What do you actually receive when hiring a Wedding Suit?

What do you actually receive when hiring a Wedding Suit?

When planning your wedding, it is very easy to become fixated on which products you are choosing.  Which dress should I buy?  Which Venue to Choose?  Which Suit to buy?  I always advise our wedding clients to choose their wedding suppliers not on the product itself but rather the service the supplier offers.

The internet allows us to choose from a myriad of different products.  Anything and everything is available at our fingertips.  Which for most situations in life is ideal.  But for your wedding?

Wedding suppliers should offer their expert advice and have a level of customer service above and beyond standard retailers.  When planning your wedding, it is best to have a healthy and positive relationship with your wedding suppliers.  This can only  be achieved by meeting suppliers fact-to-face and discussing the level of service they offer.

Service is everything when it comes to weddings!  And especially so when you are hiring suits for your wedding. After all you are returning the suits, so a large percentage of what you are paying is actually for the service you receive.  It is very likely if you are paying a small fee for a suit hire, it is because there is not a lot of service involved.

It is not always easy to articulate to perspective clients what they are receiving for their hire fee. After all they are choosing the ‘suits’ to hire and the service is a hidden cost which is difficult to quantify.

With that in mind, I want to list exactly what it is you receive from Jack Bunneys when you hire a wedding suit from us.

1. A Free Consultation.  Every potential customer will have a personal appointment with a wedding suit expert. This is usually 6 months in advance the wedding, but can be up to 12 months in advance of the wedding.  At this appointment the groom can try-on as many wedding suits as possible within the appointment time.  The wedding suit expert, will guide the groom through the process and make sure that all relevant suits are tried on.  There is no obligation to book any thing or leave a deposit.  It is a free, no obligation suit try-on.   Each consolation appointment is for one hour.
2. A follow up Consultation if necessary.  Every potential customer is welcome to book a follow up consultation.  Or sometimes more than one follow up consultation.  This is all part of the service.  Each appointment is the same as the first consultation.  It is free and has no obligation.  Each follow up consultation appointment is for one hour.
3. Booking Suits.  Once you have decided which suits are best for your wedding.  A deposit will reserve and secure these suits for you.  This deposit guarantees that these suits are yours for that date.  Only a limited number of suits will be booked for each day.  This guarantees that there is more than enough availability for your wedding suits.
4. Fittings.  The fittings will take place 12 weeks prior to the wedding by appointment only.  That is enough time to make more suits if required.  It is also enough time to make a made-to-measure suit if required.  It is also a reasonable amount of time prior to the wedding to hopefully not change size too much.  12 weeks allows the maximum amount of options for each and every fitting.  At each fitting every member of the party will try-on their wedding suit.  Each garment will be checked for size and amended if necessary.  Any alterations, such as shortening sleeves or trousers, will be marked and noted.  Usually a fitting appointment can take about 30 minutes.  If we are fitting a group, we will allocate 60 minutes per 4 fittings.
5. Re-Fitting.  Any member of the party can request a refitting at anytime before the wedding.  By making an appointment to try-on their wedding suit we can check to make sure that there have been no size changes from the previous fitting.  A refitting appointment can take about 30 minutes.  For a group fitting we will allocate 60 minutes per 4 fittings.
6. Suit Preparation (1).   Two weeks before the wedding. each suit which is required for that period will be removed from stock.  Each separate garment will be checked for quality and the trousers are marked up to the correct lengths.
7. Suit Preparation (2).  Each pair of trousers are sewn (by hand) to the correct length for each individual person.  Any sleeves which are required to be shortened are also shortened at this stage.
8. Suit Preparation (3).  Each garment are then correctly put together to create suits for each person.  They are again checked for quality.
9. Suit Preparation (4).  One week before the wedding.  Each suit is hand-pressed.  This confirms every suit looks like new when collected and checks for quality at each stage.  A 3.piece suit can take up to 30 minutes to hand press to our standard.
10. Suit Preparation (5).  In the last few days before collection each suit will have the correct accessories added.  This means tying ties for the suits.  Putting in pocket squares.  Polishing shoes and ironing shirts.  This can take between 5 minutes and 30 minutes per suit depending on the accessories required.
11. Suit Preparation (6).  The day before collection.  Each suit will be checked once more.  To check the quality of each garment.  And check to make sure all of the correct sizes are included.  There is also a check on the correct accessories include.  Once all the checks are complete (5/10 minutes per suit) the suits are then bagged and labeled with the clients name.
12. Collection of Suits.  On collection day the suits are placed in the front of the shop for easy reach.  Each suit will have an individually named bag, which will include their suit and all accessories.  On the morning of collection day, each suit due to leave on that day will receive one final check before we open at 9am.  This is usually between 7.30am and 8.30am.  This confirms all items are in the correct bags before collection.  Once the client arrives to collect the suits, each suit is once again checked (with the client) to make sure all items are in the correct bags (for the clients benefit).
13. Return of the suits (1).  On the day of return, the suits and accessories will be checked with the client to make sure they are all there and then the security deposit is returned.  All items are then removed from the bags and set aside for cleaning.
14. Return of the suits (2).  The suit alterations are then reversed.  Trousers are returned to their usual length and sleeves are returned to their usual length.  All garments are then sent to a dry-cleaners.  The shoes are sprayed with anti-fungal spray and set aside to dry for 24 hours.
15. Return of the suits (3).  Once the suits are returned from the dry-cleaners, they are given a simple hand press.  This returns some of the shape to the suit, which may have been lost at the cleaners, and checks each garment for quality.  The items are then returned in to stock.  Once the shoes are dry they will be carefully polished with specialist patent shoes cleaner.

 

This is the whole process for one wedding suit order.  However we do supply to hundreds of weddings each year.  This process is constant and rolling with all parts of the process happening at all times.  As you can see from all listed above it can be quite time consuming, an average wedding of 6 wedding suit hires would total between 10-14 hours work (including consultation, fitting, preparation and return).

The quality and design of our suits is very important (and I believe exceptional) however the most important factor when hiring suits is the service.  There are wedding suit hire services and then there are wedding suit hire services.  Make sure you select the wedding suit supplier that offers you the right level of service.