Reader Brad had to delay his wedding so his father could speed through Vermont to retrieve a pair of pants Men’s Wearhouse forgot to include as part of Brad’s rental tux. Two days earlier, Brad learned that the fitted tuxes he and his father had rented were too short and too tight. Men’s Wearhouse offered to re-order the tuxes, but refused to deliver them to Brad’s wedding, forcing his father to drive three hours to pick up the replacement garments. When he returned, not only did they realize that Brad’s pants were missing, but his vest was missing a button, and his jacket sleeves hadn’t been hemmed.
Men’s Wearhouse was so torn up over the situation that they gave Brad a $10 Shell gas card that didn’t work.
Brad writes:
On Saturday, I got married to the love of my life. The ceremony and everything was great, but my tuxedo rental was a complete disaster.
A couple of months prior, I had set up our account in Nashua, NH. The account had my tuxedo, my best man, two groomsmen, my father, my now brother-in-law, and our ring bearer, bringing us to seven tuxedos total. We decided to use Men’s Wearhouse. It is a national chain, and that would make it easier for everyone to get fitted and coordinated, since I had people coming to Vermont from Ohio, Rhode Island, and the DC Metro area.
We all met on Thursday at the Williston, VT location to pick up our tuxes, and hit a problem. My entire tux did not fit. The jacket and vest were both too tight, and the pant legs and shirt sleeves were too short. Added to that, my father’s tux jacket was also too tight. The only thing they could do for us was to re-order the parts we needed, lengthen the pants, and get everything ready for Saturday morning. This was a bit of a problem, since the wedding was at 2pm Saturday, but about a 90 minute drive from Williston (in Fairlee, for reference). However, the employee we spoke to (Stacey Brower) was unwilling to make any other arrangements, so my father drove up that morning to pick up the rest of the tuxedos.
Forward to Saturday, my father arrives back at the resort with our tuxes a little after 12. I start putting mine on, when I find another problem – there are no pants in the garment bag! I called the store in Williston back, asked to speak to a manager (I believe his name was Tony), and while he did apologize, the best he could offer was to meet us halfway. So the tuxedo is now incomplete -twice-, and both times the management at Men’s Wearhouse is unwilling to bring the items to us. My father had to meet them halfway (speeding down the back roads of Vermont is rather dangerous), and the pants finally arrived, though the ceremony had to be delayed. I only noticed later that the new vest’s bottom button had fallen off, and was floating around inside the garment bag, and the jacket’s sleeves were not hemmed – they only tucked the sleeves in and ironed them, so the sleeves started falling apart shortly after the reception began.
As some sort of compensation, the manager of the store gave my father a $10 Shell gas card. In a hilariously obvious twist, when my father attempted to use the card, he found out it wasn’t even activated.
So here’s why I’m writing you. Men’s Wearhouse really screwed up big, and made an already stressful planning time that much more stressful. I’m hoping that I can get some publicity out there, and recommend people never use Men’s Wearhouse (or MW Tux), since they apparently can’t handle a tuxedo rental when given a second chance. My tuxedo was free, as part of their promotion – if your account has five tuxedos, the groom’s becomes free. Ours had six, plus mine. I can’t really get my rental any more free than it was. However, my father’s tux was incorrect in the first place, and should have been at the very least, heavily discounted. I would also like for Men’s Wearhouse to do something for my guys. Yes, their tuxedos may have been correct, but they were part of this account that included a free tux rental that was messed up. Therefore, they should be receiving at the very least a partial discount, as well.
You could fire off the almighty Executive Email Carpet Bomb to george.zimmer@menswarehouse.com, but if time isn’t a factor, we would send a letter with all the style and class Men’s Wearhouse failed to deliver. Doll up your complaint in the form of a thank-you note. Put it on nice stationery, exactly as if you were writing to your Aunt, and send one to each of Men’s Wearhouse’s executive officers at:
Men’s Wearhouse
6380 Rogerdale Road
Houston, TX 77072
(Photo: Getty)
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You’ll like the way you look. George Zimmer guarantees it.
I hope.
We will our best to screw up your wedding, I guarantee it.
I dropped a do lol
MW screwed up twice when doing the tuxes for my friend’s wedding. She got married on June 1. The first mistake they made was delivering the tuxes to King of Prussia. We live like two hours from there, and they were supposed to deliver them here. Well, one of the groomsmen had to drive 4 hours round trip to pick them up.
