A plain ol’ suit. Since when are a man’s only options a tux, a gorilla costume or a bathing suit?
My “aunt” (not my actual aunt, my dad’s very close friend’s wife, who we call “Aunt”) wore a white dress to my wedding. Several people commented on it, and it looked odd. In the picture with my uncle, with me on one side and and her on the other, it looks like a Mormon wedding, because at first glance, it’s a man with each arm around a woman in an ankle-length white dress. It made her look tacky and wacky. Which, let’s be fair, she totally is. I don’t attribute any malice to her dress choice, just lack of taste. Ah well.
It’s not the formality per se that I’m referring to, but the fact that each individual gets to choose on his or her own how formal to be. That kind of freedom (and acceptance) is a healthy way for society to operate.
And I think the world is a better place when hosts (or employers or clients or whatever) forego having any expectations based on how other people dress. I think the instinct to want to control everyone’s appearance at an event is evidence of a little dictator in our minds.
What about a non-boobalicious one-armed dress with hibiscus flowers against a white background? Is that okay?
actually, I will link the dress…here it is.
I’ve got some American weddings to go to this year and I don’t want to put out my hosts.
Cute dress!
With a big print on it like that, I don’t think anyone’s going to be thinking you’re trying to look like a bride.
Not in my opinion it isn’t. It isn’t a situation I find healthy or comfortable at all. Causes me a lot of stress not to understand the expectations others have for me, or to not have people meet the expectations I have. YMMV. Many, many people find that meeting the expectations for societal norms allows us to function well as a society.
Dress is a sign of showing respect for someone. I wouldn’t wear hip huggers and expose my thong at my father’s retirement party, regardless of how comfortable I felt because it would make him uncomfortable.
You are, of course, free to have an anything goes wedding. You are free to choose friends who don’t care what you show up in. Please do not impose that vision of society on me or my friends.
That’s not a white dress, that’s a print dress. Seems fine to me.
I don’t believe there was anyone else wearing white at our wedding. My wife actually wore three dresses, the traditional white bridal gown, a formal red dress at the beginning of the reception and a traditional red Chinese gown later at the reception. Both her mother and the three bridesmaids wore black dresses (all different styles picked out by them). The reason being they could wear the dresses again for other formal occasions and looked tremendously better than the usual bridesmaid dresses I’ve seen.
Of course our wedding wasn’t very traditional in other ways: it was in a separate room at the same hotel as the reception (not a church), had a humanist minister, we mixed and matched from different wedding traditions and had her uncle translate part of it into Chinese.
A few photos showing the dresses. It looks like my mom and sister both wore pale purple but they still weren’t white.
Exactly! Thank you!
Stunning and perfectly appropriate for any wedding, I would imagine!
If it is appropriate for one man to wear a tux/dinner jacket, then isn’t it appropriate for all the men present to wear a tux? A business suit/lounge suit isn’t formal wear. I don’t think men have ever been subject to the “don’t upstage other men rule” when it comes to dress.
Yeah that’s what confused me. I know close to nothing about menswear but it seems strange to wear the same thing to a wedding as you would to work. I’ve never been to a wedding (i’ve only been to about 3 in my life though) where not everyone was in a tux.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, according to our friend Miss Manners, you’re exactly right. The hybrid weddings that most of us seem to be accustomed to are breaches of etiquette. An event is either formal (and everyone dresses in formal attire) or it isn’t (then nobody does). This is a rule of etiquette, BTW, that I have seen ignored at every wedding I’ve ever attended, my own included. Maybe that says something about the crowd I hang with. 
Wow, all I did was state my opinion on the Internets and I’ve got you pleading for your sanity. 
Anyway, I think your extreme distress proves my point. Free your mind and your ass will follow.
I’m pretty sure the bride posted about this over at Etiquette Hell. At least, I HOPE it was her. Because otherwise it would mean this has happened more than once. CREEPY.
No she’s not. She’s telling you that your personal comfort level is not the most important consideration in a situation involving lots of people, some of whom might consider the event a once in a lifetime moment. Being considerate of others might, for some, be more important than wearing a comfortable outfit.
Your mind can be free, but people will still think you’re an ass if you dress in a way that they feel shows disrespect to them at their important event. You can go ahead and think they’re stuck in mental slavery, but if you care about them, you’ll take into consideration what’s expected of you. I think that’s called being a decent person.
Thanks. No, my mom was born in Massachusetts, raised in Iowa - unless those qualify as foreign cultures!
And she was certainly capable of being an unpleasant bitch. I guess being close to her (and being pretty clueless re: etiquette myself) sometimes I’m unaware of the precise extent of her bitchiness.
You are asking for a standard in which there are no rules. That is no better than having a standard - its just a different standard. One that makes you comfortable, but does not make everyone comfortable. Why is your comfort in social situations more important than mine, your hosts, and everyone around you? The rules that have been being developed by society for as long as we’ve had society? And those rules DO evolve - it is now an old fashioned notion that you shouldn’t wear black to a wedding. However, it isn’t an old fashioned notion that you dress up, unless the host indicates otherwise. Your opinion isn’t freeing for society, its selfish.
Most human beings are most comfortable when they are dressing like/acting like/looking like the norm. Some don’t, but most people aren’t comfortable standing out. Nor are we terribly comfortable with others standing out when they aren’t supposed to. Therefore, social rules have developed so no one has to fear being the only person who wore a dress, or the only person who wore jeans. And so that at a wedding, people are focused on the bride and groom - not they guy who apparently can’t be bothered to find anything respectable to wear.
I’ve been to countless weddings and I’ve never been to one where any of the men but the ones in the wedding party were wearing tuxes.
I think it’s appropriate to point out that my point was not “Dress however you want,” But rather “A society in which other people do not hold expectations regarding how you dress would be a better society.”
I think the difference is significant.
And I think the shrillness of the response again supports my point.
If you get bent out of shape because of the way someone else is dressing, then you’re a prisoner of your own mind.