Wedding suits

Wedding Suits, Chiang Mai: photographs outlive the day

A wedding suit is judged twice: once in the room, and then for decades in photographs. The second judgement is the harsher one and it changes what you should choose.

Very dark cloth loses its detail in photographs. A black or near-black suit photographs as a flat silhouette with no visible texture, structure or shape. Mid-blue and navy hold detail under most lighting. Light grey looks superb in daylight and can turn muddy indoors under warm tungsten light, which is worth knowing if the reception is in the evening.

If the ceremony is outdoors in Thailand, factor in the heat honestly. A heavy suit in April will be visible in every photograph, on the groom’s face.

Matching a group

This is the part that goes wrong, and it goes wrong for a reason nobody anticipates.

Cloth is dyed in batches. Two rolls of nominally identical cloth can differ enough that the difference is invisible under shop lighting and unmistakable in a photograph of six people standing in a line in sunlight.

So garments that must match need to be cut from the same roll, which means enough cloth has to be reserved before any of it is cut. That is why a group order needs more lead time than a single suit, and why the first thing to tell us is how many people are involved.

Distinguishing the groom

A small difference is more effective than a large one.

A three-piece for the groom against two-piece for the groomsmen. A different waistcoat. A different tie or a boutonniere. Any of these read clearly in photographs without breaking the visual coherence of the group.

Putting the groom in a completely different colour tends to make the group look accidental rather than deliberate.

Practical timing

Book the measuring session early in the trip and expect at least two fittings. If members of the party are arriving at different times, tell us the arrival dates so the schedule can be built around them.

A hotel fitting is often the most practical way to handle a group, since getting everyone to the shop simultaneously is usually harder than us coming to you.

What to wear it with

Bring the shoes. This matters more at a wedding than anywhere else, because the trouser break will be in every full-length photograph and cannot be fixed on the day.