Traditional Thai wedding attire, and where a suit fits

Questions people ask

What is traditional Thai wedding attire?

For the morning ceremony, traditional Thai dress: most often a suea phraratchathan or a Thai-style formal jacket for a man, and a chut Thai for a woman. These are specific garments with their own conventions of cloth, colour and occasion, and they are made by makers who specialise in them rather than by a Western tailor. The ceremony is usually early in the morning, which means the heat is at its most manageable, and you are seated on the floor for parts of it. Both bear on comfort more than couples expect.

Do you make traditional Thai wedding outfits?

No. This shop makes suits, jackets, trousers, shirts and women’s tailoring, and traditional Thai attire is a different trade. Where we are useful is the evening reception, which is the suit half of a traditional wedding day. Plan the traditional outfits alongside the evening suits rather than after them, because the makers who do specialise in them have their own lead times.

Do I need two outfits for a Thai wedding?

Usually yes. The morning ceremony is traditional dress and the evening reception is a suit or, for a formal ballroom, a tuxedo. Couples who plan a single outfit for the whole day tend to regret it at whichever end they did not plan for. The change also gives you a dry shirt for the evening, which after a morning ceremony in Bangkok is a more practical benefit than it sounds.

What should a foreign guest wear to a Thai wedding?

For the morning ceremony, modest and respectful clothing: covered shoulders and knees, and shoes that come off easily, because you will be seated on the floor for parts of it. For the evening reception, a suit unless the invitation says black tie. Traditional Thai dress is welcome but not expected of a guest. Nobody will think less of a suit worn correctly for the hour, and being comfortable through a long day matters more than being ornamental.

Can you alter a chut Thai or a traditional jacket?

Western garments are altered here as routine work, in the usual two to three days. Send a photograph on WhatsApp first and you will get an answer before you travel. The question is only about the traditional pieces; Western garments are ordinary work here whoever made them.

What does the groom wear in the evening?

A suit for most receptions and a tuxedo for a formal ballroom one, decided by the invitation and the hour rather than by preference. It is made on the same three-week timetable as any wedding suit, with two fittings, so the evening outfit should be started at the same time as everything else. Measurements and cloth three weeks out, a first fitting at about two weeks, a second about a week before.

Should the groomsmen wear traditional dress or suits?

Whatever the couple decide, but consistently within each half of the day. If the groomsmen appear in the evening photographs, they should be cut from one cloth for the same reason any wedding party is: two similar navies from different books separate visibly in daylight and in flash photographs. A group photograph with three men in traditional dress and three in suits reads as an accident.

How far ahead should the evening suits be ordered?

Three weeks before the wedding, which is the same countdown as any wedding suit: measurements and cloth three weeks out, a first fitting at about two weeks, a second at about one. Plan it alongside the traditional outfits rather than after them, because the traditional makers have their own lead times. Block out the two fitting dates for the whole party before anybody books flights, and tell us who is flying in and when, so the timetable is built around the people who are here.