How to Choose the Perfect Cigars for Your Wedding Day
It's one of the questions we're asked most often across the counter at 119 Grafton Street: what cigars should I buy for my wedding?
It's a good question, and the answer isn't simply "the best one you can afford." A wedding cigar has a job to do. It needs to suit the moment, look right in photographs that will be on the wall for the next fifty years, and give you and your guests something to share when the speeches are over and the evening finally slows down.
Here's how we'd think it through, and three cigars we'd happily recommend.
Before you choose: five things worth considering
How will they actually be enjoyed?
This is the question that decides everything else. Are the cigars there for a handful of celebratory photographs between the meal and the band — or are you setting aside a proper half hour for a group to sit out together?
If it's the former, a shorter cigar is your friend. If it's the latter, you have room for something with a bit more to say.
Who's smoking them?
Buying for yourself and your best man is a very different exercise from buying for a group of eight. If the group spans everyone from a committed aficionado to someone lighting their first cigar, a mild- to medium-bodied cigar is almost always the right call. It won't overwhelm a newcomer — particularly on a day when there's drink taken and dinner may be a distant memory — and it still gives an experienced smoker plenty to enjoy.
Strength and quality aren't the same thing. Some of the most refined cigars in the shop are also the gentlest.
Size and smoking time
The single most practical thing to get right. A cigar's length and ring gauge (its diameter, measured in sixty-fourths of an inch) together determine roughly how long you'll be standing outside.
As a rough guide:
- Petit corona and petit robusto, around 4 inches — 25 to 30 minutes. Short, concentrated, and easy to fit between courses.
- Corona and robusto, around 5 inches — 30 to 45 minutes. The sweet spot for most weddings.
- Churchill, toro and anything larger — an hour and upwards. Wonderful cigars, wrong day. You'll miss the speeches.
A wedding is not the occasion for the biggest cigar in the humidor. It's the occasion for the one that fits the gap in the schedule.
Strength and complexity
Related to the above, but not identical. A cigar that builds in strength as it burns is a lovely thing after dinner, when everyone has eaten and settled. The same cigar during the drinks reception, on an empty stomach, is a different experience entirely — and not always a happy one.
Match the cigar to the point in the day.
How many, and what budget?
Weddings are not cheap, and we've never seen the sense in pretending otherwise. The good news is that there's a genuinely excellent cigar at most price points.
For numbers: count the people you actually expect to smoke, then add two or three. Someone who swore they wouldn't will change their mind, and one will inevitably go astray between the venue and the smoking area.
Three cigars we'd recommend
Davidoff Signature 2000 — the timeless classic
- FormatPetit corona, 5″ × 43
- Smoking time30–40 minutes
- BodyMild to medium
- NotesToasted oak, cream, a touch of coffee
- Best forMixed groups and the drinks reception
If you want the quintessential wedding cigar, it's hard to look past the Signature 2000. It's the most popular cigar Davidoff make, by a wide margin, and it has been for decades.
The white band is the reason it works so well here. Against a morning suit or a wedding dress it looks entirely at home, and it photographs beautifully — a small thing, until you're looking back at the pictures. The blend itself is smooth and approachable, with toasted oak, a real creaminess to the smoke, and just enough character to keep an experienced smoker interested. It's as good a first cigar as anyone could ask for.
At 30 to 40 minutes, it's long enough to savour properly, share a glass of champagne with people you haven't seen in years, and still be back inside before the next song.
Shop the Davidoff Signature 2000
Davidoff Grand Cru No. 5 — elegant, with a little more character
- FormatPetit corona, 4″ × 41
- Smoking time25–30 minutes
- BodyMild to medium
- NotesOak, dried fruit, hazelnut, gentle spice
- Best forA shorter break between courses
For anyone who wants a touch more complexity without losing that refined, elegant profile, the Grand Cru No. 5 is a superb choice.
It's a shorter cigar than the Signature 2000 and a shade slimmer, which concentrates the flavour: oak, dried fruit and hazelnut, with a gentle spice underneath and a smooth balance from the first draw to the last. Another white band, so it sits alongside the Signature 2000 perfectly if you'd like to offer a choice of two.
Twenty-five to thirty minutes is exactly the right length for a wedding. Enough to step outside, enjoy it properly, and rejoin the celebrations — perhaps catching the conga line as it passes.
Shop the Davidoff Grand Cru No. 5
James J. Fox Selección No. 1 — the exclusive choice
- FormatPetit robusto, 4″ × 50
- Smoking timeAround 30 minutes
- BodyStarts just shy of medium and builds
- NotesLeather, earth, sweetness, black pepper and spice
- Best forAfter the wedding dinner
If you'd like your wedding cigar to be something nobody else can offer you, this is it.
The Selección No. 1 is the shortest of our three vitolas — a petit robusto, long-filler and entirely handmade in Honduras from Honduran and Nicaraguan tobacco. The gold band is a genuinely handsome piece of work, and if it happens to match a wedding ring, so much the better.
It's the richest of the three cigars here. It begins just shy of medium-bodied and gradually builds as it goes, with leather and earth, a thread of sweetness, and layers of black pepper, spice and malt underneath. There's more complexity to it and more weight to the smoke — which is precisely why we'd point you towards it for after the wedding dinner rather than the drinks reception. Light it once the plates are cleared, when there's time to sit with family and tell the stories that only come out at weddings.
It's exclusive to James J. Fox in Dublin and London, and it's a cigar nearly 145 years in the making. There's something fitting, we think, in carrying a little of our legacy into the day you begin your own.
Shop the James J. Fox Selección No. 1
Don't forget the finishing touches
The detail most often overlooked is the simplest one: how you'll actually cut and light the cigars on the day.
- A cutter. Bring a good one, or ask us to cut your cigars before you leave the shop so they're ready to go. Nothing takes the shine off a moment like a cigar butchered with a steak knife. If you'd like something with a little more weight to it — or something worth keeping long after the day — see our full selection of cutters here.
- A lighter. A James J. Fox jet flame lighter is windproof, which matters more than you'd think in an Irish beer garden in June. It's also a handsome thing to have in hand in a photograph. For something finer, whether for yourself or as a gift for the best man, see our full selection of lighters here.
- Something to carry them in. Most people buy singles rather than a full box for a wedding, so a small case will keep them in good condition between the shop and the venue. Ask us and we'll prepare them for travel, or see our full selection of cigar cases and humidors here.
A word on the practicalities
Check with your venue before the day — where you're allowed to smoke, and whether there's shelter if the weather turns. Pick your moment so it doesn't collide with the speeches or the first dance. And offer rather than assume; not everyone will want one, and that's grand.
Come and talk to us
Every wedding is different, and the best recommendation is always the one made in person. Call in to us at 119 Grafton Street or get in touch, and we'll help you find the cigar that suits your day.
Whatever your wedding style, there's a cigar to match the moment.