By: Adam Rodricks
I’ll paint you a picture.
I’m sitting at a bar on my last day in Nashville, the most popular destination for bachelor and bachelorette parties in the United States (yes, even ahead of Las Vegas) and I get a tap on the shoulder.
“Are you with this bachelor party?”
I immediately think “Oh no, what did one of them do and how much will I have to bribe a cop to let him go”.
He continued, “I just have to say, your shirts are awesome man!”
I looked down to see he too was wearing a bachelor party shirt, but I could not return the compliment.
A group of friends for over 20 years, we’ve come to recognize each of these custom shirts less as a gimmicky attention grabber, and more as a “trophy”, something we have all vowed to keep for the rest of our lives. And if someone told you that they were designing a shirt for you to keep for the rest of your life, it had better be good.
Here are the top 5 things to consider for perfecting your bachelor/bachelorette party shirt:
Design something that’ll stand out
There is nothing worse than creating the most generic looking bachelor party shirt in existence. We all know the one. Black text on a white shirt in Comic Sans that you eventually use as an oil rag for your car.
When designing your shirt, pay close attention to the array of customization options available, from product type, to colour, add your own images (good places like Toronto Tees even have their own image base if you’re at a loss to supply your own visuals) and make sure this thing is above all, unique.
It’s a regular occurrence for us to go to all-inclusive resorts and see multiple parties with the same design on their shirts, and take awkward pictures together. They only laugh together to keep themselves from crying. Don’t be those guys or girls.
The Right Garment makes all the difference
When I say “create the perfect Bachelor party shirt”, we use the term “shirt” loosely. Think about where you’re celebrating and adjust accordingly. I cannot tell you how quickly you realize a tank top would have been a better choice than a sweat-dripping cotton tee in 40-degree tropical weather. Similarly, if you’re off to Europe, you have the option to do a sweatshirt or even a hoodie. Don’t go out of your way to accommodate wearing your shirt, it should suit your celebrations.
Text & Images can make or break your shirt
Sure, you can put text like “GROOM” or “MAID OF HONOUR” on your custom tee, but you can also take things one step further with your customization. For example, one year, we all printed our most used emoji on a neon tank top and we generated so much more conversation at the bars than we ever would have with our wedding party positions.
Similarly, a high-quality, eye-catching visual can make or break your bachelor party t-shirt. Take the time to think about what you can do to stand out in a crowd, and what your bride or groom-to-be will cherish long after the party is over.
Timing is critical
The horror story: about 5 years ago, I was going to a bachelor party in Mexico with the biggest slacker of a Best Man I had ever met. He ordered t-shirts from a website but even with express shipping, they didn’t arrive in time. We had nothing to wear on the trip and what’s worse, these shirts meant nothing to use thereafter.
This is the single biggest reason I swear by and recommend Toronto Tees: they have a five minute turnaround. You don’t need to spend weeks and weeks planning your shirts, you have more important things to do (that little wedding thing that’s looming for one). Let them take the guesswork out of shipping times and give you the peace of mind to know you’re getting what you want, when you want.
Quality over everything
I have over a dozen bachelor party shirts now. Some didn’t hold up in the wash, some didn’t even last the whole trip when colours started to run or low-quality material started to rip.
Every single t-shirt I’ve made from Toronto Tees looks as good now as it did the day I purchased it.
Ultimately, the biggest factor in how good your bachelor or bachelorette party shirt is, will be quality. And yes, put a few different parties together in a picture and you can tell which of them look cheap (the shirts, not the guys).
All in all, it’s the people that make a bachelor or bachelorette party perfect. Minimize what can go wrong and create a quality tee that serves as a memento guaranteed to invoke memories of the great times you shared, because that’s what these trips are all about.
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