We are often asked when the ring bearer should get measured for a wedding tuxedo or suit. When you think about it, the young members of the bridal party are most likely still growing. Getting them measured and fitted for their tuxedo too early will most likely cause their parents to make another trip to the formal wear store to have the young wedding attendee re-measured.
Continue reading "When Should a Ring Bearer Get Measured for a Tuxedo?"
Have you ever done an online chat with a company? How about texting a company’s telephone number to communicate with it? Super helpful to get immediate service, right?
Six years ago, Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo added the ability to do an online chat with us. In addition, we set up our actual store telephone number to be able to receive text messages from customers! A few years ago, our service provider added the ability for us to initiate a text chat with customers directly.
We always knew about online chat systems but when we realized that our store’s landline could send and receive text messages, we were convinced this would be the best service on earth. And we were correct! We send and receive thousands of text messages to and from our customers every month. The system is on about 16 – 17 hours a day and we the owners and founders actually answer all chats and text messages, even when the store is not open! Yes, this is a commitment timewise, however we see how convenient and important this service is. Our brides and grooms tell us how much they love the ease of communicating with us and we love being able to provide immediate answers to you.
So with thousands of text messages and chats each month, we’ve learned a thing or two about how to make this service more efficient for you. In addition, we’ve received some interesting text messages and chats over the years, to say the least!
The following blog will help you communicate more efficiently with your bridal and tuxedo store. Our advice and tips are purely from what we learned over the years with customers attempting to text or chat with us.
Our Chat and Text System is NOT a Google Search!
Every month, we receive text messages from customers as if the person is trying to do a Google search. Here’s an actual example of a text message sent to us: “mother of the bride dresses near me”. When texting or chatting with us, you are actually communicating directly with the owners and our daughter, in real time! We don’t use computers or bots to answer, you are actually speaking to a person when you text or initiate an online chat with us.
If you type in your text message or the chat box words that you would normally type in a search engine, we will most likely ask you to clarify what you are asking or what you are looking for. We read every text message and chat and will be able to have a conversation with you as if you are talking to a friend or family member, it’s that simple!
So our advice is to be very clear about what you are looking for.
Text Chat Advice
If you initiate a text chat with us, be specific and tell us how we can help you. Tell us your name, what you are looking for and how we can help you.
If you send a picture, please tell us what the photo is and how we can help you with it. Random photos that are delivered to our text chat system don’t help us help you without adequate explanation. Are you looking for the dress you sent us? Are you looking for a similar tuxedo to the one you sent in the photo? Giving us your name allows us to be more personal with you. If you are looking for our hours, it’s very efficient to text or chat us by writing: “Hi, my name is Lisa. Can you tell me your hours”? You’ll receive an immediate response with the exact information you are looking for, thus saving yourself time.
When you start a text chat with us, all we can see is a phone number and nothing else. Your name and what you are looking for would help you receive a quicker and more complete response. Oftentimes, a customer will text us “did my dress arrive?”. If all we can see is your phone number, we unfortunately don’t know who you are and what kind of dress you purchased. If you give us your name and / or tell us that you purchased a wedding dress, we will be able to more quickly look up the information for you.
Try to Finish the Conversation
Whether you’re doing an online chat or a text chat, try to stay with the conversation. We often have someone text us or write to us through the chat system and then they stop communicating in the middle of the conversation. Eventually the system times out and the conversation automatically ends. Texting us is not like texting your friend who looks at his or her phone throughout the day and can pick up with the conversation later in the day.
For your privacy, our system will end the chat when there is inactivity for a certain period of time. We understand that you may get side tracked or you may be at work, so a starting new conversation later is no problem. However, the systems are designed to end the text or online chat after there is no activity after several minutes.
We Aren’t keeping Your Information
As we mentioned before, we receive and send thousands of messages every month. We don’t have the time to look back at your phone number or chat information, other than to answer your questions, set an appointment or say hello. If we could post a day’s worth of chat in the blog, it would go on for a hundred pages! Your information is safe with us. As a family owned business, the most precious thing we have, other than our employees, is our time. We just don’t have time to go back to your phone number or chat information. Your information is also automatically purged from the system to help with privacy.
Online Chats
Online chats work a little differently. When initiating an online chat, you are requested to fill out your name and email address so that we can communicate with you in a more personal manner. Again, you are talking to a live person when you chat Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo. Our goal is to answer your questions as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The more information you give us, the better we will be able to answer your question. If we don’t have an immediate answer, we will tell you that we will text or email you later. This often happens when the staff is busy with other customers or if we are texting or chatting with you outside of business hours. We may need to answer your questions when we are in the store again.
We Are Available About 16 Hours a Day!
