour and fabric , it was one of those which you have to tie yourself. We had deliberately chosen "Cravats for dummies" i.e. ready tied on a clip, partly because we thought they looked nice and also to reduce stress levels on the morning of the wedding! Well, we all looked at this thing.. None of us had a clue. We decided not to lose sleep, surely someone coming might be able to tie up Mr Wear before the ceremony. As he arrived fully clothed, I assume he worked it out!


All in all, we were not impressed by the general level of care by Moss Bros. One of the wing collar shirts was not especially clean and all creased where it tucks into the trouser waist band, so we think it missed a wash, and one of the waistcoats had a button missing.

I do not intend to get married again, as I have been so wise in my choice of husband, but when my daughters get married I am not sure that I will rush to Moss. The men all looked very handsome and on the whole the suits etc were nice, I just thought too many mistakes were made. In Moss Bros defence though, when I moaned they gave me back the money I had paid for the suit which never materialised plus £25 for the less thasn perfect shirts and waistcoats. I would have preferred my extra usher, though!

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