Suits for a wedding party: a timeline

Dressing a groom is straightforward. Dressing a groom plus a best man plus three groomsmen who live in three cities is a logistics problem, and the thing that goes wrong is almost always time.

Work backwards from the wedding

• Twelve weeks out — decide the look. Colour, whether it is a three-piece, whether the groom differs from the party.
• Ten weeks out — everybody gets measured. This is the step that slips; chase it.
• Nine weeks out — orders finalized. Nothing is cut until every order is confirmed, so one late person delays only their own suit, but you want the set arriving together.
• Five weeks out — suits arrive. About four weeks after finalizing.
• Three weeks out — everyone tries theirs on properly and any hems get adjusted locally.
• One week out — everything pressed and hanging up, shoes cleaned.

The measuring step is where wedding parties lose a month. Set a date for it and treat it like a fitting appointment, because it is one.

Should everyone match exactly?

Two approaches work. Identical — the whole party in the same cloth, the groom set apart by a waistcoat, a different tie, or a buttonhole. Clean, and it photographs well. Coordinated — the party in one colour and the groom in a related but distinct one, say the party in mid-blue and the groom in navy.

What doesn't work is letting everyone choose freely and hoping. Five men in five different blues looks like an accident in every photograph you will keep.

Practical things that help

• Pick the cloth once, centrally, and tell everyone what it is. Don't put it to a vote.
• Let people differ in the things that don't show as a group: lapel width, pleats, vents. Keep colour, cloth and whether there's a waistcoat fixed.
• Have one person own the chasing. It will be you.
• Budget for a local hem alteration for each person. It is twenty dollars and it is the difference between five suits and five suits that look right.

Who pays

There is no universal rule and it is worth settling explicitly and early. Commonly the party pays for their own suit — which they keep and can wear again, an argument for choosing a colour they will actually use — and the couple covers ties or buttonholes. Whatever you decide, say it out loud when you ask people, not afterwards.