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 — shoulder seam to wrist bone, pivoting round the elbow, then add 3 cm. That allowance is what lets a shirt cuff show. Note a shirt sleeve is measured differently again, 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 guided measurement link, or the written form below verbatim. The link is better — it checks each number as it is entered and returns a PDF. If you use the written form instead, do not paraphrase it; 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
The easier route first. Rather than pasting a list into a group chat and hoping thirteen numbers come back correctly from six men, send each groomsman one link:
nathantailors.com/measurement/new
A guided walkthrough — one measurement per screen, with a diagram showing exactly where the tape goes and a live check that flags a number outside the normal range before it is submitted. It takes about ten minutes and ends with a shareable PDF record each man can forward to you or straight to us.
That last part is the whole reason to prefer it: you stop transcribing numbers out of a chat thread, and nobody's chest measurement gets attached to the wrong groomsman.
The written form below is the fallback for anyone who will not click a link. It is the same thirteen measurements in the same order the guided flow asks for them, so the two are interchangeable — you can have half the party use one and half the other.
Wedding suit measurements — please reply with all thirteen
Get someone to help you; do not measure yourself. Thin shirt, stand normally, arms down, breathe normally. Where it says finger slack, pull the tape snug, slide one or two flat fingers underneath, and read the number with them still in.
Upper body
1. Neck — around the base of the neck where a collar sits, 1–2 fingers of slack
2. Shoulder width — across the back, bony corner to bony corner, following the shoulder line
3. Full chest — fullest part, level all the way round, 1–2 fingers of slack. Not skin-tight
4. Waist — natural waist, about 3 cm above the belly button. No finger slack
5. Sleeve length — shoulder seam to wrist bone, round the elbow, then add 3 cm
6. Bicep — fullest part of the upper arm, relaxed, finger slack
7. Armpit circumference — around the armpit, finger slack
8. Jacket length — base of the neck to where you want it to end
Lower body
9. Trouser waist — where you actually wear your trousers. Measurements 10 and 11 start from this same line
10. Outside leg length — from that waistband line down the outside of the leg to the ankle bone. If unsure, go longer
11. Crotch / full rise — front waistband, under the crotch, back up to the same line behind. Keep it loose
12. Full hip — empty your pockets; around the fullest part of the seat, over the buttocks, not below them
13. Thigh — fullest part just below the crotch, weight on both feet, one finger of slack
Also send: height, weight, and two photos standing straight — front and side, arms down, in a fitted shirt.
Centimetres or inches, but say which. Deadline: [your date].
Two of these trip people up more than the rest. Outside leg, not inside leg — tailors elsewhere often ask for inseam, and the two numbers are not interchangeable. And sleeve length gets 3 cm added after you reach the wrist bone; that allowance is what lets a shirt cuff show.
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
If you take one thing from this page: send the party the guided measurement flow rather than a list. Ten minutes each, checked as they go, and a PDF back — which removes the transcription step where most group orders actually go wrong.
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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