The Wedding Guide: Suits & Tuxedos for the Day Itself

You will wear it once, and look at it for the rest of your life. Five decisions settle almost everything — suit or tuxedo, colour, cloth, fit, and the small things at the ends of your sleeves.

Start eight months out if you can. Six is comfortable. Three is possible — tell us your date and we will be honest with you. A commission takes ten to fourteen weeks, with three fittings included.

1. Suit or tuxedo

The dividing line is not formality in the abstract — it is the hour of your ceremony and how your partner is dressed. A tuxedo is evening dress. Before six o'clock, a suit is almost always the more considered choice. Ceremony before 6pm — wear a suit. Ceremony or reception after 6pm, and a floor-length gown beside you — wear a tuxedo. Everything else is preference, and preference is allowed.

The wedding suit — daytime, church, garden, beach

A suit you will use for years after the day.

Lapel

Notch or peak, in the same cloth as the jacket

Trouser

Belt loops or side adjusters; no braid down the leg

Shirt

Spread or cutaway collar, plain or fine twill front

Neckwear

Tie — grenadine, wool silk, or a knitted square end

The tuxedo — after six, black tie, reception

Worn rarely again — but nothing else photographs like it.

Lapel

Peak or shawl, faced in grosgrain or satin silk

Trouser

Silk braid on the outseam, held by side adjusters

Shirt

Marcella or pleated bib, turndown collar, double cuff

Neckwear

Self-tie bow tie in the same silk as the lapel

2. Colour, by venue and hour

Light does the choosing. Strong daylight flattens dark cloth and lifts mid-tones; candlelight and tungsten do the opposite. Match the colour to where you will actually be standing at the moment the photographs are taken.

Church · midday

Mid-grey, navy, soft blue. Stone interiors and stained glass throw cool, uneven light. Mid-tones hold their shape in it; black reads as a silhouette and loses all detail in photographs.

Beach · destination

Sand, oat, pale stone. Heat and glare argue for lighter, warmer colour and an unlined jacket. Skip the waistcoat, keep the trouser cuff clean off the shoe, and let the cloth breathe.

Evening · black tie

Midnight blue over black. Under artificial light, black goes slightly green and flat. Midnight blue reads blacker than black on camera and keeps a depth to it.

3. Cloth for the season

Weight is measured in grams per metre, and it is the single most overlooked number in a wedding suit. Too heavy and you will remember the day as uncomfortable. Too light and the suit will not hold a line through the afternoon.

Spring · 240–280g

Fresco and high-twist wool. Open weave, dry hand, springs back from a car seat without a crease.

Summer · 200–250g

Linen–silk, wool–linen. For beach and destination. It will crease — that is the character, not a fault. Blended with wool it recovers far better than pure linen, which we rarely recommend for a ceremony.

Autumn · 280–340g

Flannel and brushed wool. Soft surface, deep colour, and a drape that photographs beautifully in grey or a muted green.

Winter · 300–380g

Worsted and barathea. Barathea is the traditional black-tie cloth: a tight, matte weave that makes grosgrain lapels sing.

Avoid

Shiny polyester blends. They flare under a photographer's flash, hold heat, and cannot be pressed back into shape.

4. Six places fit is decided

Fit is not a size. It is six measurements holding each other in tension — and the two at the top cannot be altered afterwards. Check these, in this order, at every fitting.

i · Shoulder

The seam ends where your shoulder ends — no overhang, no divot beneath it. This one is structural. If it is wrong, the suit is wrong.

ii · Collar

The jacket collar sits flat against your shirt collar with no gap and no roll. Stand naturally, then have someone look from behind.

iii · Button stance

Fastened, the front closes without an X-pull at the button. Raise your arms; the jacket should follow you, not fight you.

iv · Sleeve & cuff

Roughly 1–1.5cm of shirt cuff shows at rest. Sleeve ends at the wrist bone. This is the detail every photograph of your hands will record.

v · Jacket length

Long enough to cover the seat, short enough to leave the leg looking long. Arms at your sides, the hem lands near the crook of your thumb.

vi · Trouser break

One soft break, or none at all. Bring the shoes you will marry in to every fitting — heel height changes this by centimetres.

Bespoke means these six are cut to you from the start, rather than negotiated afterwards by an alterations tailor.

5. Shirt, neckwear, shoes

The suit is the easy part. Grooms lose the look at the collar and at the shoes — the two things nobody plans and everybody photographs.

Suit → tie

Spread collar with a four-in-hand knot. Grenadine or wool silk holds a dimple all day; smooth satin slips loose by the reception.

Tuxedo → bow tie

Self-tie, always, in the same silk as your lapel facing. A pre-tied bow tie is the single clearest shortcut in menswear.

Width

Match the tie's width to your lapel, and the bow tie's width to the outer edges of your eyes. Nothing wider.

Daytime suit

Black or dark brown oxford, plain or cap-toe. Polished, not mirror-glassed. Break them in for two weeks before the day.

Black tie

Patent or highly polished black oxford, or a velvet slipper if you know what you are doing. No brogueing, no rubber sole.

Beach

Unlined suede loafer or a tan derby. Side adjusters instead of a belt — sand and belt buckles do not agree.

The small things

Three details finish the frame.

Pocket square

White linen, presidential fold. It should never match your tie — it may quietly answer your partner's flowers.

Buttonhole

One stem, tucked through a working lapel hole and held by the loop behind it. Ask your florist to keep it small.

Groomsmen

Put them one step below you — same colour family, simpler lapel, no waistcoat. You should be the finished man in the frame.

Five mistakes we fix every season

Said plainly, because there is no time left to be diplomatic about them.

Ordering too late

Bespoke needs ten to fourteen weeks, plus fittings. Six months out is comfortable; six weeks out limits you to what is already on the shelf.

Buying a size too small

A tight jacket does not read as slim, it reads as borrowed. Pulling at the button, gaping at the collar, creasing across the back — all visible in every photograph.

Black tuxedo for a noon ceremony

Formal is not the same as correct. In daylight a black tuxedo reads as costume; a well-cut grey or navy suit reads as a man who knows what he is doing.

Matching everything

Tie, pocket square and waistcoat in one identical shade is the hire-shop signature. Relate them; do not clone them.

Skipping the last fitting

Bodies change in the eight weeks before a wedding — usually at the waist. The house keeps a final fitting seven to ten days out for exactly this reason. Take it.

The consultation

Complimentary, 45 minutes, no obligation. Sit down with the house — at the atelier or over video. Bring the venue, the hour and how your partner is dressed, and you will leave with a cloth, a silhouette and a timeline you can trust.

01 · Consultation

Venue, hour, partner's dress, budget. We narrow the cloths on the table to three.

02 · Measure & cut

Twenty-two measurements, your own paper pattern, cut in-house.

03 · Three fittings

The last one seven to ten days before you marry.