The Great Lakes Ballroom at the Sheraton Detroit Novi holds 800, and a wedding for 800 isn’t an evening. It’s a shift. Photographs at four, ceremony at five, a receiving line that takes an hour on its own, dinner, speeches, a dance floor until the hotel turns the lights up. The groom is standing for most of it. His suit has to fit at midnight the way it fit at four.
Where a suit gives up
At the waist first. Trousers that were snug at the fitting are tight after dinner, and a man who’s tight at the waist stands differently, with the jacket open and his hands in his pockets. Then the collar, which lifts when the shoulders tire. Neither shows in a mirror. Both show at hour six.
What to ask for at the fitting
Say the words “eight hundred guests” to the consultant. The consultant fits the trousers with room to sit and eat, and checks the jacket buttoned, arms down, the way you’ll stand in the receiving line. A half-canvassed suit, $300 to $500, keeps its chest through a night like that; the canvas is doing the work the man is too tired to do.
The shoes
Bring the pair you’ll wear. Eight hours in a new dress shoe is its own problem, and a hem set to a different heel is a second one. Roman, master tailor at Lincoln Tailor, on site in our store, cuts it to the pair you bring.
Also for Novi: Twelve Groomsmen at the Diamond Ballroom: Who Wears What. More on wedding suits, or plan your visit to our Oak Park showroom.
