My niece married a couple weeks ago. The happy couple are young - just graduated college in 2013. The bride was beautiful, the groom handsome, and the bridesmaids and groomsmen looked dapper. All the guests, including a lot of young 20-somethings were dressed up. Two really stood out to me - one was the photographer in a chapel, wearing capri-length yoga pants and a T shirt. The other was one of the young quests wearing a skirt that barely covered her…assets. The photographer was teh one that got me - she certainly should’ve known how to dress at a wedding.
This was many years ago, when I was in my late twenties. My friend invited me to her wedding reception. It was a bit of a short notice, hey we got married at city hall, the reception is next weekend event, which should have been my first clue. I arrived, dressed in what I thought appropriate for a wedding reception - a mid calf length semi-formal dress and low heels.
The reception was a backyard barbecue at someone’s house and most of the guests were in shorts and tee shirts. I wish my friend had mentioned the informality of the event when she invited me - I was way overdressed. I also got a few looks when after the party ended, some of us, bride and groom included, headed off to the local bar to play some pool and have a few more drinks.
I went to a bank for a loan (opening a restaurant) with my partners dressed in secondhand paratroop camouflage pants and a Clash t-shirt. I was given no warning for this meeting. At least I didn’t have my terrorize the rich t-shirt on:eek:
My, you Catholics are prigs! At my church a woman can now wear open-toed shoes without exciting comment, even if she’s assisting in the service! Is it because Evangelical Lutherans are more liberal? There’s that, but it’s mostly because the grumpy old Norskies who did most of the complaining have died or given up.
I’m confused about how dragging attention away from the bride is a real no-no. I thought weddings and wedding receptions were all about horny young people hooking up. Never saw much use for them otherwise (thread to come in IMHO).
I attended a wedding that we were told up front was a Western themed wedding, so everybody wore cowboy boots and hats, no problem. But the wedding at was the home of the parents of a friend of the bride. The home owners were not attending, so they told everybody that we were to stay OUTSIDE the entire time. It had just rained, and the grounds were a mud pit. The bride’s wedding gown wound up caked in mud all along the hem.
I used to work with a woman who was a MtF transgender. One day she wore a see-through blouse with no bra. She was taken aside and counseled, and never dressed like that again.
No, I’ve seen a lot of people dressed informally at Masses – at least regular ones. Wearing jeans and tshirts aren’t a big deal. (Although dressing like a hooker certainly is!) At a funeral or a wedding? Hell yeah, that’s really, really bad.
My wife has a great saying in her culture for people who dress inappropriately like in many of these anecdotes: sin verguenza, which means “without shame”. Its usually used for people that dress too provocatively for the occasion. I’ve joked with my wife that her culture does its fair share of slut shaming; half the women are dressed provocatively (no problem with me!) and the other half are talking shit about the women that are. But maybe this is a universal thing women do, and not limited to Mexican culture.
She takes great pride in emphasizing that her and her family dress to impress, but she won’t hesitate to complain to me about how [cousin] has a dress that is too skimpy/short/tacky/etc. When I call her out on the hypocrisy she points out that she’s far more critical of people in her own culture ‘breaking the rules’ than people outside of it.
I should add that she’s not ‘jealous’ of other women, or if I notice another woman dressed provocatively. Its just the concept that some other woman would have the gall to dress inappropriately slutty that bothers her
This concept cracks me up - how are you not going to notice the woman in the foofy white gown and veil? Does the woman who shows up dressed like a hoochie-mama make everyone in the church forget why they’re there??
Yeah, just a little eensy bit of sarcasm there. And I’m not defending those who don’t know how to dress for the occasion - heck, I’m as far from a fashion plate as one can get but I know what appropriate attire is. I just giggle at the mental image of the entire wedding brought to a screeching halt and not resuming because Slutty Sally has arrived. :eek:
Almost forgot this one! Midsummer backyard poolside wedding, third wedding so the bride was wearing a tea length cocktail dress, which was my cue what to wear. The groom’s two daughters, who were grown women in their late 30s, showed up in shorts and ratty t shirts. Their brother, who was performing the ceremony, was wearing a suit. The pictures are quite interesting!
I don’t think it’s the worry that it will make the bride look bad by comparison, it’s chiding that you will look bad in multiple ways if you think you can try to outshine the bride. I think most people know of a wedding with a jealous bridesmaid, a bridesmaid who’s only concerned about looking sexy, or a mother-in-law who thinks she’s got to show off. Phrasing it as “don’t outdo the bride” is a polite way of telling people like that to behave and not be an attention whore; you can couch it in nice terms of it being the bride’s special day.
