Individuality, personality, and elegance with beards – how grooms’ suits are evolving into 2026: an interview with MOSS

Published by Claire Gould on March 24, 2026

I am desperately keen to bring grooms back into the conversation around weddings. Even in 2026, there’s an imbalance in the wedding media – too much content is focused on brides, and grooms are much less visible.

I want to talk to and about grooms much more on English Wedding. It’s the BEST when a groom completes my interview for a real wedding feature. I adore weddings where both partners have planned the day equally.

So with help from Moss‘s lovely PR lady Sarah, I asked Robbi Hicks (Moss’s Head of Creative) about equal representation in the wedding media, grooms’ style and the evolution of wedding menswear.

I love suits. Why aren’t I seeing enough of them on wedding magazine covers?

(The same goes for beards: we’re failing at representation. Mainstream wedding magazines are targeted so hard towards women, their covers too often feature women, not couples. Where are the grooms?)

Robbi Hicks, Head of Creative at Moss, says “A lot of weddings are still photographed through a traditional lens – the focus has historically been on the dress, and rightly so. But the groom’s style and confidence has evolved enormously in the last decade. He also wants to look stylish and feel confident.”

The good news is that grooms are increasingly involved in wedding planning. Perhaps that’s because the media landscape is changing, and wedding blogs have taken a big share of the traditional “bridal” media. (Which, when I started English Wedding, involved huge advertising investment from wedding dress brands – which could explain why we ended up with a huge “bridal” industry rather than a balanced “wedding” industry.)

Robbi told me, “The perfect suit carries just as much personality as the dress. Whether that’s a beautifully cut navy three-piece from our Barberis cloth, a relaxed summer linen suit or a classic tux.”

“The same goes for beards. Men are much more comfortable expressing their own style now, and that includes grooming. A beautiful suit paired with a well-kept beard can look incredibly elegant.“

Is wedding suit hire still popular, or are more grooms buying custom made suits for 2026?

“Both are important, but for slightly different reasons. Hire is still incredibly popular and a big part of the brand, particularly for groomsmen or for more formal dress codes like black-tie, where people may not have a reason to wear the suit again.

Where we’re seeing a real shift is with grooms themselves. Many grooms see their wedding suit as something worth owning. A beautifully tailored piece they can wear again for work, events or future celebrations. Custom made is an area where we are really seeing this play out. A suit made just for them.

What’s interesting is that the modern wedding often blends the two. The groom might invest in a custom made suit of his own, while the wider party hires. It gives the groom something personal, while keeping things simple and consistent for everyone else. I think where Moss does a great job is having the option at every price point or type of event.”

Are grooms & groomsmen still choosing matching suits?

A few years back, matching bridesmaids’ dresses flew out of fashion. The matchy-matchy rule was dropped, and bridesmaids were choosing their own styles, in a rainbow of colours – it’s such a breath of fresh air to see individuality in a bridal party! So I asked Robbi, will the same shift happen with matching groomsmen suits?

“I don’t think they’ll disappear, but they are definitely evolving.

Uniformity used to be the goal – identical suits, identical ties, everyone looking exactly the same. Today, couples tend to prefer a little more individuality and personality. That might mean the groom in a slightly different fabric – maybe an Italian or a performance fabric – or colour, or groomsmen wearing the same suit but styling it in their own way.

The idea is cohesion rather than strict matching. When it’s done well, the group still looks incredibly polished, but it feels more natural and modern.”

It’s time to intentionally create a more balanced wedding media to include grooms.

The good news is that Moss and other menswear and specialist wedding suit brands are keen to focus on creating balanced content for grooms.

They’re being led by grooms themselves, who are choosing tailored, bespoke suits in quality fabrics while groomsmen still have the option to hire wedding suits.

The perfect wedding suit reflects your personality, with accessories and elegant grooming key to grooms’ overall style.

Whether we’ll begin to see more beards on the covers of wedding magazines is a question for a future article.

Right now, the wedding media has a lot of work to do if it’s to evolve so all couples and all partners are represented equally. I didn’t need to look far for an example of just how far we need to go: in a Brides magazine article last November, Sarah Zlotnik wrote that, “A groom’s job is to plan fun activities before the wedding without being late to the ceremony.”

I would love to hear from any wedding business owner who’d like to join this conversation and have an article published on English Wedding. Find out more about English Wedding’s publishing platform for suppliers here.