September is the fourth largest month for weddings. According to the Association for Wedding Professionals International, 213,000 people were married September of 2008. September is a tricky month for finding the appropriate wedding attire. It is still warm enough to have an outdoor wedding, though the weather is unpredictable and can turn at any moment.
With that said the question that pops into most people’s minds is “What am I going to wear especially in this season?” This is a question that contrary to popular belief plagues both men and women. (Mostly it is because women are usually pestering the men for ideas on what to wear to the afore mentioned weddings.)
All joking aside it is a matter that most people take very seriously. Many brides think about what the guests are going to wear even in the planning of the wedding. Many sites have cheat sheets for guests so that they can plan what they are going to wear based off of the littlest detail, like what the wedding invitation looks like.
The knot.com is one site in particular that has a guest dress cheat sheet. In theirs they go through what would be deemed appropriate based on what the invite says. For example if the wedding invite says black tie. The knot.com suggests you should wear a cocktail dress or something very “chic” and of course a tuxedo for a guy. This is the most formal type of attire and will most likely be a rare one for college students and recent graduates.
Dressy casual and casual are most likely the top two choices for weddings. For example a friend had an outdoor wedding on Sunday. The guests had a large range of clothing choices, some more casual than others. Of course the wedding party was dressed to the nines with pinstripe tuxedos on the gentleman and long black and white gowns on the ladies. Yet some of the guests showed up in jeans and shorts.
Now the location was definitely suitable for jeans, since it was a rural farm area with a nice grassy knoll and pond, and the wedding invitation did not specify what to wear. But why ruin the natural and romantic location by not dressing appropriately. The knot.com says jeans are not appropriate for the most casual of weddings. They actually suggest that you should go business casual in order to be on the “safe side.”
Many people may ask, “What is business casual?” Gentlemen this would mean a nice pair of slacks with a nice shirt and polo, preferably tucked in so that you look presentable. For the ladies this could be a whole array of options. The knot.com suggests a skirt with a blouse or a nice summer sundress. If it is getting towards cooler weather you may want to wear a nice casual dress or pair your sundress with a nice shrug in case the weather turns on you, especially with an outdoor wedding. Even if the wedding does not specify what styling is appropriate you can generally go with the standby of what time of day it is. Morning weddings are more casual, afternoon wedding can go from dressy casual to slightly formal, and evening weddings are generally more of formal attire.
Shorts, on the other hand, go into the jean and tank top category as probably not wedding wear appropriate. Guys you can suffer through a couple hours of wearing pants and a nice shirt. Also if you are single, looking well put together may help attract the equally well put together ladies.
The writer has a good idea for this column an with a stronger beginning, a nearly publishable piece.
ReplyDeleteStronger?
Start with September being a difficult month for clothing for weddings - or anybody, really. Think about how damn cold the Mendocino computer lab is!
Also, the writer starts with a statistic from an authority, but then abandons that authority (or others) for the balance of the column... It needs someone other than writer to say what business casual is, for example.
And the ending - that dressing well might be an attraction for the opposite sex - could be a little more cleverly phrased, though it makes for a good conclusion.
For example:
And to those guys who just won't dress up for a weeding? You're not going to get to take home a gorgeous bridesmaid in a long gown wearing your three-year-old Nike shorts, not matter how good you think you look in them.