Grooms Guide

So you've proposed... now what?



Grooms come in one of two types.

Type A is completely involved from everything from checking out venue locations to working on invitation designs. They have compiled well thought out lists and maybe even started working on their vows months in advance.

And then there are Type B Grooms. The ones that like to participate in the cake tasting, but that is all they are really interested in. Well you are in luck!

Brides magazine has put together a guide for the Type B grooms out there.

Man-Datory

12 Months Before
Propose. OK, you did that already, or you wouldn't be reading (or being forced to read) this article. Did you give her a ring? If not, take her shopping—and practice getting down on one knee.

Tell your parents. They like her already, so how tough could this be?

Talk numbers. Who's going to pay for the wedding? Her parents, yours, the two of you, or some combination of the above? Discuss it with all relevant parties. Be honest, be brave, be real.

9 Months Before
Visit the officiant with your fiancée. Get used to the word "officiant." This is the man or woman who will marry you and possibly give you premarital counseling. If your fiancée has always dreamed of walking down the aisle to the William Tell Overture or exchanging vows written in haiku, this is the person whose approval you'll need.

Write half of the guest list. Your fiancée knows your closest friends and relatives, but what about Cousin Ernie from Milwaukee and those nice folks you lived next door to in fourth grade? (On second thought, cross off Ernie and the neighbors if you're not in touch anymore.) Write down a wish list of everyone you would like to invite; plan on whittling it down later when you compare notes.

Register for gifts. You'll be dining off the plates and drinking from the glasses for the rest of your life, too, so unless you don't mind staring at pink china for a few decades, offer an opinion if your fiancée gets too girly with her choices. Think of this as your opportunity to pick out things you both like. And call dibs on the scan gun.

Choose your best man and ushers. Pick people with whom you have a strong bond. The buddy you've known since summer camp? Definitely. The blogger who shares your belief that Stripperella was Pamela Anderson's finest work? Definitely not.

Go see photographers, caterers, bakers, and the rest. Do it because you love her—and because you might get some free cake.

6 Months Before
Arrange the honeymoon. Think about places that have always fascinated you. Not sure? Consider your hobbies. If you like riding horses, Google "dude ranch." Or try "windsurfing" or "18th-century cathedrals" or "shopping for fabulous jewelry." (Oh, sorry, that last one was for your fiancée.)

3 Months Before
Figure out your clothes. The guys in your wedding party wear the same thing you do. (The dads can wear something similar or an exact match.) If it's a tuxedo or morning coat, you all need to be fitted, unless you already own formal garb. E-mail everyone the details: store name and address, when to go, what to order. Or put your best man in charge.

Purchase gifts for the wedding party. Gifts for the friends and family in the wedding ceremony are normally given as a token of appreciation for being there for you on your big day. Engravable gifts are a great way to personalize the gift. Cufflinks, money clips and flasks are very good starters.

Shop for wedding rings. Most guys get one. It's like wearing a watch, but smaller and on your finger.

Deal with the rehearsal dinner. If you're following tradition, this meal's on you or your parents. Ask your fiancée if she has a restaurant in mind.

Sign up for dance lessons. Get a few moves down and you'll feel okay when 187 pairs of eyes are staring at you.

1 Month Before
Write the vows. This is the ultimate way to personalize your ceremony. No need to go for a Pulitzer, though—borrow lines from poems or songs.

2 Weeks Before
Get the marriage license. This is usually issued by your local county clerk. Call first to see what, if any, special paperwork you need, such as blood tests (log on to usmarriagelaws.com). Don't put this off—most states have a one- to five-day waiting period between the time the license is issued and the marriage ceremony.

Day of Wedding
Greet every guest. Even if you're not typically the touchy-feely type, you'll be on such a high after the vows, you'll be bear-hugging everyone in sight.

Perform the first dance. "Perform" may be setting the bar too high. You didn't take lessons? Just follow your wife's lead and act like you're having fun.

Do a slow dance with each mom. Tissues, please.

Make a toast. Grab the mike and say a brief and heartfelt thanks to your bride, her parents, and the guests. You'll be her hero. And there's no sweeter way to begin a marriage.


To see the original article, complete with scores for how you rank click here.

To shop cufflinks for your groomsmen or groom click here.

Scents for 09

Cologne can go one of 2 ways; make or break your image. Something that suits your skin type will add the perfect finishing touch on your look. But even more important than something that suits you, is a smell that suits the event.

