Jewelry Rules

[mbh]

Thou shalt not wear gold and silver jewelry together

One of the more posh jewelry stores in town recently ran an ad for jewelry composed of gold and silver strands braided together. Looked OK to me. Maybe it was white gold and red gold.

Black is supposedly too stark and funereal for what is supposed to be a festive occasion, although I’m told it’s quite commonplace at posh urban weddings.

My brother had a black-and-white wedding. The groomsmen wore tuxedos with black trousers and white jackets. The bridesmaids wore black evening gowns. The decorations were mostly white, with black accents. Not funereal at all. And the rest of the relatives found it easy to co-ordinate their outfits with the color scheme!

[amarinth]

@PookahMacPhellimey

Hey, while we’re at it. Is there anything in this thing of not wearing black to a wedding? Most of my friends say this is nonsense, but I have lingering doubts. As about 90% of my clothes are actually black (including numerous swanky black dresses), I’d be grateful to get clearance to wear them to weddings and not feel uneasy.

You’re right, your friends are “trendy.” Black, despite its slimming properties, is still a color of mourning, and so wearing black at a wedding is basically wearing mourning clothes at something that should be a celebration. It’s saying “how awful it is that they’re getting married…makes me want to cry.” So, no wearing black.

[ZipperJJ]

@Excalibre

Red is not a suitable color for weddings because it’s a color that our visual systems are inherently strongly attuned to. If you’re wearing red, it looks flashy and as though you’re seeking attention, at least to some people, and it’s considered to be an insulting attempt to distract people from the event. Plus, red implies passion (romantic or angry), and hopefully wedding guests manage to keep their passion in check (or at least in private, perhaps in the bathroom) because, in the end, a wedding is the bride and groom’s event, and it’s supposed to focus pretty exclusively on them.

:smack: So not only did i wear little sparkly diamonds, I had on a deep pink - near red - dress. And hot pink shoes.

I had a fishy feeling that all of the compliments I received on my dress were the southerners polite way of saying “tone it down, honey”

I don’t think I should ever show my face in the South again!

[moriah]

The first rule of Jewelry is there is no talking of Jewelry!

============

Wear what looks good. If you have a yellow and white dress that can make gold and silver work together, go for it.

If the diamonds and pearls look good, go for it.

If the black dress looks elegant without being Italian widow funereal, go for it.

If it’s summer and 90 degrees at night, and you have a light white dress which in no way overshadows the wedding dress, go for it. (Go with cream-white.)

If you have a red dress which does not make you look like the whore of Babylon, go for it.

If your dress is strapless and backless and is simply a glorified halter top formed into the shape of a bosom from which your boobs can pop out simply by doing the bunny hop, then you are the whore of Babylon (and yes, I’m looking at 50% of the ladies showing up to weddings nowadays).

Peace.

[GilaB]

Excalibre, your location says you’re in Michigan - is the ‘no red’ rule a Midwestern thing? Are you originally from the South, and it’s a Southern thing? I’ve never heard of it before, but I’ve never been to a southern wedding. (Mostly New York metro area, a few in Maryland, one in upstate NY (a very different cultural region from NYC), one in Toronto, and two in Israel.) Of course, at the weddings I mostly go to (those of observant Jews), probably half the guests are wearing black. Old, young, trendy, not - black is a very popular option. One or two might even wear white! People routinely congratulate the bride, too. There are tons of other clothing and behavior rules that you’ve never heard of, but they’re not very relevant outside of this subpopulation. (Thou Shalt Not Dance With the Opposite Sex, or on the Side of the Dance Floor Belonging to the Opposite Sex. Thou Shalt Not Touch Members of the Opposite Sex that are Not Your Immediate Relatives, Even to Congratulate the Bride/Groom. Thou Shalt Not Expect to Understand a Word of the Wedding Ceremony. If female: Thou Shalt Not Wear a Skirt That Does Not Cover Thy Knees, But Thou Shalt Wear a Skirt. Thy Neckline Shall Reach the Vicinity of Thy Collarbone. Thy Sleeves Must Cover a Significant Percentage of Thine Arm. There are plenty more, and it’s almost impossible to get it exactly right unless you’re also a member of the group; this is OK, in that nobody expects others to follow the rules exactly so much as be respectful and try.)

Seriously, if a) people complemented you on it, b)you didn’t act like a jerk, and c)you were obviously not a member of the group (ie when you opened your mouth, you didn’t sound like a Southerner), you were probably OK. But if you need to know, so you can adjust your clothing choices for the next Southern wedding you go to, ask someone who was there who’d know the unwritten rules.

And yeah, talking jewelry is almost always a bad move.

[Cervaise]

@ZipperJJ

If anyone has any more fashion rules that I need to be aware of, please share.

After Labor Day and until Memorial Day, the genitals must remain concealed.

[chrisk]

@amarinth

You’re right, your friends are “trendy.” Black, despite its slimming properties, is still a color of mourning, and so wearing black at a wedding is basically wearing mourning clothes at something that should be a celebration. It’s saying “how awful it is that they’re getting married…makes me want to cry.” So, no wearing black.

Just out of curiosity, what if a person is wearing black constantly at the time, as a signal of mourning?? Someone who has recently lost a very dearly loved one? Are they expected to put that aside temporarily when attending a wedding?

[Mr.Blue_Sky]

@Excalibre

But if you wear something traditionally considered inappropriate to a wedding, be aware that some people may be offended, and if they indicate it to you, you don’t have much right to go around insisting they have no right to be. Most of the things you do communicate something, and it’s better to be aware of what you’re communicating, so as not to suggest something you don’t want to, than to insist that people shouldn’t worry about such things. It’s simple manners, really.

