Erik was getting married. As if that alone isn’t enough of a reason to feel bad for him, Men’s Wearhouse went and twisted the knife by quoting him dress shoes for the men in his wedding party at one rate, then nearly doubling the price when he went in to buy them.

He forwarded us a letter he wrote to the company about his experiences at a Wisconsin location. Here’s an excerpt:

They offered to take my information to enter me in their booking system, and offered a 25% discount, and with as many people renting tuxedos as I do, myself and my brother (my best man) would have our tuxes be free.

I have a total of twelve men renting their tuxedos for my wedding. For my groomsmen, my ushers, and a friend who is coming from out of town, I wanted to give them all a gift for being a part of this. I thought I would give my men more comfortable shoes than the normal rented ones – Converse All Stars. I started searching, and found out Men’s Warehouse sold them. This was a great idea – I could give something to my friends that they will use, and they will something comfortable for them to wear during the wedding. My bride loved the idea, so we went ahead with it. We could not visit the same location that we had booked our wedding at in [redacted’, so we visited the mall location in [redacted]. We were quoted $13 per pair to rent the shoes, and the option to purchase the shoes for $23 – a discount off of the list price because my men were renting tuxedos as well. The price seemed fantastic, and I made the changes with the mall location staff to our booking.

This last week Friday, I went after work to pay for my men’s shoes prior to any of them picking up their tuxes. The staff had the shoes set aside, with each guys names on them. Wonderful!

However, then came time to ring up the purchase.

I was informed that the coupon I had booked the wedding under last year had expired (a 25% discount), which was a blow to the pocket book. Then, I was told that the price for the shoes was $44 per pair plus the colored laces, not the $23 per pair I had been quoted. I explained to Doris (the manager who I have worked with on this, and also in the previous bookings I have had in the past for friends weddings), and she did try to call someone at an office (not sure where), but could not find a way to assist. Her only options were to either wait until she could hear back from someone higher up, or ring up the total as is.

To avoid not having the shoes for my men, I paid in full right away. Bear in mind, this is roughly double what I had budgeted and expected, on a wedding that my bride to be and I have planned and put together mostly ourselves, and are getting some help from our parents financially, so to have an unexpected expense increase such as this does not help our stress level.

Anyone who’s been through a wedding has enjoyed Erik’s fun of experiencing bait-and-switch like scenarios for already too-expensive products. Married folk, groomsmen and bridesmaids, care to share your horror stories?

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