Askmen.com identify some great cologne's for 2009, here were their suggestions paired with the type of day you will be having.

For your Black Tie Affair

Kenzo by Tokyo
The allure of Kenzo is the design house's ability to blend modern urban emotion with the tranquility of traditional Japanese nature motifs. Tokyo by Kenzo goes a step farther and brings a western sense of frenetic wonderment with a mixture of notes that include ginger, lemon, grapefruit, shiso, cardamom, mate, green tea, sap, pink pepper, and bitter orange. These complex notes strike a decisively modern key of energy that is Tokyo itself.
Priced at $25 Sephora.com

Antidote by Victor & Rolf
Antidote is old-school European, with just enough of today’s relaxed style worn by any man. Mint leaves and Italian bergamot are your hint of sophistication as these give way to spiced black pepper and cinnamon that drift over sandalwood and patchouli.
Price at $90 SaksFifthAvenue.com



For Date Night

Capri Orange by Acqua Di Parma
The perfect scent for a summer night evokes the warm seaside breezes blowing in over the cliffs on the island of Capri -- expensive indeed, but far more affordable than the airfare to Italy these days. Capri Orange is a pleasant and invigorating concoction of Sicilian orange, mandarin, Sorrento lemon with a touch of caramel and musk thrown in for good measure. The name Acqua Di Parma should look familiar to you if you’ve been reading the fashion pages of AskMen.com, but Capri Orange is not the staid and traditional cologne you’ve read about. This one is the best thing to come out of Italy since Ferrari decided to reissue the GT California.
Priced at $104 at SaksFifthAvenue.com

Diesel Fuel For Life Pour Homme

Even though this 2009 men's cologne is priced for the man with any kind of pockets in these tough times, you get so much more than you could have imagined with Fuel For Life from Diesel. This is yet another Italian cologne that is undoubtedly urban and masculine with star anise as the foundation mixed with grapefruit, raspberry, lavender, heliotrope, and dried woods. It might be inexpensive, but it shouldn’t be because it stands up to the best.
Priced at #35 exclusively through Sephora.com

For The Office

212 by Caroline Herrera

Venezuelan-born Herrera is not new to the fashion scene. In fact, her gowns have been a staple of the New York and Hollywood elite for decades, but this is her first men’s cologne to get excited about. Her usually traditional offerings are cast aside here as sophisticated and sleek aromas of grapefruit, ginger, mandarin, sandalwood, Guiac wood, musk, and Aquatic molecules take over.
Priced at $50-$69 Sephora.com


Attitude by Armani

The name says it all here. Attitude is perhaps the best-named and most appropriately mixed cologne from Giorgio Armani. The blending of Calabria lemon, coffee absolute, ceylan, Shina cedar, patchouli, lavender, and cardamom is an inspired shot of Italian bravado without being overdone. Now consider that this cologne is only available from his boutiques and Sephora, and it becomes clear that Mr. Armani is once again the king of all things Italian.
Priced at $35 exclusively through Sephora.com




Congratulations to the women of the University of Connecticut Basketball Team for going undefeated and bringing home the title of Champs in 2009!


To grab your UConn Husky Cufflinks and other NCAA teams click here.

UNC 2009 NCAA Champs!

North Carolina beat Michigan State for the 2009 NCAA National Championship last night. For the first time in 30 years a NCAA men's basketball team started and ended the season as number one. Congratulations Tarheels!



2009 UNC Championship Cufflinks to come, but in the mean time... add the classic UNC to your cuff with officially licensed NCAA Cufflinks.

Esquire's How To Be a Man 2009

By Tom Chiarella.

A man carries cash. A man looks out for those around him — woman, friend, stranger. A man can cook eggs. A man can always find something good to watch on television. A man makes things — a rock wall, a table, the tuition money. Or he rebuilds — engines, watches, fortunes. He passes along expertise, one man to the next. Know-how survives him. This is immortality. A man can speak to dogs. A man fantasizes that kung fu lives deep inside him somewhere. A man knows how to sneak a look at cleavage and doesn't care if he gets busted once in a while. A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn't matter what his job is, because if a man doesn't like his job, he gets a new one.

A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

A man owns up. That's why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.

Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.

A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale breast, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the snatch, by the wrist, the sight of a bare shoulder. He likes the crease of a bent knee. When his woman bends to pick up her underwear, he feels that thrum that only a man can feel.

