A story in The Bentex Wedding Edit, our real weddings series. Styled to say “I do”.

Last week in this series, Joseph married Grace in a black tuxedo. This week the groom went the other way. Sven married Julie on a Saturday in August. He arrived by helicopter, stepped down onto the paddock beside the chapel with his groomsmen, and was the only man in the wedding party wearing white.

Ivory, not white

Sven’s jacket reads as white in every photograph, but the cloth is ivory, and he chose it for Julie.

Pure white is the brightest thing in any room. Put it beside an ivory or champagne gown and the dress starts to look yellow while the jacket looks cold, almost blue. Ivory carries a little warmth, so the jacket and the gown sit together as a pair in every frame instead of fighting over which one is whiter. If you are thinking about a white tuxedo for your own wedding, bring a swatch of the dress, or a daylight photo of it, to your first fitting, and choose the shade of the jacket against the gown.

The details that make it a dinner jacket

A white jacket on its own is not black tie. The details are what turn it into a dinner jacket, and Sven’s has every one of them.

The lapel is a black satin shawl, the rounded collar with no notch that dinner jackets have worn for a century. In black against ivory, it frames the shirt and bow tie the way a mount frames a picture. The jacket closes with a single black button. The pockets are jetted, with no flaps, and piped in black, so the lapel’s trim comes back lower down the jacket. It is a small detail, and it makes the whole garment look deliberate.

Below the jacket he wore black dress trousers. A white dinner jacket goes with black trousers, not white ones, and that is what keeps it evening wear rather than a summer suit. He finished with a white dress shirt, a black bow tie, a white pocket square and a single red rose at the lapel.

The groomsmen stayed in black

We dressed the groomsmen too, and this was the decision that made the photographs. Julie and Sven kept them in black tuxedos with black bow ties, so nobody in the party competed with the groom.

The eye goes to the lightest thing in a photograph first. Put one man in ivory between men in black and he is the subject of every group shot without anyone arranging it. The party still reads as one dress code, the same black tie and the same bow ties, with the groom set apart. The flowers followed the same idea: a red rose for Sven, white buds for his groomsmen.

They arrived together, landing on the paddock by the chapel about half an hour before the ceremony.

A chapel in the country

They married inside Lovedale Wedding Chapel in the Hunter Valley, under a hanging arch of white roses and greenery. Julie carried burgundy, blush and white flowers with dark-centred anemones, and the red of Sven’s rose picked up her bouquet. Afterwards they left the chapel laughing, sat together in the back of a vintage car with a walnut-trimmed cabin, walked the paddock with the groomsmen, and finished on a white footbridge as the sun went down.

Thinking about a white tuxedo for your wedding?

A white or ivory dinner jacket is one of the few ways a groom can dress formally and still stand apart from his own wedding party. Two things decide whether it works: the shade against the gown, and the black details against the jacket. Come and see the cloth in our Sydney CBD or Castle Hill showroom. Bring a swatch of the dress and we will show you ivory beside white, and talk through how to dress the groomsmen around you. We make tuxedos and wedding suits for the whole party, and the fitting is free.

Next in this series, James married Sophia in a black double breasted tuxedo, the one cut that needs no waistcoat under it.

Thank you to Julie and Sven for letting us share their day. Ceremony at Lovedale Wedding Chapel. Photography by Mr Hendrix Photography.