Big Syd Silver Formals Sale

Is your groom thinking about buying his suit? Then you’ll want to check out the massive Syd Silver Formals bankruptcy/receivership sale that’s running all next week.

The popular Canadian formalwear chain declared bankruptcy a few months ago and while this was undoubtedly bad news for those couples who had booked their suits through the chain, there is a big plus side: amazing suit deals.

The chain’s entire rental inventory is being sold off, with the basic adult package going for $99.99. For that price you’ll get a tuxedo jacket, pants, a shirt, tie, cufflinks, studs, suspenders and a pocket square. Fancy deluxe packages, that include such extra as shoes, and packages for ring bearers and teens are also available.

The main sale site is 79 Wingold Ave, North York (west of Dufferin St.) and you can call 416-256-4784 for more details, including the addresses of the other two sale locations. You may also want to ask what brands are being sold. My understanding is that suits from Syd Silver could really vary in quality.

The sale runs Monday - Wednesday, 11 am - 7 pm; Thursday - Friday, 11 am – 9 pm; Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm and Sunday 11 am – 5pm.

Happy shopping!

We can now cross a few more items off our to-do list: we’ve finally ordered Shawn’s tux and gotten him fitted.

We wrapped that up on Monday night, over at the Dufferin Mall Moores. We met with a different woman than the one we previously met with, but she was just as nice and helpful.

We also placed the order for the best man’s outfit. As mentioned in my earlier blog post about the guys' outfits, I wanted my maid of honour's dress to match the BM's vest/tie combo as much as possible. And while the Dufferin Mall Moores did offer a wide range of colours, none of them quite matched the swatch that my MOH sent me (wedding lesson: don’t go with purple if you want everything to be really matchy-matchy).

But one was fairly close and so we decided to go with that. We could have purchased a matching tie from the designer that’s making my sister’s dress but it would have cost $80; $80 for a dark purple tie that the BM would likely never wear again. At some point you just have to say no and so now we're going with an almost-matching tie.

We also ordered a suit for my Dad so that he doesn’t have to bring one out from Alberta. Ideally he would have gone to his local Moores and gotten measured there but since he doesn’t live near one, the woman helping us give me this card that explains on one side where he should be measured on and then on the other has spaces for those measurements. So that’s a pretty useful tool and a good thing to have if you're dealing with out-of-town groomsmen. (I'll try to remember to post a picture of it before I mail it off.)

Shawn’s BM is his brother and now he just needs to go and get fitted and then that’s it for the guys’ outfits.

A Tale of Two Moores

With only four months to go until the wedding, Shawn and I decided that we better rent his and his best man’s suites. So on Sunday we found ourselves at the Oakville Moores located at Dundas and Winston Churchill. It turned out to be a less than ideal experience.

We went to that location because it’s located near where Shawn’s brother, his best man, lives and we went to Moores because, well, isn’t that where everyone gets their suits from?

Back in January, we’d gotten a Moores catalogue from its booth at a wedding show. The suit selection looked alright, it seemed to have the colours we needed (silver and dark purple) and for $149 you got everything, even the shoes.

So our appointment should have been pretty simple. However, it quickly became clear that the woman who was supposed to be helping us could have cared less that we were there. After explaining the packages, getting our info and pointing out the most popular three styles, she seemed to lose the ability to speak.

I thought she would help us pick out a style but nope, the only fashion advice she offered was that Shawn should have a white pocket square and I had to ask her which shirt was best for an August wedding (turns out the one we were considering was the wrong choice, a choice she probably would have let us make).

She was absolutely useless when I started freaking about the surprisingly limited vest/tie colour options. Yeah, there was silver but there wasn’t quite the silver I wanted. And the selection of purple was absolute shit.

Angered and annoyed, we left and then made an appointment at the Dufferin Mall Moores because Shawn had a theory that the colour selection varied greatly by store. And it turns out he was right; this second location had dozens of other colour options, including dark purple in a pattern that also comes in silver.

Also, not only was the colour selection much better at the Dufferin Mall Moores but the service was excellent. The woman who sat with us was very helpful and after dealing with her I felt much better about renting from Moores.

We haven’t booked the suits yet because I’m waiting to get the colour swatch for my sister’s maid of honour dress (she lives in the U.S.) but assuming that that swatch works with the dark purple that the Dufferin Mall Moores offers, we’re going with that location.