We leave the chat and text system on for about 16 hours a day. We will answer you virtually immediately. If our system is turned off for the night, you will receive an immediate message that we are offline. However, when we turn on our phones or our computers, we will see your message and be able to answer you. No messages are lost and we will get right back to you.
Be Patient
When we receive an online chat request or text message, we are often responding from our iPhones. We typically respond very quickly but sometimes we need a minute to grab our phones or open the system on a computer. We promise, we will answer you pretty quickly but sometimes we are at the gym (yes, we have the chat system with us no matter where we are!) or finishing up with a customer.
Changes are Coming
It is not often that you see a small family business, like ours, offer live chat or text chat. While online or live chat has been around for a long time, being able to text a company’s telephone number is relatively new. Text chats are not as common and we don’t think everyone is perfectly comfortable with it yet, but with the substantial increase in volume of text messages we send and receive every month, we feel that text chatting will become more common in the next two years. Obviously, this hasn’t stopped our millennial brides and grooms from texting us! They love using the service and we love providing it.
Go Ahead and Try Texting or Chatting with Us!
Now that you can initiate an online chat or text the owners of Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo, why don’t you give it a try! Our phone number is 215-491-8500. Or click on our chat button and Wendy, Franco and Daria will be at your service!
Renting your wedding tuxedo or suit online may sound easy and convenient. However, as a bridal and tuxedo store we rent thousands of them every year and we’d like to tell you about our experience and how we do it differently.
This blog will show you that we can make it even more convenient than renting online and our family will be with you every step of the way to make sure everything works the way it should.
What We’ve Seen With Online Tuxedo Rentals
So many times over the last couple of years we have groomsmen come in our store with an opened box from an online tuxedo rental place. The groomsman is holding the box in his hands, he looks nervous as he tells us that this tuxedo doesn’t fit, the wedding is “in two days” – or even better “tomorrow” – and asks if we can help.
We ask if they contacted the company where they rented the tuxedo. They said they did, but it was too late or it was outside business hours and no one responded.
It’s usually followed by, “The bride is going to kill me.”
For the sake of every bride out there, don’t rent online.
If I told you that we offer professional measurements nationwide, 24 hour texting ability to the owners, the largest and newest inventory, and the same convenience of delivering your tuxedo or suit rental to your front door, would you consider looking at our family business?
Who We Are
We are a family business founded and run by a husband and wife team, Wendy and Franco. Darianna is the combination of our daughters’ names: Daria and Deanna. Daria manages our wedding dress department and Deanna helps us with social media (she’s a little younger but will be in the store soon!).
We are personally involved with our business and we personally take care of each customer. We also have a staff of 15 people who help as well and you’ll love them too!
You can even text our store’s telephone number: 215-491-8500. When you text the store’s telephone number, you get a hold of the owners, directly! Even when the store is not open.
You Are Family To Us
As a family owned business, we will treat you as family as well! We are all about treating you kindly and respectfully. We’ll go out of our way for you. How many stores do you know allow you to text them?!
So here are some things that we do that will ensure a perfectly fitted suit or tuxedo for your wedding or special event:
We Don’t Have You Measure Yourself
Please don’t measure yourself!!!! Each person who lives near us will come to our store and we will fit you with every garment that you will be wearing. You will try on a jacket, pants, shirt, vest and shoes. This way, there is no question what your size is.
Also, there are many different fits of suits and tuxedos: slim fit, skinny fit, ultra skinny fit, classic fit, portly, and athletic fit. Even more complicated, many designers make suits and tuxedos differently. Some fit more tightly, others fit more loosely. We have the experience and fitting garments to adjust for all of these variations and make sure you are wearing the right size for the wedding or formal event.
We can fit you the way you like to wear your clothes. Some like loose fitting garments, others like them very tight; shorter or longer outseam, etc. We can give you exactly what you want.
We also rent sizes from 3T for the little guys, up to size 68+!
What If I don’t Live Near You?
If you do not live in the area or live in another state, not a problem. You provide us with your zip code and we will arrange to get your measured by a professional near your home or work. This is the best and easiest way to ensure a proper fit.
In addition, since we see thousands of measurements every year, we’ve become really good at catching inconsistent and inaccurate measurements. Our tuxedo department actually looks at your measurements and ensures that they make sense. If something seems off, we will either call or text you to confirm some information. Usually within two minutes of discussion, we can determine what sizing you need (we have our tricks?!).
Submitting Measurements and Payment
All customers can submit their measurements and payments on our website. It’s that easy. Our brides and grooms love this added convenience. You can submit measurements and payments on your time frame. Have a question while doing this? You can start an online chat with us or text us!
