NEED TO KNOW
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Less than an hour before Walker Hartman’s groomsmen were scheduled to take photos, they realized they were facing a wardrobe issue
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None of the men at the wedding knew how to manually tie a bow tie, so they had to pull up a YouTube tutorial on the TV as a last resort
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“We talk about it all the time. It is a funny memory that we remembered to this day,” Hartman tells PEOPLE
A bow tie fiasco turned into a cherished wedding day memory.
As Walker Hartman’s eight groomsmen began getting ready for his wedding on Oct. 26, 2024, at Knotting Hills Wedding Venue & Resort in Pevely, Missouri, they ran into a major wardrobe problem — no one knew how to tie their bow ties.
While the groom’s black bow tie with gold detailing was pre-tied and could easily be clipped onto his collar, his groomsmens’ green bow ties were all self-tie. This meant the men had to manually tie the knot themselves, which normally wouldn’t be an issue except none of them had done so before.
Lance Omar Thurman
Walker Hartman’s groomsmen
“The day of, we were in the groom’s quarters, and we were all hanging out having a few drinks. As it’s time to get ready, I pull out the box that has the bow ties in it, forgetting that they’re untied,” Hartman tells PEOPLE. “We all kinda looked at the bowties and looked at each other.”
The bride, Alexis, had consulted the groom beforehand about ordering his wedding party bow ties that matched the color of her bridesmaids’ dresses. It just wasn’t until the package was delivered and opened that Hartman realized they all had to be manually tied.
“We practiced one day about five months prior, but by the time the wedding rolled around, it slipped my mind that they were the ones that you had to tie yourself,” Hartman says.
Lance Omar Thurman
Walker Hartman’s groomsmen
At first, it was “definitely a little funny” that Hartman’s friends were at a loss on what to do. But then the clock kept ticking, and reality set in.
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“As time went on, we realized that no one knew how to do it and our pictures started at 2:00 p.m. and it was about 1:15 p.m.,” Hartman says.
Lance Omar Thurman
Walker Hartman’s groomsmen follow a YouTube tutorial on how to manually tie bow ties
The group of men began asking the older men in the room whether or not they knew how to tie bow ties. When both the bride and groom’s fathers couldn’t help, they turned to Alexis’ uncle, who also couldn’t offer any assistance.
“We literally asked the day-of coordinator, the photographer, the videographer, pretty much everybody that was on the wedding campus that day we asked,” Hartman remembers. “And no one knew how to do it.”
With less than an hour to be outside ready to take photos, the men were running out of solutions.
Lance Omar Thurman
Walker Hartman’s groomsmen follow a YouTube tutorial on how to manually tie bow ties
Suddenly, Hartman remembered that he had watched a bow tie tutorial on YouTube in the past. He pulled up the video on the TV in the room, causing all the groomsmen to flock to the big screen like moths to a flame.
“When we started playing the video and realized how complicated it was we started to panic a little bit,” Hartman recalls.
Tying bow ties wasn’t as straightforward as the men were hoping for. Only one groomsman figured out how to do it in time, so he had to tie everyone else’s.
“Shout out to Corn!” Hartman says.
Lance Omar Thurman
Walker Hartman takes photos with his wedding party
When the groomsmen walked down the aisle, the couple’s onlooking 130 guests didn’t suspect any pre-ceremony chaos because they all looked dapper wearing their neat bow ties.
Hartman and his friends look back fondly on the unexpected problem.
“We talk about it all the time,” he says. “It is a funny memory that we remembered to this day. I remember telling my wife that no one knew how to tie their bow ties and she said we literally watched a YouTube video about it and I told her I had forgotten by then. It made for an amazing memory and also amazing pictures.”
Lance Omar Thurman
Walker and Alexis Hartman
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Hartman shared footage and photos of the bow tie problem on TikTok on June 15, writing in his caption, “We was panicking 😭.” In just three days, his post amassed more than 2.4 million views and 500,000 likes.
“She needed more time to do her makeup 😂😂😂😂,” one person teased about the bride, with another joking, “She was just giving y’all a team building exercise!”
“Smart way to keep y’all from getting into trouble 😂,” another TikTok user wrote.
Read the original article on People