As long as the bride and groom are not offended then everybody else knows what they can do.

[Excalibre]

@GilaB

Excalibre, your location says you’re in Michigan - is the ‘no red’ rule a Midwestern thing? Are you originally from the South, and it’s a Southern thing?

Born and raised in Michigan, actually. I don’t think this is a southern notion, but it may be either fairly strict or old-fashioned. I’ve had discussions of these sorts of things with friends, though, and I think it’s a reasonably well-known rule among people I know. And they’re not necessarily originally midwestern, either.

Interesting comments regarding Jewish weddings, though. Of course, observant Jewish weddings are quite different in a lot of ways than the Christian (and Christian-influenced but not particularly religious) occasions I’ve usually witnessed. I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if the traditions are different regarding acceptable clothes for the wedding. I mean, if grandma and grampa can’t even stand next to each other during the traditional chicken dance . . .

@Mr. Blue Sky

As long as the bride and groom are not offended then everybody else knows what they can do.

People justify not believing in good manners in all sorts of ways - it’s dishonest, I’m not hurting anyone, it’s called self-expression, it’s shallow to judge people based on how the dressed, and so on. It’s also shallow to put your personal desire to wear black or red to a wedding ahead of the comfort and happy feelings of others. Like I said, if it was a non-mainstream wedding, with attendees and participants dressed in nontraditional ways, no problem. But if it’s in a church, and the bride’s wearing white, then even if they wouldn’t care (or, at least, wouldn’t care enough to make an issue with you) there’s still the bride and groom’s parents, and old Aunt Gertrude, and various other folks around. It’s a special day for Aunt Gertrude too, you know, and she may be more traditional than the newlyweds. And the newlyweds might not want to end up hearing clicking tongues later on, and they might not want to make excuses to Aunt Gertrude for what she perceives as boorish behavior.

After all, everyone knows a wedding’s only sorta about the people getting married. It’s also a family and community event, and etiquette is a set of principles for people to get along. And it’s especially good when people don’t know each other very well (not to imply that you can treat your friends rudely, of course.) Besides, most of us want others to like us, shallow as it is, and so we might make the deep, dishonest, shameful sacrifice of not wearing that black sweater if it makes others more inclined to think we’re decent folks.

But in the end, if you, like many other people, want to satisfy your own minor personal desires no matter what others may think, go for it. Aunt Gertrude’s tongue-clicking is probably a pretty reasonable response to that.

[Mr.Blue_Sky]

@Excalibre

And the newlyweds might not want to end up hearing clicking tongues later on, and they might not want to make excuses to Aunt Gertrude for what she perceives as boorish behavior.

I would categorize this as offending the B&G.

It’s a special day for Aunt Gertrude too, you know, and she may be more traditional than the newlyweds.

Tough for the old dame. It’s not her show.
It’s not like I would go to a wedding dressed like Bozo the Clown after a three-day binge.

Side note: I had a friend whose wife thought she could show Miss Manners a thing or two. When challenged about the now-defunct “no white after Labor Day” bit, she (like nearly everyone I’d asked) could not give a good reason other than, “You just don’t”.

This type of attitude borders on the very snobbery of ole’ Aunt Gertrude.

[Zsofia]

It’s entirely appropriate in this day and age to wear some black to a wedding - a top or skirt, for example. You just don’t want to wear unenlivened black for sure, as in the advice to the pregnant lady cited earlier.

You will probably not be talked about now if you wear a black evening gown to an evening formal wedding. For one thing, few people have a whole lot of evening clothes to choose from. It’s nice to wear something else, and it’s technically more appropriate to wear another color, but it’s not something you shouldn’t attend the wedding for. It would, of course, be far more rude to say something to a lady in black.

Now, I think it is rather inappropriate to wear all black to, say, a morning garden wedding where most of the women are in colorful sundresses. As in most occaisions, black is more appropriate in the evening.

It does, of course, all depend on whose wedding it is, what sort of crowd is going to be there, and the level of formality of the event.

[clairobscur]

@Scarlett67

The red thing I’ve never heard. What, too flashy? (At my wedding the bride wore red and didn’t give a flip what anyone else wore. Well, except the groom.)
.

Reminds me of an old lament. In the song, the groom had been involved for seven years with a woman and announce her he’s going to marry another one, and invites her to his marriage. She comes up wearing a golden dress to show she ruled over the groom’s heart, and a red dress to show her anger.

So, perhaps there used to be something about wearing red at the ceremony meaning that you dissaprove/ are angered by the wedding. Just a guess.
(By the way, since it’s a lament, of course, both die at the end. The rejected woman just drop dead after a last dance with her former lover, who then commit suicide)

[Mithril]

I think the idea behind not wearing a red dress is that you should not by any means take attention away from the bride. Anything flashy is not appropriate. But I think a deep red dress is considered OK.

Re: jewelry rules…Only one color of jewels at a time. Clear doesn’t count against your total.

[amarinth]

@chrisk

Just out of curiosity, what if a person is wearing black constantly at the time, as a signal of mourning?? Someone who has recently lost a very dearly loved one? Are they expected to put that aside temporarily when attending a wedding?

From “Guide for the Turn of the Millenium,” wearing gray, mauve, and black, that the bereaved person can still avoid dressing gaily to show that they’re still in mourning, but not in all black at social events.