Could you maybe refuse to go if he doesn’t wear a suit, cause you don’t want to be associated with him then?
Gestalt.
But that’s the point - they did exactly what they pleased. I should never have tried to tell them otherwise: it was inexcusably selfish of me. I’m just lucky they didn’t tell me to go fuck myself and the wedding I rode in on. Because even if they’d worn hessian sacks, the event would have been much worse in their absence.
I think they were following the Golden Rule: if one is being an unreasonable ass, one wants ones friends to point this out.
Yeah, call your husband a scuzzball because he’s an embarrassment to you. That’ll do the trick. To make this work properly, OP should refuse to go to the wedding and then bring it up every time they have any sort of minor dispute: “Well, I would’ve gone to X and Y’s wedding, but you wouldn’t let me!”
Domestic harmony will, I’m sure, ensue.
That is not a correct formulation of the Golden Rule, and deciding to throw a formal party does not make one an ass, unreasonable or any other kind.
Let me just make it clear: if I were giving a formal wedding and someone chose to dress informally, it would be very rude for me to upbraid them, let alone try to exclude them. Manners require us to be polite even to the rude; one does not correct the manners of one’s friends.
That does not change the fact that they would indeed be rude, to be so disdainful towards the event I thought they might like to attend. Invitations can be 1) accepted; 2) declined. They cannot be unilaterally revised. That includes invitations to formal parties.
I think it works pretty well - do unto others etc. But YMMV.
But in any case, I didn’t “decide to throw a formal party”. I got married, and I wanted my friends there. It never even occurred to me to tell them how to dress - except in the case of two people. That was a dreadful mistake on my part, but luckily they were kind enough to tell me I was being an idiot, and to ignore my neurotic demands.
I guess it would have been my right, technically, to say “Show up in dark suits with red ties.” But screw that. I’d never take the piss out of my friends in that way. The worst thing that could happen under these circumstances would be that someone dressed in a way I didn’t care for. So the hell what? It wouldn’t adversely affect me at all. I could never say “Wear a suit or don’t show up.”
I think he should be willing to dress nicely because it is important to you, forget what the social code demands.
I’ve done things that I didn’t particularly want to do because my husband asked me to. One example was his distant cousin’s catholic wedding which required a two day stay in a little tiny town, surrounded by his catholic family. There was the wedding, reception, and the lengthy brunch the next day. Was I excited to go? Not really. Was it important to him? Yes. So I dressed appropriately, which was a little conservative for my taste, and I had as much fun as I could (I do like hotel sex 
).
The point to the story is that if I didn’t love and respect my husband I would have said “screw you” and stayed home. But he wanted me to go and I was happy to go because it made him happy.
I would hope that your husband could make a compromise for your happiness. Maybe if you let him know you’d do it for him, perhaps that you’d even “owe him one” if he wore the proper attire, he’d see it in a different light.
You have a daughter, right? Imagine she’s in high school and she invites you to take her to her school’s father-daughter dance (do they still have those?), and it’s a semi-formal, so you’re expected to wear a suit. Your daughter really wants you to go, and it’s important to her that you not embarrass her by looking vastly different from the other dads. Would you say your daughter is being self-centered in this request? Would you honor it because it would help her to enjoy the dance, even though it’s silly to you? Just curious.
I have two.
I would refuse to wear the suit and tell her she was being shallow. Then my wife would make me do it anyway.
Ah, nothing like a tussle between two stubborn adolescents solved by the level-headed mom! 
Finally, a voice of reason.
If you didn’t tell them how to dress, you didn’t throw a formal party, so all you did for your friends was give them advice, which they ignored. Somewhat snarkily, but still.
Then you didn’t have a formal wedding, so all you did for your two friends was give them advice, which they ignored. Somewhat snarkily, but still.
Right, that would be rude, as I said in my post. One doesn’t say that, and one doesn’t hire a bouncer to evaluate the guests as they come in. One says that the event will be formal, and trusts the guests to behave accordingly (as one always trusts one’s guests to behave themselves). If someone chooses to disregard that, the hosts must still be gracious towards them, but what the guest has done is rude.
Or, if one is me, one doesn’t presume to tell one’s guests what they should wear. At least, not now one has learned one’s lesson - in making a crass assumption that one’s guests were being offered a favour, and that they should simply be damn grateful to be invited and wear what one tells them to.
On the other hand, one could be truly polite and not have the sheer unmitigated gall to tell one’s guests what they should or shouldn’t wear.
One’s photos may not look so pretty, but one will reap one’s rewards multifold in having guests who do not think one is a control freak who regards their presence as something they should be privileged to have been granted.
There is something of a difference between “I feel like having a silly hat party this week” and “This is my wedding”. Dress codes simply isolate. I agree that it is rude to violate such a code, I simply wouldn’t put anyone in that situation to begin with.
She shows you respect? You know she loves you? Or does she tend to go to her mother to confide her secret pain, and usually ask that you not be told? Were I your daughter, I’d be hard pressed to give you the barest modicum of respect, and I certainly wouldn’t confide in you. You would get the “He’s my father” respect not the “I love my Dad” respect from me. Any more than the barest courtesy, is earned. Even when it is a parent child relationship. If you are not going to respect me, and ignore how I feel, much less chew me out and try to guilt trip me, than I am not going to give you an ounce more respect than polite society demands I give my father in public, and don’t push your luck in private or face being told to cram it where the sun don’t shine sideways. ETA: And if I were your daughter in the hypothetical situation described above, I’d refuse to attend with you, knowing mom made you put on the clothing. I accept gestures made by a WILLING heart, not a forced token gesture. And you’d find the relationship significantly cooler afterwards too.
Hell no.
Of course.
My oldest is eight. She doesn’t have secret pain yet. as far as it goes, she knows I’m the soft touch in the family. I’ll usually say yes when mommy says no.
Wow, you’ve really built a very elaborate fantasy of what my relationship with my daughters must be like based solely on the datum tht I don’t like to wear suits. How imaginative.
That’s fine for you, but you don’t get to unilaterally declare all others who give formal events to be rude. It’s a bit of an echo chamber.
You really are putting the worst possible spin on this, aren’t you? Don’t you find it bizarre to describe someone as presumptuous and brazen for issuing an invitation and planning an event?
Has it occurred to you that many people want to be told what to wear, so they don’t feel out of place, or so that they can do honour to their hosts? That’s certainly what a lot of people in this thread have been telling you.
Invitations are a two-way street. The host entertains the guests and provides them with hospitality, and the guests behave themselves and attempt to put up with the form of the event.
I mean, I don’t want to get dramatic, but I almost feel like asking why they are friends with someone whose tastes in social events they despise to the point of not even changing out of their sloppies for that person’s freaking formal wedding. Ostentatiously defying the conventions of a social (and, a fortiori, religious) event to which you have been invited by someone who is theoretically your close friend is a gesture of contempt, not free-spiritedness. Honestly, why not just picket it, or pass out tracts calling besuited guests “conformist sheeple”?
(post in wrong thread)
Vihaga, you should post more often. (That is, as long as you’re making points I agree with. You can email me first to check, if you want.)