Submitting payments and measurements on our website can be done 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
We Can Ship You Your Tuxedo to Try On in Advance
Since we opened our store, we have always offered the option to allow customers who rent with us to have the suit or tuxedo shipped to them.
Couples are relieved when they know their groomsmen have their tuxedos in hand, often even the week before the wedding so that they can try on the tuxedo in advance. The bride and groom have immediate access to our team for updates!
If there are any issues, we can replace any items that may not fit perfectly. Shipping you the tuxedo or suit in advance allows us ample time to make any changes or replace any garments that may need to be replaced.
On a few occasions, we’ve even done video calls with guys trying on their suit or tuxedo to explain to them how things should fit and make sure all is perfect! After all, how often do you get dressed up like this? We are able to show your guys how everything works, from tightening the pants and vest, tucking in the shirt (there’s a trick), to inserting the studs and cuff links. That’s just an added free service we offer to our customers.
If the tuxedo is delivered to our store, the groomsman receives a phone call when the tuxedo is in. We make everyone try it on at the store with us. They must be inspected by our team to make sure they look their best!
We Call You to Make Sure All is Good
True story: On New Year’s Eve last year, we received a text message to our store’s telephone number and a customer in Lincoln, Nebraska was asking the status of his tuxedo for the following week. We were able to look up his order and tell him that the tuxedo had been delivered to his home at 11:01 AM that day. He was at work and did not realize that yet. He said he would be able to try on the tuxedo at 7:00 PM that evening, East Coast time. At 7:30 PM our time, we called this customer to make sure everything fit perfectly, and it did!
The customer was grateful for the ease of everything: a place to be professionally measured near his home, the convenient way to submit his measurements and payment on our website, the shipping door-to-door, our immediate response letting him know exactly where his tuxedo was, and the care call to make sure he was a-ok. On New Year’s Eve!
We texted the groom and told him his groomsman in Nebraska received his tuxedo and everything fit perfectly. Everyone was ready for the wedding that was going to occur 8 days later.
Free Groom Try On
When a wedding party rents tuxedos or suits from us, a groom is able to do a complete and free try on with us. We have over 70 different styles of suits and tuxedo available for rent and over 35 available for purchase.
At our first in person or video appointment, we will explain the styles to you, show them to you and then go over the 1,000 or so accessories that we have for rent. Yes, that is correct, we have over 1,000 different styles and colors of long ties, bow ties, vests and pocket squares. If we can’t match your theme, no one can!
The bride and groom will then be able to choose two full tuxedos and/or suits, 4 vests, 4 long ties and/or bow ties, two pairs of shoes and two shirts. We will prepare all of these garments in the groom’s exact size so that he can play dress up. We also suggest choosing some items that the groomsmen will be wearing so that you get to see both what the groom and groomsmen will look like.
We even have the bride take pictures of the groom dressed up so that the two can look at them at a later time to design which look is perfect for their wedding! Our couples love the free groom try-on. It really gives you an idea of how the look comes together.
Rent from Us and Have the Best of Both Worlds
Rent your groom and groomsmen tuxedos or suits from Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo and receive the following benefits:
Don’t leave dressing your wedding party to chance, rent with professionals. Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo dresses thousands of grooms, groomsmen and formal event attendees and will make sure you all look your best. Read our Google and the Knot reviews from hundreds of couples!
Take a look at our grooms page and learn more: https://www.dariannabridal.com/grooms/info-for-grooms/
About the author: Franco Salerno is co-founder and co-owner of Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo, now in their eighth year in business. In that time, he built the tuxedo department into a force rivaling big box stores by providing expertise, caring service, and beautiful, quality formal wear. Personally invested in every transaction, Mr. Salerno provides customers with the utmost trust and confidence, assuring their wedding or formal event attire will be perfect. A native of Philadelphia, he currently resides in Warrington, Bucks County with his wife and store co-founder/co-owner Wendy, and their two daughters for whom the store was named, Daria and Deanna.
Because of COVID-19 and social distancing requirements, Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo began offering video appointments for our brides and grooms even before the general shutdown in Pennsylvania. It turns out, our brides and grooms loved the service and began booking video appointments with us pretty immediately.
While we continue to monitor the Center for Disease Control’s recommendations for safe practices during the pandemic, we feel that a video appointment can be both convenient and appealing to those who want to further reduce the risk of the Coronavirus. We did re-open to serve you in our store on June 5, 2020 but created many new procedures to keep you safe.
In fact, the Intelligencer newspaper learned of our video appointments and sent a photographer to catch some of our appointments in action. On March 30, 2020, they published those photos describing several video appointments!
Even though we are a small, family business, we really enjoy using technology to keep in touch with our customers. There are so many methods to communicate with us and now video appointments are here to stay, even after we are past the coronavirus!