The second mistake was that the groom was supposed to have a white jacket and the 5 groomsmen were to have black ones. They delivered 2 white ones and 4 black ones, which wasn’t known until the rehearsal the night before the wedding. Luckily, MW drove the new jacket to the church, so I can’t so anything too badly about them for that incident.
* can’t SAY anything too badly…
The button popped off my Men’s Wearhouse tux jacket just as my bride came down the aisle during our ceremony. I don’t like the way I look in the pictures. I would have rather had my jacket buttoned.
All well and good, but good luck finding anything else… last year when I went looking for my wedding, I swore NOT to go to MW. Only to find that they’d bought, or were in the process of buying every other place in town. Zimmer is on a definitive run to corner this market.
One of the best pieces of advice on buying I ever got was to bite the bullet and buy a tux. You don’t wear it often, but when you do you save a bundle.
MW did a decent job at my wedding last month. They sent the best man the wrong jacket, but overnighted the new jacket to the close MW and all was well.
The most disturbing part of your story to me is the behavior of the employees. My MW employees nearly fell over backwards to get me that jacket, while yours acted like you were asking for something completely above and beyond. What a bunch of bums.
At my friend’s wedding, something very like the OP’s complaint happened – only two of the five tuxedos ordered actually fit. Another one (as we discovered later) was missing all the accessories (tie, etc.) I believe. The bride was not too happy.
I hope Brad will take some solace in that old saying that the more things go wrong at the wedding, the happier the marriage will be.
Men’s Warehouse is one company I will never use. At the last wedding I was in, they tie they gave one of the groomsmen was torn and wouldn’t tie. Embarrassing.
My dad is the DM at the Willoston, Vermont store. I’ll be emailing this story to him.
The. Sorry.
strange, i’m going to a wedding today and we rented our tuxes at MW. We picked them up yesterday and tried them on at the store. My pants were too long but they altered them and had them ready in ten minutes.
I have to agree with the posters above; I’ve had pretty positive experiences with Men’s Wearhouse, and I have to think this is more of bad employees in one location than a condemnation of the entire chain.
I also had an issue with my tux before my wedding. And I made damn sure everything was right and I had a lot less time than 2 days. Of course, the wedding location was a lot closer than 60 miles away, but that’s the price you pay for “destination” weddings.
Conincidentally, the Tux store I bought it from was the place that was eventually bought out by MW Tux.
Crappy service from MW, no doubt. But I’ve never understood why men rent rather than buy tuxedos, while women buy rather than rent a dress they’ll never wear again. Renting vs. buying a tuxedo saves about $250 (or less) — the savings for renting vs. buying a wedding dress are much higher and could reach the thousands. I didn’t figure this out until after my wedding, of course. My dress has been sitting in a hermetically-sealed box in my garage for the past 15 years (adding another $100 or so to the price), while my (now-ex) husb. has worn his tux at least 4 other times. Stupid wedding industry.
Yeah I rented mine from MW and picked it up at a MW 1500 miles from the rental location with no problems whatsoever. The pants had to be altered in about 16 hours (overnight) and they did it no problem.
I’m sorry it happened to the OP though, and have no trouble believing it, although I will say based on my own limited experience the problems don’t seem systemic at MW.
not what I wanted to read when we’re set to pick up our tuxes there on Wednesday.
Can’t help thinking that eloping would have been cheaper and just as effective.
Everyone here should take this as a warning.
Men’s Wearhouse is garbage.
I knew that their clothing was garbage. Now I know their service is likewise garbage.
Don’t waste your time. Just buy a tux from Nordstrom Rack or what have you. It’ll save you a lot of frustration, and won’t cost much more money.
This is extremely timely for me. I just got married and rented 8 tuxedos from MW Tux. When we went in on a Friday, 5 of them had some sort of issue and 2 had to be reordered. Thankfully, we had a Sunday wedding so we had a day to have them reorder. When I went in to pick up the tuxedos, we were simply handed them and told we were good to go. I asked to check mine, as the groom, and found the sleeves were too long, the pants were too long and didn’t fit quite right. They said they could alter it and did so in 15-20 minutes in store. Thinking I was okay, I walked out of the store with my tuxedo… bad idea.
On Sunday, when all of the guys got together, we realized that two of us that had to have our tuxedos re-ordered had different coats than the rest of the guys (the differences were small, but there), my pants were WAY too long still and the coat sleeves had been hemmed at least an too short. I was tugging at my pants and coat sleeves all night to try to not step on them/look like a 5 year old who is outgrowing everything he is wearing.
