Wedding dress code for guests

[Thanksitsfromvinted]

More of a colour scheme as opposed to a dress code. Our wedding is not very traditional we’re going quite relaxed almost festival vibes. OH and myself have decided to save on costs and have no bridesmaids or groomsmen. Both of us have been bm and gm for friends and found it a task and never loved what we’ve had to wear and didn’t want to put that responsibility on people, it also saves us a fortune as we would have had needed to pay for minimum 5 dresses/suits each. Have lots of brothers and sisters between us and loads of lovely friends and we couldn’t really decide who to include in the bridal party without including everyone who came to the day haha! So instead we’re asking our guests to pick a colour from our colour scheme to base their outfit around, there’s quite a few colours to choose from hence the festival vibe and we want to put somewhere that even a hint of the colour is fine (shoes, bag, tie) so it’s not a dress code but more of an encouragement. This is so we can have all our lovely nearest and dearest in photos etc and they all look involved.

I’ve had one or two comments that asking people to dress a certain way is ridiculous, I’ve explained that giving them a colour scheme and their own choice of outfit was meant to be less restrictive than plopping all our family in dresses/suits of our choosing.

what do you think?

Agree Frankola the last two weddings I attended were really tedious .. I felt for the young couple who had obviously tried so hard and spent ££££s on their 'special day' but it felt so flat and 'staged'. Thank goodness I now have the confidence to just (politely) turn down any wedding invitation I receive.

I think its a terrible idea. I have a navy dress that I wore to a previous wedding. I would like to wear it again but if it wasn't in the brides colour scheme I couldn't wear it! Times are hard. You can't dictate what people wear. They are already out of pocket buying a gift, travel, maybe staying in a hotel.

Same here.
I don't go to weddings.
Last one I attended was SIL, but we left after the ceremony.

I find them all incredibly boring, everyone looks so uncomfortable pinched and preened in their spanx, stiff collars, high shoes, having to wear a staged managed smile having to be polite to strangers and relative that they rarely see for good reason.
I can see most people except the drunk ones are counting the minutes till they can leave.
Usually the wedding couple are oblivious.

I can understand the rationale but it really depends on how wide the colour scheme is.

I am really not a 'dress' person, i find it hard to find dresses that suit my shape (short waist). When I do find a something 'wedding suitable' that actually suits me I will frankly take it in whatever colour it comes in.

I wouldn't roll my eyes but reading the invite my heart would sink a little - as I would feel obliged to scour the shops to try and find something in that palette that suits me.

Sounds awful

you haven’t been to the weddings I’ve been to. And indeed mine. Small, intimate, no drama, fabulous food, lots of laughs and love. No photos, no hanging around. A true celebration.

Actually I don’t think there has been much change, from a guest perspective, in the decades since my own wedding. Source and wear appropriate outfit, purchase present ( nowadays usually via a gift registry which is stress free), travel to wedding , stay locally if necessary, eat, drink and be merry. Our wedding all those decades ago did not include children, that was quite common, it’s not a new thing. Couples nowadays may lay on more in the way of entertainment but the basic structure of a wedding remains the same, in my experience.

Don't do this...such a precious (dick!) request!

As always, Mumsnet is populated by by people unable to cope with normal social interactions. At DS’d recent wedding the guests had a whale of a time. No dramas over children not invited ( there would have been 50 small children as they are among the last of their groups of friends to marry), everyone looked fab, appeared relaxed and joyful, mingled and made conversation with old friends/ new acquaintances, drank the champagne and enjoyed the free bar and plentiful delicious food. I didn’t see anyone looking pissed off and the dance floor was full at midnight. No family rows, no unpleasant drunks, no bitching, just happy smiling guests declaring they had ‘just the best time’.

This

Your son’s wedding is like every single wedding I have ever been to (aside from one rather bizarre one!

It is no wonder I see so many threads on mumsnet along the lines of “I am 40 and have no friends”

@Jazzappledelish indeed! They must either turn up, sour faced, and provoke a row with an in-law which leads to going non contact with controlling MiL who has ‘had her turn’ and should now be left to rot, or they stay at home doing their own individual washing, ordering separate take away meals ( as children over the age of twelve shouldn’t be looked after) and congratulating themselves on having put that particular couple in their place.

Sounds like what you’re asking for is cheaper than usual wedding guest attire. Not unreasonable at all.