Most of our customers have done their video appointments with us by FaceTime or Google Duo. Google Duo is a free Google app that will allow an iPhone and Android phone to do a free video call together.
On a few occasions, we’ve done video appointments by Skype, Google Meet, WhatsApp and Zoom. Most of our customers enjoy the convenience of using their mobile phones for a video appointment, so FaceTime and Google Duo have been the most popular apps that we have used. However, we can accommodate other platforms as well.
Tuxedo Appointments
During your tuxedo and suit appointment, we will introduce ourselves and in the comfort of your own home, you will get to learn who we are and meet us by video connection! We will explain to you the entire rental or purchase process and provide you with timelines and advice on getting all of your groomsmen and fathers measured and fitted.
Just like our in-person appointments, we will provide you with some ideas on what the fathers can wear, how to distinguish the groom from the groomsmen, and answer any of your questions about the process. We also explain the the difference between a tuxedo and suit and show you actual suits and tuxedos in the video.
We will also provide you with detailed instructions on how to get your out-of-town groomsmen to get measured and how they can easily submit their measurements and payments on our website.
After the video appointment, you will have several things to think about and the next time we see each other, you will have a better idea of what your groom will want to try on. We are just a text away if you forgot to ask a question, or think of one afterwards!
Bridal Video Appointment
So yes, we’ve done bridal video appointments too! These have worked in many different ways. During the shutdown ordered by Pennsylvania’s governor, we would have brides choose dresses that they like. We would also choose dresses for her based on what she likes in a wedding dress. Our daughter, Daria, would model the dresses and we would provide a live video feed to the bride so that she could see what the wedding dresses looked like on a person, as it moved, twirled, and sparkled. This is better than seeing it on the mannequin.
This video appointment allows the bride to choose her favorite bridal gowns and rule out any that she is not interested in. This way, when she visits us in person to try her favorites on, she is ready to hit the ground running. We keep detailed notes of the dresses that will be tried on when the bride visits our bridal store. What a great way to research dresses and make the best use of time, all while staying safe at home!
During this appointment, as with our in-person appointments, we are able to explain dress fabrics, dress silhouettes, bustling options, customizations, and timing for arrival of your beautiful dress from the designer once ordered. And of course, we can answer any questions that you may have. We can even try on belts, veils and hair pieces in the video call if you’d like to see those as well.
Because of COVID-19, we are currently limiting the number of guests that are permitted to attend your bridal appointment. You are allowed to have 3 guests plus the bride, 4 people in all. To compensate for this, we can add other guests who would like to share in our bridal appointment by video.
Many of our brides have added Grandmom to her video appointment so that she can safely participate in the moment, or maybe it’s your friend in another state who could not travel to the area due to COVID. We recently had a bride FaceTime her maid of honor who was located in Colorado. The maid of honor anticipated coming to our store to share in her friend’s wedding dress shopping experience but due to COVID, chose not to fly during the holidays.
Our bridal stylists can take the phone and camera and show the video participants a 360 degree view of dresses, accessories and of course your reaction! Brides can also use our ring light to capture the dress it in lighting that will show off all of its amazing features!
By Far Our Most Unusual Video Appointment
Our favorite video appointment was with a bride 7,000 miles away. We currently have a bride who lives in Seoul Korea. Because of the pandemic, she is unable to come home to try on wedding dresses with her family. The bride’s sister, who lives in Philadelphia, was kind enough to model dresses for her in our store during a video appointment. Through Instagram messenger, we communicated with the bride in Korea and helped her choose bridal gowns to her liking. When mom, sister and a friend came for the appointment, they also chose dresses for her.
The bride was able to see her favorite dresses on her sister and say yes to the dress from Seoul, Korea!
Making a Video Appointment
So how do you make a video appointment? This is very easy. You can make an online appointment and in the notes to your request, ask for a video appointment. You can also request a video appointment by texting our store’s telephone number: 215-491-8500. Video appointment requests can be made by sending us a message via Facebook Messenger, Instagram Messenger or message on Google from your mobile phone by Googling Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo. Of course, you can always call us too!
So what are you waiting for? Make your video appointment today! We can’t wait to meet you!
About the author: Franco Salerno is co-founder and co-owner of Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo, now in their eighth year in business. In that time, he built the tuxedo department into a force rivaling big box stores by providing expertise, caring service, and beautiful, quality formal wear. Personally invested in every transaction, Mr. Salerno provides customers with the utmost trust and confidence, assuring their wedding or formal event attire will be perfect. A native of Philadelphia, he currently resides in Warrington, Bucks County with his wife and store co-founder/co-owner Wendy, and their two daughters for whom the store was named, Daria and Deanna.