We also found one of the groomsmen was missing a button from his 3 button coat, it wasn’t in the bag or anywhere to be found, so it must not have been there in store. How that happened…who knows.
I contacted MW Tux about this in store when I returned the tuxedos and they refused to do anything. As a “gesture”, they gave me $20 off the tux with the missing button and $20 off my father-in-law’s tuxedo (who they gave the wrong shirt to…it was white, my bride in ivory…BIG no no according to every bridal person I’ve talked to).
Not happy with that, I contacted MW Tux’s customer line and they said they would “investigate” and have the district manager call me. Two weeks later, no call, so I called again. Three days later, the district manager called me and I went through everything with him. He said he would get back to me after “investigating”. That was almost a month ago.
All in all – stay away from MW Tux!!!!!
We used MW for our wedding last October. We didn’t have a problem. However, my sister always has issues at the NJ stores. Here in MA, never an issue. I think it differs not just store to store but actually district to district.
I used Men’s Wearhouse for my wedding and everything went well. Out of the six tuxes we ordered, only one jacket and one set of pants needed to be refitted.
I’m surprised that the OP’s entire suit was misfitted. Either he gained some weight since the initial measurements or the measurements were off. Mismeasurements can easily happen if he was measured at a non Men’s Warehouse franchise, where the tailor on hand wouldn’t have known the quirks of MW suits.
You’re supposed to pick up your tuxes a few days in advance to give the store adequate time to have any new suits shipped to the store. At least in my wedding, the only real duty I had as a groom was to make sure my groomsmen were dressed and on time. Since two groomsmen would be arriving the night before, I asked them to pickup their tuxes at an alternate location near their hometown.
The only significant mistake MW made was not including pants in the grooms replacement tux. In return, the manager agreed to drive an hour and a half to hand deliver a replacement set. This seems more than fair, and I can’t see why the OP is so bent out of shape.
Moral of the story: If you’re going to pick a delivery location three hours from the wedding site, it helps to check the garment bag before you leave the premises.
I will never use Men’s Warehouse. 2 months ago I walked into the Appleton, WI store, granted I was wearing a beaten up Ramones shirt, shorts and look mildly disheveled, and in desperate need of a suit for a family funeral 72 hours away.
No employee made eye contact with me, or acknowledged my presence. The people that came in after me got immediate help. I stood by some people being served hoping for a “one moment”, was not acknowledged at all.
After having a good look at the suits, by myself, they looked cheap, even some of the brand name ones had sketchy looking stitching (it just looked bad). Screw them.
Walked over to JC Penny, was immediately helped, sized, fitted, and got a good looking suit in under an hour.
@Luftvier: Right. Let me force my groomsmen to buy matching tuxes that they’ll never wear again. I had four male groomsmen (one female groomsmaid) so I’d feel really good about them buying 300-500 dollar suits that they’ll wear for one day.
How is MW clothing garbage? I’ve had plenty of clothes there that’s nice.
I bought a tux on eBay for about $100. Didn’t include shoes, socks, belt, and shirt. The quality was really impressive, though. Check out the seller “lucky86″
@lightaugust: I absolutely agree. Buying a tuxedo is the way to go. You can find package deals for them at many of the same places that rent them. At my prom some years ago, a tux rental with everything was $120 as advertised. Unless you asked, they wouldn’t tell you that you can own the damn package for just $30 more.
Quality suffers a bit at these prices – but a complete, cheap ensemble is better than an incomplete one that requires lots of planning & driving to fix it.
This is NOT a blame the victim post, as Men’s Wearhouse quite obviously failed to deliver what they were obligated to deliver… but it does show that it is prudent to take care of things like tuxedos early in the preparation process, and VERIFY that they are taken care of. Try it on as soon as you get it, etc.
Regardless, to Brad: Congratulations sir!
My brother in law got married a couple months ago in San Diego and sure enough, day of the wedding, we show up for pictures at his house and one of the groomsmen was on the phone with MW trying to get problems resolved. I guess it wasn’t THAT bad, considering the size of the wedding party (like seven or eight groomsmen) but they had the groom’s shirt too small, Dad’s cufflinks were the wrong color, they were missing a set of cufflinks, one shirt had been horribly altered so that the buttons were sewn on backwards(?), etc. etc.. I thought the groomsman was being very patient and reasonable with the girl on the phone: here is our problem, the wedding is this afternoon (it was 11am, we were dressed early to take pictures and could do so with the errors, but wanted things fixed for the ceremony), what can we do? And the girl had NOTHING to offer. He had to prompt for everything: well, which store DO you have cufflinks at, where can I go to get these shirts? The staff/girl on the phone just seemed so apathetic about the whole ordeal.
