Al’s Formal Wear customers work to find options amid closure
BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – Customers of Al’s Formal Wear woke up Sunday stunned to see doors locked at store locations across the state.
Right now, there is no explanation as to what happened, but many with events right around the corner are left scrambling.
Just 60 days out from his wedding day, Joey Ramirez got a text from one of his eight groomsmen. All of them just spent well over $200 on tuxedos for the big day.
“My heart was down to my feet,” he said. “We start panicking and started looking up any information on all formal wear and the only thing all over social media was just the news outlets reporting that they have closed.”
Ramirez is not the only one. Since the weekend, people have reached out to KBTX, shared their thoughts on social media and started to gameplan.
This includes Matthew Hudson. Hudson learned Wednesday about the closures. His fiance lives in Portugal. Much of their time and money on wedding planning has included work for her immigration status.
“This immigration stuff, it’s already sucked your bank account dry,” he said. “Now, just taking away hundreds or thousands of dollars for rentals that you’re not going to get back. Plus, now you have to go find more and pay upfront again for more and you don’t know whether or not you’re going to get your money back is kind of a big blow.”
Customers say they’re not sure what to do with limited options. KBTX tried to contact Al’s on Wednesday, calling multiple stores in Texas, Colorado and the corporate number. The calls went without answers.
Ramirez says without any options but to move on, he has now spent an extra $2,000 on his wedding in order to help out his groomsmen.
“I felt bad that my guys paid like $250 each so I set up the account at Men’s Warehouse and I just went ahead and paid for it this time because I’m not sure if Al’s Formal Wear is gonna refund us the money,” he said.
Men’s Warehouse has offered to honor receipts for impacted customers up to $60 in deposits. Hudson said he has reported his Al’s charge to the credit card company for fraud and is waiting to hear back.
