Today, Gentle Readers, I would like to talk about weddings. Specifically, the social roles and expectations that seem to show up when we talk about weddings that don't really happen anywhere else. I am on the fence with some of them, and some of them I still think are completely unequivocal.

Take dressing in a certain way (no tuxedos on guests before 12 noon, no matter how formal the ceremony, no pants on women guests if its formal after 6pm, etc). My take on this is that regardless of the time of day or the formalness (or not) of the ceremony, you need to dress in such a way that the bride doesn't feel awkward around you. If she asks you to wear a Carmen Miranda outfit, so be it! If its a beach wedding and she doesn't want people to wear shorts and flip flops, ok. I feel that a wedding is about the bride and groom. If they don't want a stuffy formal affair, then we need to bow to their wishes and be gracious about it. Conversely, if they do want a formal red-carpet ballgown and white tie evening, it's our job as guests to come up to scratch, no matter how we personally feel about opera gloves.

Take a wedding I went to recently. The ceremony was held in an enormous, beautiful, VERY High Church church, more of a mini cathedral than anything. That location almost automatically insisted upon formal wear, right? Well, you'd think so but the bride has a personality and strength of will to match the grandeur of this church and she insisted that dressing up was not an option. She wanted people to wear whatever they felt comfortable in.

So most of her guests showed up in suits and/or business casual attire anyway! Some even went further than that, I saw many women in skirts, and a few gentlemen in formal short kilts.

I'm guessing that 'wear what you feel comfortable wearing' is still going to get trumped by 'we need to respect the event, the couple, and where it's held' every time.