That said, I could not fathom how the guys picked up their clothes without trying them on and making sure they each had the correct accessories. Okay, maybe they’re guys. Guys, please get a girlfriend or Mom or someone to come along and double check these things before you leave the store. And for the love of God, please try everything on before you walk out.
I used them for my wedding in June and they did everything absolutely perfect. I could not be happier. The woman at the store where I got my tux made sure everything fit just right and even helped me get suspenders on the tux and adjusted properly so that I could wear the pants the way they were intended. None of my groomsmen or the fathers had anything to complain about.
My friend also used them for his wedding and he had no issues.
I could have gone with a local tux shop, but that would have required groomsmen from 3 other states to come to one location for fittings and to pick them up. That wasn’t going to happen. I went with MW because they had locations within a short drive of everyone who needed a tux. Everyone was able to get them at their nearest locations and drop them off at the location nearest the wedding (which was about 3 blocks from the wedding location and hotel).
If you ever get a tux, you should make sure you spend enough time getting fitted the first time and lots of time making sure everything fits right when your tux arrives (MW allowed us to pick them up 2 days before the wedding). I was lucky enough to have an employee who truly cared (she actually moved the buttons on the jacket so that it looked right when buttoned).
I used MW to outfit the men at my wedding largely because I could set up the whole thing in Austin (where I lived), pick up my tux in MO (where the wedding happened), and my groomsmen could get measured and pick up their penguin suits wherever they were (three different states). The OP and comments make this sound like a recurrent, but not systemic problem. My only real complaint was that the closest MW location to the wedding itself was three hours away, and all the tuxes had to be returned the day after the wedding. Since I was leaving on my honeymoon the day after, I had to send my tux back to St. Louis for my dad to return. Minor inconvenience in the end, obviously.
Despite the similarities in our stories, I am not RunawayJim. He, however, may be me.
@lightaugust: Do you have a Gary’s Tux Shop or Friar Tux in your area? They are national chains on the west coast. And some David’s Bridal stores rent tuxes or have excellent recommendations. I’ve been to and in several wedding and have not known anyone to use Men’s Warehouse.
@Carey: Put it on nice stationary, exactly as if you were…
You are completely and utterly evil … are you SURE we’re not related?
Seriously, though, as people have pointed out above, one doesn’t just walk into MW pick up the package and walk out. Take the time to verify item by item before you leave the store.
I hope he gets something from MW other than another bogus gas card. I also hope that this is the worst thing that ever happens in his marriage.
And fellas, please pick up your tuxes a least a 7-10 days before the wedding, just in case something goes awry. It will make your bride a lot less stressed!
@BuddyGuyMontag: Well, bridesmaids spend just as much on their dresses, so it guess it evens out?
Plus, can’t a guy always use a tux? What if you get invited to a formal event or something?
Most weddings I’ve been part of, we kinda planned around Men’s Whorehouse screwing up, so we all made sure to have our stuff picked up several days in advance.
The tux industry has gotten pulled a DeBeers on buying a tux. Everybody has been convinced that the entire party’s tux needs to match everybody else’s perfectly. And so they’ve made enough differences between them that it’s like a bridesmaid dress in terms of reusability.
@BuddyGuyMontag:
I saw some tuxes for sale at Burlington for $90. And they were nicer quality than the rentals. Add shirt, tailoring, and cheap shoes (they are plastic) for $100 and good to go.
All the blame goes to brides and wedding planners. Every wedding should stick with black tux, notch lapel, white shirt with standard collar and have guys just rent the accessories. That way a guy can buy one THAT FITS and wear it to every event if groomsman or not.
Here are my bad experiences… MW isn’t the only one.
Gary’s Tux. Wrong style jacket that didn’t fit. Sent the correct style to a different store near event but that one was wrong size and missing a button. Wore it anyway. Their response was I rented a tux, they provided me one I wore it therefore their obligations were fulfilled. Quality, fit, look and satisfaction are bot part of rental contract.
