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

Last week in this series, Sven wore ivory while his groomsmen stayed in black. James went the most formal way a groom can go without putting on tails. He married Sophia at St Mark’s in Drummoyne in a black double breasted dinner jacket, worn fastened, with a satin peak lapel and a white rose at the buttonhole.

Two rows of buttons change the whole jacket

A single breasted jacket meets in the middle. A double breasted one crosses over, so one side of the front sits on top of the other and the second row of buttons holds it there.

That overlap does three things. It makes a longer, cleaner line down the front, because the eye follows the diagonal from the lapel to the fastened button rather than stopping at a gap. It puts a double layer of cloth across the chest, which gives the jacket more shape than a single layer can hold. And it covers the waist completely, which is the part most grooms miss.

It is the reason he needed no waistcoat

Black tie has a rule that gets forgotten: with a single breasted dinner jacket, the waist has to be covered, by a low cut evening waistcoat or a cummerbund. That is why Joseph wore a waistcoat under his tuxedo earlier in this series.

A double breasted jacket covers its own waist. Nothing shows between the bottom button and the trousers, so there is no waistcoat, no cummerbund and no third piece to buy, fit and wear through a long reception. For a winter wedding that runs from an afternoon church service into the evening, that is one less layer and one less thing to get wrong. Our guide to what to wear to a black tie wedding covers the rest of the dress code.

The trade is that it has to stay done up. A single breasted jacket can be opened when you sit down. A double breasted one hangs open and loses its shape, so it stays fastened whenever you are standing, and the top button is the one that does the work.

The lapel is not a detail

Double breasted jackets take a peak lapel, the shape whose points sweep up towards the shoulder, and on a dinner jacket it is faced in satin. The peak carries the same diagonal as the crossed front, so the whole top half of the jacket points in one direction. A shawl lapel on a double breasted front fights it.

Faced in satin, the lapel is also the only thing on the jacket that catches light. Under a church’s low light, or in a photograph with the colour taken out, that is what separates a tuxedo from a dark suit. Under it James wore a white dress shirt with a turndown collar and French cuffs, fastened with cufflinks, and a black bow tie.

St Mark’s, then the city

They married one afternoon in August at St Mark’s Catholic Church in Drummoyne, under a pointed arch of red brick with white roses banked either side of the door. Then the whole party went into the city for photographs, through the sandstone colonnades around Sydney Town Hall and across Druitt Street to the Queen Victoria Building. Dark stone, black and white tiled floors and a groom in black: the jacket belonged there.

Sophia wore a ballgown with a long sleeve lace bodice and carried white tulips. Against a full skirt and a long veil, a single breasted jacket can look slight. The double breasted front gives the groom the same weight in the frame, which is why the two of them read as a pair in every photograph rather than one dressed up beside one dressed down.

The groomsmen wore the same colour, not the same cut

We made the groomsmen’s suits too. They wore black, with black bow ties and patent shoes, but in single breasted jackets with a notch lapel. It is the simplest way to set a groom apart without dressing him in a different colour: keep the whole line in black and give only him the crossed front and the peak lapel. Their buttonholes were white calla lilies, his a white rose. In the group photographs on the church steps, you can pick him out from across the street.

Is a double breasted tuxedo right for you?

It suits a formal wedding, an evening finish and a groom who is happy to keep his jacket done up all night. It is less forgiving than a single breasted jacket, because the overlap only sits flat if the jacket is cut for your chest, which is an argument for making one rather than hiring one.

Come and try one on in our Sydney CBD or Castle Hill showroom. We will show you a double breasted front beside a single breasted one in the same cloth, which is the only way the difference makes sense. We make tuxedos and wedding suits for the whole party, and the fitting is free.

Next in this series, Maurice wore a black shawl collar tuxedo while his groomsmen wore black suits, the simplest way to set a groom apart in an all black party.

Thank you to James and Sophia for letting us share their day. Ceremony at St Mark’s Catholic Church, Drummoyne. Photography by Bella Dee Photography.