As a former wedding manager who has ran over 200 weddings minimum (plus I've attended at least 3-4 weddings a year since 2017 (ignoring lockdowns)), I wholeheartedly disagree.
The only people who are "counting down the minutes till they can leave" are the bitter people who either don't like the couple but are attending out of obligation/to be seen to be there, the ones who are pissed off they didn't have a bigger role in the wedding, people who are unmarried and really want to be, or the people who had a painfully boring wedding themselves and don't want others to enjoy themselves.

No no no. With a side of no.

Weddings are a chore enough for most people who aren't directly involved anyway, and as a lot of folk have already said it can already be a daunting task trying to find dressy things to wear without adding the additional pressure of it having to fit some kind of colour scheme (and I know you're saying there would be multiple colours to choose from or whatever but its still an additional requirement which isn't needed).

Do your guests a favour and leave them to attend your wedding with minimum pressure.

Indeed. See also the many threads by posters talking about how lonely they are, how few friends they have...

Your DS's wedding sounds fab!

@Pottedpalm maybe I have high maintenance friends in that case 😂

Not sure why state the OP won't get much support then proceed to give pretty much the same advice as everyone else.

Dreadful idea

What kind of weddings are you attending!? I absolutely love them! Never been to a boring one and never seen anyone bored at one. I have a whale of a time dancing away with friends, some I may not have seen for a while. Laughing all night long. They are often the highlight of my year. And we always have lots of fun stories to tell afterwards.

I wouldn't mind if there were loads of colours to choose from, but I don't really see the point. I do find it generally a bit controlling to have a dress code for guests, it's already enough expense and effort for guests to go. I tried to do everything to make it as easy as possible for people to attend.

We had a colour scheme for flowers but I didn't care what DM or DMIL even wore but they were keen for guidance on colours and ended up wearing outfits that matched the colour scheme, but this was their choice. Best man, DF, DFIL and DH had same suits in the traditional manner but I wouldn't have cared if everyone wanted to wear something different. I had two bridesmaids and gave them a choice of two colours and to pick their own outfits (we all went shopping together. But at the same time I said if they hated both those colours they could have a completely free choice of outfit - and I was paying. In the end they agreed on the same outfit in the same colour!

OP, if you want your guests to have one of your colours in the photos, why not provide something for them in that colour to wave/throw during the photos?
I'm thinking thinks like streamers, tulle squares, flowers, petals etc. Things that would work for the festival theme that are low cost and a nod to your scheme. You could put a flower of each colour on the chairs when people arrive at the ceremony with a note saying keep for the photos.

Saw a man at Glastonbury yesterday dressed as Bob the Builder.
That would make for interesting wedding photos, a CBeebies “colour palette” 😁

The only royal blue thing I own is a pair of jeans, but somehow I don't think your SIL would be very happy if I wore them to her wedding.

If someone WANTS to buy something new to wear to a wedding, that's fine.

But it is not acceptable to force or pressure your guests to buy something new by telling them to dress according to a colour scheme when they may not already have suitable things in their wardrobe. Anyone who does this is an insufferable bride or groom zilla who doesn't appreciate the fact that attending their wedding already involves a certain amount of effort and expense for most people, and it's not fair to add to that pressure just so your photos look cool on Instagram. Particularly given that your marriage is probably less likely to last than that of a couple who have actually understood what a wedding is supposed to be about.

And at risk of stating the obvious, the OP has asked all her guests to dress according to her wedding "theme", not just the people whose wedding she travelled to Italy to attend.

Massive assumptions being made here about a wedding not lasting. They've been together for over 15 years. It was meant as fun and no one had an issue.
She was definitely not a bridezilla.
They live in Singapore and wedding was in the south of France. All guests travelled in from all over the globe - buying a dress or blue accessory was a drop in the ocean in comparison.
Would I have chosen royal blue had she not asked? No. Did I mind having to wear it? No. Some people just wore a nod to the colour - a tie, a scarf, etc.

It was fun and we thought original.

Again, you don't know that no one had an issue. Most people would be too polite to say, or perhaps people did complain, just not to you.

I suppose if they had a fancy pants destination wedding on another continent they had already excluded anyone particularly hard up from coming to their wedding anyway.

But "we've already made attending our wedding a massive ballache costing people thousands anyway" is really not a good justification for adding one more completely unnecessary thing.