The bride's busy arranging all aspects of the wedding, and as the groom, you're doing your bit by nodding occasionally. Sure enough, the credit card's taking a bit of a hammering, but that's the price you pay when all the real work's not being done by you. Then, as attention finally comes around to what the men will be wearing, it's your turn to get on with things! Here is a short guide to help you go about selecting and hiring the right suit.

When it comes to tradition and etiquette, there's no point in going to Wikipedia, or any of the online wedding services directories, because most of what you'll read there will either apply to when Winston Churchill was a lad, or will just not apply to the reality of what wedding parties actually wear these days. There simply are no rules about what may or may not be worn by wedding parties, whether that be the style or the colour of the outfits, since all that matters is the theme and personal taste of those involved.

The average size of a wedding party hiring wedding suits is six, consisting of groom, best man, the father of the bride, the father of the groom and two ushers. Where this group gets expanded, it will tend to go towards page boys, grandfathers and brothers, rather than friends and guests. In about half of all cases, all of the party will wear exactly the same outfit, and where there are differences, it will usually be the groom wearing a different waistcoat or cravat to the others, but not the suit itself.

There are 3 main styles of jacket that just about any serious suit hire shop should be able to supply: tailcoat, a three quarter length coat often known as an Edward jacket, and lounge jacket often known as a normal jacket. All of these styles can be worn with matching or striped trousers, and any style and colour combination of waistcoat, shirt, cravat or tie, with a matching handkerchief.

As mentioned earlier, there's no rule on what style or colour should be worn these days for a formal wedding, with a good illustration of today's parting with tradition being the fact that top hats and gloves are rarely hired. In the vast majority of cases, the waistcoat and cravat/tie colour will reflect the colour of the bridesmaids' dresses, or another prominent colour the bride has chosen as a theme of the wedding. As far as the suits are concerned, here is an indication of how popular the different styles are:

Jacket Style Edward 70% Tailcoat 25% Normal 5%

Jacket Colour Black 45% Grey 25% Brown 15% Navy 10% Ivory/Misc 5%

Trousers Matching plain 85% Striped 15%

So, you've got yourself a good idea (with the bride's help of course) of how many outfits you need, and what style and colour you're going for. What next? When should you be hiring these outfits and where are you going to get them from? Well, it's a good idea to start seriously looking about 9 to 12 months in advance of the big day, as this will give you enough time to look around without pressure. Two good starting points would be Google and Yellow Pages.

However, the most important piece of research you need to do, is in customer feedback and recommendation, either through family and friends, or for example through any of the online forums to do with weddings.

Put simply, you need to identify a company with a good reputation for service, since your wedding day is just far too important to entrust to any company who cannot demonstrate a good track record in this regard.

Come the week of the wedding, make sure that you get hold of your wedding suits as soon as they are available, so that your party can try them all on to make sure there is no need for any last minute size alterations. This is absolutely vital, as you should not assume that just because you were measured some weeks before, everything is bound to now fit you. And finally, ensure that your suits are returned on time. Not only will that save you any further charges, but it will help in the smooth running of someone's wedding after your own.