Planning your wedding can be a bit of a fraught affair at the best of times, but throw in a pandemic and it becomes even more stressful.
You’ve been thinking about whether or not to go ahead with your planned dates, but with the restrictions changing from week to week, you don’t want to make any concrete plans.
Are you going to go ahead with the wedding – or delay it? The best you can do is to wait and see.
Then finally, you get the announcement you’ve been waiting for; The restrictions are being lifted. You can go ahead with your chosen date, and you can invite everyone you want to your big day!
The only problem is that because you’ve been waiting to see about the dates, you’ve delayed organising your wedding suit. And, with only a matter of weeks until the big day, you need something fast.
Can you get a suit in such a short space of time?
As a professional tailor with over 15 years’ experience, let me reassure you that yes, you absolutely can.
Can you really get a bespoke suit made in four weeks?
Well, slow down a second there, chief. Getting a bespoke tailored suit made from scratch takes time. And in fact, most places will tell you that it’s a process that takes between 8-12 weeks.
There are tailors in London that will quote you a timescale of six months, although there’s any number of reasons as to why their process would take longer.
These would include things like demand, whether it’s real or artificially-inflated, and name prestige, like a Savile row tailor.
Psst: If you’re interested in what a usual suit making timescale looks like, why not pop over here, where we go into more detail?
So… it isn’t possible to get a bespoke suit made in four weeks? That’s not quite true either.
Any good bespoke tailor will have an express option. For example, we offer an express service of four weeks bespoke handmade suits in our own house cloth collections, or 6 weeks for our merchant and mill partner collections.
How can you order an express suit?
There are a few things that need to happen for an express order to work.
Firstly, you need to place your order in as soon as possible. This should go without saying, but the sooner you order the suit, the sooner you’ll have it.
Secondly, it is probably going to cost you more.
For example, with us there is an express fee of £149 (for a house cloth express service) or £199 for our merchant and mill partners applicable to any suit ordered for a quick turnaround.
When suits are made with our express service, we don’t just bump them to the front of the queue; this suit will be made with a lot of overtime labour. The express fee will cover that.
Thirdly, any express orders will probably have some restrictions on cloth types, like only ordering from the house cloth collection, or selecting from cloth in stock only at our merchant and mill partners.
The good news is that most house cloth selections are still pretty large. Ours boasts over 4,000 cloth options. You’ll still be spoilt for choice.
If you can do some homework into what you want, that would help to keep to a tight deadline. But there’ll be more on that a little later.
What if my suit isn’t ready on time?
Any good tailor worth their salt will only ever take on an order that they’re certain they can fulfil. Their reputation is on the line, and it’s in their best interests and yours to fulfil the order, or refuse it upfront if they feel they can’t.
We have a track record of delivering for our customers, like Franz D’Angelo, who wanted a suit in a super quick turnaround. We’d originally quoted him five weeks, and delivered a handmade, bespoke suit to him in three weeks.
What if I need alterations?
Any alterations that need to be made to the suit can be done locally, and the turnaround time should only be a couple of days.
That being said, a good bespoke tailor should be happy to continue making alterations until your suit fits you like a second skin – whether that’s after the first alteration, or the 21st (most of them don’t need that many, promise!).
What about the quality?
Quality shouldn’t suffer with an express order. While there will be restrictions of the choice of cloth, and there will be less of a forgiving timescale with alterations and fittings, quality should remain high.
You should get the same expert tailoring, the same care and attention to detail, and the same high quality materials in an express suit as you would in a suit where time isn’t of the essence.
Advice from an expert tailor
When it comes to ordering a bespoke suit in a four-week timescale, it’s a good idea to do your homework; research the style you’re looking for, maybe the materials. If you can come to the appointment with most of the ideas yourself, that saves a lot of time.
Also, be 100% certain that this is what you want. Because of the way most tailors do express orders, the minute that you pay us for an express order suit, it’s in production. It’s immediate.
When we have more time to work with you on a suit, if you change your mind on materials, or styles, we can accommodate that within forty eight hours. With an express order suit, apart from necessary alterations at fittings, there’s little to no wiggle room.
Speaking of fittings, if you can be as flexible as you can be about your fitting appointments, this also helps to speed things up and make the process run more smoothly.
If we call you on the delivery day of your suit, if you can do a fitting the next day, (or maybe even the same day!), we can get the finished product to you that much faster.
Only being able to make it four days later will add more time to the process, and time is of the essence after all.
One last thing…
I’ve spent a lot of time talking about weddings, but a last minute occasion that needs fine tailoring can pop up at any time. Obviously, in an ideal world, you’d give yourself – and us – as much time in advance to plan out whatever the occasion is.
But in the event that you do need something sooner, whether it’s for an awards dinner or a job interview, there’s an option for a bespoke suit that takes less time than you think.
Do you need a bespoke suit made in four weeks for an event that’s just sprung up on you? Or maybe you have other tailoring questions? Please do get in touch.
I’m always happy to help.