A man doesn't point out that he did the dishes.

A man looks out for children. Makes them stand behind him.

A man knows how to bust balls.

A man has had liquor enough in his life that he can order a drink without sounding breathless, clueless, or obtuse. When he doesn't want to think, he orders bourbon or something on tap.

Never the sauvignon blanc.

A man welcomes the coming of age. It frees him. It allows him to assume the upper hand and teaches him when to step aside.

Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his ass.

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn't winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn't see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That's the liberal thread; it's why men won't line up as liberals.

A man gets the door. Without thinking.

He stops traffic when he must.

A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That's why men won't forever line up with conservatives, either.

A man knows his tools and how to use them — just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails.

A miter saw, incidentally, is the kind that sits on a table, has a circular blade, and is used for cutting at precise angles. Very satisfying saw.

A man knows how to lose an afternoon. Drinking, playing Grand Theft Auto, driving aimlessly, shooting pool.

He knows how to lose a month, also.

A man listens, and that's how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It's not that he must. It's that he can.

A man is comfortable being alone. Loves being alone, actually. He sleeps.

Or he stands watch. He interrupts trouble. This is the state policeman. This is the poet. Men, both of them.

A man loves driving alone most of all.

Style — a man has that. No matter how eccentric that style is, it is uncontrived. It's a set of rules.

He understands the basic mechanics of the planet. Or he can close one eye, look up at the sun, and tell you what time of day it is. Or where north is. He can tell you where you might find something to eat or where the fish run. He understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher's ERA.

A man does not know everything. He doesn't try. He likes what other men know.

A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it's just to put an end to the bickering.

A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided.

A man watches. Sometimes he goes and sits at an auction knowing he won't spend a dime, witnessing the temptation and the maneuvering of others. Sometimes he stands on the street corner watching stuff. This is not about quietude so much as collection. It is not about meditation so much as considering. A man refracts his vision and gains acuity. This serves him in every way. No one taught him this — to be quiet, to cipher, to watch. In this way, in these moments, the man is like a zoo animal: both captive and free. You cannot take your eyes off a man when he is like that. You shouldn't. The hell if you know what he is thinking, who he is, or what he will do next.

2009 NCAA Basketball

The final four now have to battle it out for a chance to go to the 2009 National Championship in Detroit. Who will come out on top?

Michigan State University face off against the University of Connecticut in the first of the final four games tomorrow night at Ford Field home of the Detroit Lions.






While Villanova takes on North Carolina in the second game at 8:47 pm. Be sure to tune in all decked out in your NCAA Final 4 gear.


No matter who pulls out ahead tomorrow you win today!

$5 off any of the four teams who are playing good until Sunday, April 5, just enter coupon code Final4 at checkout!

Spotlight Section: Authentic Cufflinks

Sometimes the same 'ol conservative cufflinks can get a little boring in your daily routine. Add some flair to your cuff with a pair that represents who you are outside the office.

Cufflinks come in authentic designs ranging from sports themes like these Authentic Basketball Cufflinks.


Made from genuine leather from pro-quality basketballs set in sterling silver cufflinks. One touch and they will transport you courtside to Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Or for those who lead a more refined lifestyle...

Authentic Wine Barrel Cask Cufflinks

Cufflinks made from authentic wine barrel staves and set in sterling silver. The barrels come from premier wine regions including Napa and Sonoma County. An ideal gift and an essential for the wine connoisseur.

To shop Cufflinks click here.

Easter Sunday

Don't you get excited about those chocolate bunnies?
Well, Easter this year falls on Sunday April 12,2009 and I can hear your stomachs rumbling already!



To help satisfy that hunger, we have added a promotion just for you. Add coupon code EggHunt10 for $10 off your orders of $95 or more.

Be sure and look great by adding a pair of cufflinks to your Sunday Best. To help you with your Easter look you can also shop our Dress Shirt Packages for easy Easter styling.

In each bundle: 1 French cuff dress shirt, 1 silk tie and 1 pair of cufflinks.

Classic Golden Loma Bundle
This shirt and tie duo from Robert Talbott is paired with Enamel Honeycomb Cufflinks from the LOMA Colletion designed specifically for the man looking to add something striking to his cuff. Complete package comes ready to wear.

Brought to you courtesy of your CuffLinks.com wardrobe stylist.

Don't forget to use EggHunt10 at checkout for $10 off your order of $95 or more.