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- Al’s Formal Wear’s sudden closure left many brides and grooms in the lurch just before their weddings.
- “All that time that I’ve spent away from my son and my daughter and my fiancé is now wasted for no reason,” said one groom.
- The chain’s competitors have stepped up to provide last-minute alternatives.
The closure of Al’s Formal Wear and its parent company last week has left multiple brides and grooms in the lurch just before their weddings.
The Texas-based formal wear chain and its parent company, Dapper & Dashing, blindsided its customers and employees when it closed up all of its stores on August 7, according to various media reports including CBS.
Some employees said they only found out about the stores’ closure via an emergency Microsoft Teams meeting two days before August 7, according to local media outlet NBC 5.
Rusty Surette, a news anchor at local station KBTX, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, an image of a notice at one of Al’s Formal Wear stores saying it was closed for the day. There was no mention of whether the store would reopen.
“If you are a customer returning your tuxedo from the weekend, you will not be charged late fees and may keep your tuxedo,” the notice appears to show.
Al’s Formal Wear had 26 stores in Texas and had operated in the area for over 70 years.
Groom-to-be James Shirey told KAMR, an Amarillo, Texas-based local station, on Tuesday that he paid $1,200 in cash for suits and does not know if he will get his money back.
Shirey and his fiance had planned for their wedding to take place on September 23 and are expecting 100 to 150 guests.
He told KAMR he had to work 16 hours a day, six days a week, to pay for this wedding. “It’s become frustrating because all that time that I’ve spent away from my son and my daughter and my fiancé is now wasted for no reason,” he added. The added expense of finding new suits means Shirey and his family will be cooking the meals at their wedding, themselves.
“It’s ridiculous. Why would you put us — the brides, the groomsman, and everybody — in this kind of predicament without telling anybody anything? That is so rude,” bride-to-be Erin Bauer told Houston-based media outlet KPRC 2 last Monday.
Bauer said she found out about the store’s closure over Facebook, a month before her wedding.
Another customer, Ernesto Martinez, told NBC 5 last Tuesday that he and his son were left without tuxedos three days before a wedding due to the closure of Al’s Lewisville store. Martinez said he paid $600 in cash and did not know if he would get a refund.
Other than Texas-based Al’s Formal Wear, sister brands Tip Top Tux, Nedrebo’s Formal Wear, Savvi Formal Wear, and American Commodore have also shut down, local news outlet Atlanta News First reported.
Since the closure, some of the company’s employees and competitors have stepped up to help the stranded brides and grooms.
CBS reported Tuesday that employees of Al’s Formal Wear ignored orders not to return to the store so they could inform customers who may still be unaware about the chain’s sudden closure.
Rival Atlanta-based formal wear chain Men’s Wearhouse said in a statement on Wednesday that it would offer a $100 discount for customers with unfulfilled orders from any of Dapper & Dashing’s subsidiaries.
Meanwhile, Southeast Texas-based Ortiz Menswear & Bridal said that it would “help any and all customers with orders that Al’s Formal Wear can no longer fulfill” in a Facebook post on August 8.
Dapper & Dashing and Al’s Formal Wear did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, sent outside regular business hours.
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