Groomsmen Gifts Procrastination Disasters

Typically, most of the planning in a wedding is done by the bride and her parents. The bride will ask the groom’s opinion on things where she feels he may want to offer input. But, in general, the bride is the conductor of this orchestra.

At some point, the bride will let the groom know that he is expected to buy groomsmen gifts. Huh? What? The groom has to do some shopping himself? These gifts are basically thank you gifts to the groom’s attendants such as the best man, groomsmen and ushers. These fellows are taking time out of their busy lives and spending money on tuxedo rentals, events, wedding gifts and so forth. It’s only proper for the groom to give a token gift of thanks. Usually the gift is personalized, engraved or embroidered in some fashion to add an extra special personal touch.

I’m not sure if the groom is told to buy groomsmen gifts at the last minute or if he waits until the last minute because he’s not into shopping. More often than not the groom is shopping last minute.

When you do things in a hurry, it seems like Murphy’s Law kicks in. Here are a few of the scenarios that can arise if you wait until the last minute:

(1)   You overnight the package and there is a delivery problem. UPS and FEDEX trucks have been known to break down occasionally. Planes can get delayed due to whether. The shipping company can make an error and misroute your package causing it to take an extra couple days of transit time. Just because you overnight a package it doesn’t mean it is 100% guaranteed to arrive the next day. Acts of God, weather, maintenance problems or human error can all affect your delivery.

(2)   The groom makes typos on his engraving. In his haste the groom can enter in the wrong date or spell a person’s name incorrectly. He gets his order delivered and realizes his mistake. But there is no time to redo an order and have it to him by his wedding because his wedding is tomorrow!

(3)   The groom types in monograms all wrong. If there was a class called Engraving 101, one of the first things you would learn is the difference between having initials or a monogram engraved. When someone has initials engraved, the three letters are all engraved the same size and they represent a person’s name in this order: first name letter, middle name letter and then last name letter. If you’re having a monogram engraved, a monogram is special. The center letter is larger than the leftmost and rightmost letter. So, in this case, a monogram represents a person’s name in this order: first name letter, last name letter, middle name letter. In his haste sometimes a groom does not clue into this critical difference. He has all his gifts engraved with the monograms shown incorrectly. It’s not worth it to repurchase everything so he has to give out the gifts and then everyone knows he could not figure out what a monogram is.

Give yourself at least two months before the wedding before you order your groomsmen gifts so that you have plenty of time. You need time to gather a list of your friends’ names so that you know their full names. You probably don’t know middle names and this is crucial information. Some guys go by nicknames or shortened names. You want their official birth names to be traditional.

If you order two months in advance you have given yourself a great safety net of time. If you are ordering something special order, there is time to acquire it from the manufacturer. There is plenty of time to engrave and ship to you. You have time to properly gift wrap the presents without having to rush. It’s just a more pleasant experience all the way around.