Independent shop. I rented a tux at and pants were way too short. Wore them anyway (what was I supposed to wear boxers). Got the exact same canned response “you wore it”. Must be some industry guide.
bot=not
To all those who said “pick up your tuxedos early”
MW Tux would not allow us (and I assume anyone else)to pick them up any earlier than 2 days before the event
I can’t tell you what other places do – but I imagine it’s pretty standard for only 2-3 days before the event.
@Michael: Word? I did not know that. I suppose that makes sense, but could you come in earlier for a final fitting, then pick them up 2 days before?
@ceejeemcbeegee: Not really. The Bridesmaids (and my Groomsmaid) in our wedding paid about 150 for the dresses, (on par for the tux rentals, maybe a little more) and the bride maid sure they were the type of dresses that could be worn again.
Also, you can’t pick up Tuxes until the Weds. or Thurs. before the wedding.
There is “final fittings”, but it all is human error to lead to these mistakes.
If you shop thift shops, you can find a really nice tux for well under $50 and have it dry-cleaned and altered for only a little bit more. I kept my eyes open and purchased one for my son when he was about to start attending formal events.
@DoctorMD: The problem is that not everyone is the same size. People in my bridal party needed big and tall sizes. It’s all about uniformity. You can’t guarantee that as well as you can with discount tuxes from Burlington.
And MD, the blame doesn’t go the wedding planners. I knew what kind of tux I wanted, I had full control over that.
@ZoeSchizzel: That’s great. Tell me, how are you supposed to find tuxes that’ll match the rest of the groom’s party?
@lightaugust: Whatever you do, don’t buy it from MW.
You can’t, from what I’ve found.
Ages ago I worked at a tuxedo shop. It was a local chain in Northern California. We were highly regarded and were always hearing horror stories about the big chains messing things up. However, things do on occasion go wrong. Measurements done incorrectly or hems not right, etc. It was very helpful that we had the whole line of tuxes in house, and could easily swap out a jacket for a better fit. Thursday was pick up day (unless you planned ahead for an earlier day) and could sometimes be a mad house. There were a lot of guys that would not take the time to try on their tuxes, despite our very strained encouragement. So, as stated in previous posts, do carefully try on everything. Also, if possible, go with a store that has access to the whole line of your desired tux. If they don’t, find out where their closest store does, and hopefully it’s within an hour or two of you, so if worse comes to worse, you can swap clothing out without much hassle.
BTW, buying a tux is a great idea, it just sucks that the wedding industry convinces everyone to buy matching everything, including tuxes.
Your gonna like the way you look. Albeit with no pants, but just the same…
As stated above, several times, you can’t usually pick up a tux several days ahead of the event. In the instances where I was required to rent a tux the pick up date has been no more than the day before, or even the same day in a couple of cases. Not that the occasions have been very many, but you get my drift here.
I am thinking of purchasing a tux for myself. It makes a nice impression at New Years parties and such occasions.
When my brother got married, he bought a tux at MW and my father, the bride’s father and I rented.
Day of the wedding, everyone’s getting dressed, and my brother’s putting on the tux. He holds up the suspenders, points to the little plastic bag of buttons and says, “Uh, what’s this?” I say, “Uh, those are the suspender buttons. Didn’t you ask them to sew those in?” (We also bought suits a couple years earlier at MW and I specifically asked for suspender buttons to be sewed on)
So in addition to running around like crazy trying to do my best man duties, I’m also trying to figure out a workaround to keep his suspenders suspended – safety pins, a quick and dirty sewing job, staples, duct tape, etc. Meanwhile, he’s on the phone to MW (which opened at about 10, wedding was at 11) insisting that they get over with a set of clip-ons. To their credit, the saleswoman did so and everything went off after that.
I still say that although they should have mentioned something about the suspender buttons, it was his fault for not trying the tux on sometime earlier than the actual day of the wedding.
Buying may be a good solution for some guys. Not everyone needs or wants to own a tux, though — for example, my wedding was the ONLY time I have ever seen (or probably will ever see) my brothers-in-law wear anything besides jeans and T-shirts. Ditto my dad, who pretty much lives in flannel. (This is a guy who owns one tie, which I’ve seen in photos from when I was 3. That was in 1979.)
And if a guy is in more than one wedding, then he’d still need to rent or buy a second tux, because he’ll need to match the other groomsmen or ushers.
That said, it is essential to check the tuxes before you leave the store. Preferably, the bride or groom should try to inspect them a couple of days before the wedding, if at all possible, to make sure is what they ordered and all the tuxes match. (My best friend had issues with her tuxes — some guys got the wrong colored shirts, and others the wrong colored vests.)