Single word, cari, and it actually happens to have a direct translation to English: shameless
Long time since this happened, but once we were in Mass in a sleepy little beach town in Spain when a group of five people came in talking loudly in foreigner (some sort of Germanic language but it’s been a long time, I was shorter back then) and got promptly intercepted by a local lady who pointed at the sign near the door. It said, very graphically, “long shorts and Ts ok; swiming trunks, see-throughs, short-shorts not ok”. As they sheepishly left, she went back to her bench mumbling “bikinis! We’ll have to add bikinis to the picture! I can’t believe they came in wearing bikinis!”
At my own wedding, just one guest was dressed so weirdly almost everyone else commented on it.
It was a Sunday-morning garden affair, very sedate and about talking and socializing and eating rather than drinking and partying. Most of the female guests were wearing day dresses or nice pants and blouses, the men in our families were in suits and the male guests in slacks and shirts with ties, etc. Generally everyone got the memo of “going to church or a garden party” type wear. The girlfriend of one of my husband’s coworkers turned up wearing a bright lilac haltered cocktail dress cut so low it showed off most of her boobs, shorty-short hem halfway up her thighs, and the whole thing was spangled with glitter and rhinestones. Her eye makeup was very dark smoky-eyed “going to the club” and she had accessorized with four-inch spiked heels.
I didn’t see her until the reception, but apparently the looks on the faces of my mother and mother-in-law, upon spotting her, was Something To Behold.
The wedding posts reminded me of another one, my aunt’s fairly formal Saturday evening wedding. This was in the early 80s. Bride, bridesmaids, flowergirl (me!), and mothers all in floor-length gowns. Groom, groomsmen, and fathers in tuxes. Guests mostly in church-going type attire. I say mostly because my uncle, mom and aunts’ youngest brother, showed up in jeans, t-shirt, and sandals. At least his clothes were clean and neat looking. Uncle’s wife at the time was wearing raggedy cut-off jeans, a terrycloth tube top, and flip flops. Needless to say the pictures with the whole family in them were interesting.
My daughter wore a gorgeous snowy white gown to her second wedding. Her and the groom’s three-month-old baby girl was part of the ceremony, and wore a matching miniature white gown.
None of this was my idea, by the way. It was the groom’s first wedding, and his parents went all out, including choosing and paying for the baby’s dress. Regardless, it was a beautiful wedding.
If you are suggesting that the bride wearing white indicates she is a virgin, that’s not quite true, and I can guarantee there will be at least one smarter-than-you-ass there who will be prepared to point out that the custom of a bride wearing white goes back to Queen Victoria wearing all-white for her wedding to Prince Albert, and that it was an unusual choice at the time, when people tended to deck out in a lot of colors, if they could afford a new dress, and to simply wear the nicest thing they owned otherwise. But after Victoria’s wedding, brides all over the UK, and eventually America and then Europe began wearing white. The idea that white symbolizes virginity is a meaning that became attached to white dresses later, maybe to justify the expense. I dunno; I was married in a blue dress that cost $24.50, but it looked good.
I was invited to the small wedding of a very young couple, and so many of their friends were “inappropriately dressed” that no one stood out. The bride got the giggles during the exchange of vows, and couldn’t stop for five minutes. Eventually we were all laughing along with her. It was one of the most fun, memorable weddings I’ve attended.
At the courthouse I work at, there is no particular dress code for people who are not court personnel (accused, witnesses, public, etc.)
Still, it always startles me when someone who is plainly not indigent wears completely casual clothing, particularly when they’re the accused. I’d have thought they would dress up at least to the extent of a collared shirt and clean pants. If I were to be accused of a crime, I’d want to come across as taking the whole matter as seriously as possible.
As it is, the dress code for interpreters amounts to “no jeans and nothing flashy,” so I typically wear black slacks, a collared shirt (although I have gotten away with brightly coloured ones) and a tie, which I believe is not strictly necessary but which makes me feel more comfortable.
At my church a woman can now wear open-toed shoes without exciting comment, even if she’s assisting in the service! Is it because Evangelical Lutherans are more liberal? There’s that, but it’s mostly because the grumpy old Norskies who did most of the complaining have died or given up.
Does the woman who shows up dressed like a hoochie-mama make everyone in the church forget why they’re there??
