Cotton Lawn Wedding Ties for Groomsmen and Fathers

Since I’m sewing dresses for our female wedding attendants and knitting shawls for our mother figures, I wanted to come up with a wearable gift for the male wedding attendants and father figures and ties seemed the logical choice. Of course, going into sewing the ties, I didn’t realize how handmade they really are – by which I mean every single stitch is sewn by hand! But I’m thrilled with the results – I made a lot of absolutely gorgeous ties!

Since our wedding is pretty casual, I bought a gorgeous cotton lawn from Britex with a delicate grey floral print – it’s not a Liberty Lawn (it’s from Italy) like I had in my head to find, but it was filed right next to them and fills the role beautifully. I picked a coordinating color to sew a tie for Adam so that he stood out (he is the groom after all) and because his suit is actually purple and he didn’t want to turn monochromatic.

The reverse side of the tie has a triangle of a Kona cotton in black to finish both points. I bought tie interfacing (again from Britex) which is a very sturdy interfacing, mostly wool and with an open weave. The fabric and interfacing are cut on the bias to make for a sturdy tie that shapes itself around the curve of the neck and knot.

I showed most of the men a swatch of the fabric and a practice tie (made from a free pattern from PurlBee) and let them comment. Which meant that my step-dad wanted a skinnier tie, my father-in-law wanted a thicker tie, and one of the groomsmen wanted a bow-tie. So, I drafted my own version of the standard tie (there were a few changes I wanted to make from the pattern I started with) and three other tie patterns. I know, I know, if I just would have told them that they were all getting the same thing it would have been fine, but I really want to imagine that they will actually use the ties again in the future and figured that the best chance of that happening would come from letting them give input.

For a fun personalized touch, I used some custom woven SeamstressErin labels (purchased so long ago I don’t remember the source) to make the label loop on the back of the tie. They just happened to be the exact perfect width to use!

As I said, I really think these ties are lovely and I can’t wait to see them all on the men at our wedding! We have 4 male attendants, our officiant, my dad, my stepdad, Adam’s dad, and my godfather who will all be looking very dapper (or at least their necks will!). I promise I’ll share photos of them actually on the men after the wedding.