What are Wedding suits for men and look your best?

by aaron sarfati June 7, 2020

Wedding suits for men can be many things. For most weddings, the suit should be something special. The type of suit that lets people know that what you are wearing is not the same thing you wore to work yesterday. There are many types of suits just made for the occasion. Many of these Wedding suits will use satin trim on them. You will find the use of satin on the lapels, jacket pockets and even the buttons are covered in the stuff.

Some of the suits will be full tuxedos with full satin covered lapels and the satin stripe down the legs of the pants. This is generally what will make your wedding suit tell people that this is not any old suit you pulled out of your closet and dusted off. There are some people though who are fine with just getting married in a more traditional mens 3 piece suit. Learn what are 3 piece suits here.

Most men are going to buy what is referred to as “Off the Rack”. This term means that the suit is a mass-produced item and not custom made. Custom made suits can and do cost thousands of dollars depending on where you buy it and the fabrics and features employed. Off the rack suits can run from a hundred dollars to several hundred dollars.

You can certainly find a decent suit for under two hundred dollars and then put a little more money into it by having it get fitted properly by a tailor. A tailor can take your ordinary off the rack suit and fit it better to your torso like it’s a custom suit and make you really look great. If you are going to wear a wedding suit as the groom, you might as well have it fitted so you look your absolute best for the big day.

Does the Groom's suit have to match the Groomsmen?

This is all up for debate and depends on what the Bride is striving for. For some Weddings, the Groom will keep it simple and just have everyone wearing the exact same Wedding Suit. For some people, all the Groomsmen will wear the same uniform suit and the Groom will wear something even more fancy as a way of standing out from the Groomsmen.

For example. The groomsmen will all be wearing a classic black 2 button tuxedo with notch lapels, but the Groom might go for an actual Tuxedo jacket with tails. The third option is that the Groom will wear the exact same Wedding suit but will differentiate his attire by wearing a completely different vest. It is all up to the type of Wedding you are striving for.

Do wedding suits vary by culture?

The short answer is it depends. As we all know, there are many different cultures and many different countries in the World. The most standard Wedding suit would be your traditional black tuxedo suit.

You will find men wearing them in America of course as well as European countries too. It is not the exclusive style but generally worn for nighttime weddings.

Since, Western culture has spread in the last hundred years, you will find men even in East Asian countries such as Korea and Japan wearing the traditional black tuxedo to get married. This post is going to focus exclusively on what is considered the more traditional Western or European culture wedding attire. What is worn for other cultures is an entirely different conversation.

What color suit should the Groom wear?

In a more formal country such as England, you are going to see more of a variety of what men will wear as a Wedding suit. They are far more understanding of the subtle intricacies of is supposed to worn for a Wedding and when. What a Groom may wear for a day wedding is always different from what they would wear for a nighttime wedding.

A daytime even will allow a Groom to wear a light color suit whereas the nighttime wedding, is always black. In America, the rules are not much different. The Groom and all the Groomsmen will usually wear a light color suit or tuxedo for the Daytime Wedding and your more traditional black color tux for the evening. It all depends on what the Bride is going for. It is her day after all.

What should the Groom wear to the Wedding?

The Groom will usually wear what is discussed with the Bride. Let’s face facts. The Bride has been probably planning her Wedding since she was 12. All she needed was you to complete the plan. Getting back to what the Groom wears. It will depend on what type of Wedding you are having. Are you having a traditional Wedding? Is it a Daytime wedding or nighttime wedding?

For a daytime Wedding, I would recommend the Groom and the Groomsmen to wear light color 3-piece suits in preferably a solid color. It’s easy to wear and the best part is as a man, you will be able to wear the suit again. You can go with either a medium gray color or perhaps a beige color and look great.

For the traditional nighttime Wedding, tuxedos are in order. This is the time where you are required to wear a black tuxedo. I would recommend keeping it to a more traditional single-breasted jacket tuxedo. Everyone in the wedding party can wear a single-breasted jacket black tuxedo.

Not everyone can pull off wearing a double-breasted tuxedo. That requires certain physique that is on the slimmer side. Since it is recommended to wear a single-breasted tux, you will have the choice of lapels. You can choose the standard notch style lapel jacket, a more Italian style peak lapel jacket or the round shawl collar lapel jacket.

Is it in the tropics? Like a beach wedding. That requires a whole different set of what you need to wear. A light color linen suit is usually what you would wear for such an endeavor. You do not want to wear a black tuxedo in the middle of the day under the hot sun. You would never make it past saying “I do”. There are some even less formal Beach weddings where the groomsmen just wear matching linen shirt and pants sets and really keep it casual. Once again, what the Bride says, goes.

How far in advance should you order your suit?

Proper planning is of the utmost importance for a Wedding. This is not something that you should ever leave until the last moment. The planning of what the Groom wears as well as the groomsmen should be set months in advance before the wedding. Once that is done, it’s time to shop. You want to have at least a few months leeway in advance for everyone to get their suits. Everyone is going to need to be measured for the proper size.

It may take time for those sizes to come into stock. It is why you do not want to wait. Imagine if the size you ordered does not fit when it arrives. It is going to take time to get either the next size up or down. You are either going to have to order a new suit or exchange the original suit for your proper size. There are always possible problems that can occur. Having the luxury of time alleviates that stress that is going to happen.

You will also need time for your wedding suit and the others to get properly fitted. Hemming for the pants length will certainly be needed for everyone because suits come unfinished on the bottom so they can be tailored to exact inseam length. You may need the sleeves adjusted for length. You might want to have the jacket fitted a bit, so it fits you better.

The jacket might need to be taken in the upper part of the back or lower near the waist. These are all the details that you might need to have done and will not be able to accomplish without the luxury of extra time to do so. The tailoring will usually take at least a week or even two for the things you will need done.

Can you wear a gray suit to a wedding?

I would only recommend wearing a gray suit to a wedding if that wedding is in the daytime. Such as an afternoon wedding that is preferably outdoors. It is this type of outdoor wedding where a lighter color such as gray should be worn. In England they have what is referred to as a Morning Wedding where the Groom will actually wear a special Morning Wedding suit which has a special jacket with a round tail in back and most often comes in a medium gray color. Here in the States, you can get away with either a medium gray tuxedo or medium gray 3-piece solid color suit for only a daytime wedding. If the fabric of the suit does indeed have some sort of pattern, it should be extremely muted as to not even being noticeable unless you are looking at the fabric closeup. Think of maybe a fine nails-head pattern or fine birds-eye pattern which is more of the way the fabric is woven than an actual visual pattern.