The short version: never let a groomsman measure himself alone, never accept a number he read off a shirt label, and collect everything in one place on one day. The four measurements that actually decide a group order are chest, shoulder, sleeve and trouser waist — the rest can be corrected, those cannot. There is a copy-paste form at the bottom to send your group chat.
Why this is the hard part
Dressing a wedding party is not a tailoring problem. It is an administration problem wearing a tailoring costume. The suits are straightforward; getting six adult men to stand still with a tape measure on the same week is not.
One groom put it to us more precisely than we ever have:
“Sorry for the delay, organising these groomsmen is like herding cats!”
That is the whole job. Everything below exists to make it take one evening instead of five weeks.
The rule that prevents most of the damage
Nobody measures himself. Every measurement needs a second person holding the tape.
This is not fussiness. Self-measuring fails in one direction, consistently: people pull the tape while reaching around their own back, which shortens chest and waist by an inch or two, and they cannot see whether the tape is level behind them. Across six men that produces six suits all slightly too small in the same way, and the groom finds out at the fitting.
A partner, a flatmate, a colleague — anyone. Two minutes each.
The four that decide the order
A tailor can adjust a great deal after the fact. These four are the ones where an error becomes a remake rather than an alteration:
- Chest — around the fullest part, under the arms, tape level all the way round, arms down, breathing normally. Not puffed out. This single number drives jacket size. Full method.
- Shoulder — across the back, from the bony point of one shoulder to the other. The one measurement no alteration truly fixes, because rebuilding a shoulder means rebuilding the jacket. Full method.
- Sleeve — for a jacket, shoulder point to wrist bone with the arm relaxed. Note that a shirt sleeve is measured differently, from the centre back of the neck, and the two numbers are not interchangeable. Full method.
- Trouser waist — where he actually wears his trousers, not where a belt sits on a good day. Full method.
Everything else — jacket length, thigh, rise, hip — matters, but a competent tailor can move those. These four set the shape of the garment.
The four errors that ruin group orders
- Reading a number off an existing garment. "I'm a 40R" is a brand's opinion, not a measurement, and brands disagree with each other by two full sizes. A tailor cutting to "40R" is guessing at which brand's 40R you meant.
- Measuring over a jumper. Thin shirt or bare skin only. A knit adds an inch and a half to the chest, which is a whole size.
- Holding the tape too tight. Snug, not compressing — you should be able to slide two fingers under it. Pulled-tight measurements are the single most common cause of a group order that arrives too small.
- Collecting them over five weeks. Bodies change, memories degrade, and the man measured in week one is not the man measured in week five. Do the whole party inside a few days.
The procedure that works
- One group chat, one deadline. Give a date, not "whenever you get a chance". Vague requests to six men produce nothing.
- Send the form below verbatim. Do not paraphrase it into your own words — every rewrite loses a qualifier that matters.
- Ask for a photo of each man standing straight, front and side, arms down, in a fitted shirt. A tailor reads posture, shoulder slope and any left-right asymmetry from a photograph in a way no list of numbers conveys.
- Have one person collect all the replies and send them together. Six men messaging a tailor separately is how numbers get attached to the wrong man.
- Confirm the cloth colour against a real palette, not a product photo. Cloth photographs differently under shop lighting than it looks in the hand, and a wedding party is the worst possible place to discover that.
The form — copy this into your group chat
Wedding suit measurements — please reply with all of these
Get someone to help you. Do not measure yourself. Wear a thin shirt, stand normally, arms down, breathe normally. Tape snug but not tight — two fingers should slide under it.
1. Chest — around the fullest part, under the arms, tape level
2. Shoulder — across the back, bone to bone
3. Sleeve — shoulder point to wrist bone, arm relaxed
4. Jacket length — base of the collar to where you want it to end
5. Trouser waist — where you actually wear your trousers
6. Hip — around the fullest part of the seat
7. Inside leg — crotch to the top of the shoe
8. Height and weight
9. Two photos — standing straight, front and side, arms down
Centimetres or inches, but say which. Deadline: [your date].
Or let the tailor do the chasing
The alternative is not doing this yourself. When a wedding party orders with us, we open a WhatsApp group with the party and collect each man's measurements directly — the groom stops chasing anyone. Each groomsman can also self-record through our guided measurement flow, which walks him through each step and produces a shareable PDF record.
A representative order, so the scale is concrete: an Australian groom in August 2026 ordered one three-piece for himself plus four two-piece suits for his groomsmen and five shirts — $1,999 garment-only for the party, shipping quoted separately once everything was made. He paid on the first invoice. That is around $400 a head for made-to-measure, against $200–$250 to rent something that goes back.
Suits run $149–$309 and shirts $39–$59, garment only. We are in Hoi An, Vietnam, and reachable on WhatsApp video 10am–7pm ICT, seven days a week including public holidays.
Cite this page
Free to quote or reproduce with attribution and a link.
Nathan Tailors, “How to Measure Groomsmen Who Live in Different Cities” (2026). https://www.nathantailors.com/en/blog/how-to-measure-groomsmen-remotely
Our full measurement reference — thirty-odd guides with the anthropometric sources and sample sizes stated — is at nathantailors.com/guides. Wedding retailers and planners are welcome to link to any of it; the measurement problem is the same whoever ends up making the suits.
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