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?

Massive assumptions being made here about a wedding not lasting. They've been together for over 15 years.

The shortest marriage I am aware of was where the couple had already been together 15 years. Lovely wedding it was too.

Why not let me hem just wear whatever colour they like (already have a wedding outfit in. They might not want to buy a new outfit and have something suitable in their wardrobe but not in one of your colours.

Again, massive assumptions here. They live in Singapore but are French. They came home for their wedding - not a fancy destination wedding. They had been living in Asia for over 10 years so many friends had to travel to get to the wedding. They are also from different parts of France so all family/friends had to travel, even if coming from within France. They are lovely, "normal" people.
My take on french people is that they are generally more relaxed so I very much doubt anyone would have truly cared. Perhaps a passing comment, moan or eye roll and move on. Not a biggie.

It’s your wedding, you can do what you want…but if that entails dictating a dress cos but also telling everyone it’s fun and relaxed just be prepared for significant eye rolling, people to be talking about it behind your back and on the day.

I live in France and got married in France. I've been to at least ten French weddings and yes, they were more relaxed. A dress code is the opposite of relaxed, as many people in this thread have said.

Totally agree @Jeclop

Maybe you need to take a good look at the people you are friends with @speakout , as I've never seen this at weddings. They are always lovely days in their own ways and populated by people who want to be there and who know how to socialise with others.

Just print your wedding photos in black and white. Everyone matches. Job done.

Good god....I don't think I would even go if I got an invite with that in it!

Stop being ridiculous, people should be able to wear whatever they want.

I think it sounds fine tbh! If it’s phrased as just a suggestion/ invitation to wear those colours, why not?

I’d love to know which colours it is out of curiosity!

At my wedding I was tempted to say “no hats” as I don’t really like them at weddings, but didn’t in the end as perhaps someone enjoy wearing their “wedding hat” 😂

👏👏👏👏👏

Getting pelters, OP, but I like it as well, mainly cos I like a style assignment, and it feels like joining in, but given that it’s optional I don’t see a problem, if people don’t fancy it, due to expense, or because they have their own look, whatever reason, you’ve said there’s no obligation and they don’t have to.

i dunno if anyone else has posted this…

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/w4z647/aita_for_making_our_guests_participate_in_our/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1

If I received an invitation with this on, I'd roll my eyes, laugh my head and think "yeah whatever" 😂

We were similar in many ways:

No bridesmaids or page boys - but lots of children invited and milling around.
No formal seating plan - sit where you like.
No colour scheme - we couldn't be arsed.
We split up the speeches across the event as we preferred that.
Everyone invited to all of it.

Where we differ is:

No dress code - apart from asking people to be comfortable. If people are questioning your choice could it be more about the wording on the invitation rather than the request itself?

I have heard it all now. Please don't do this.

God people are so miserable. I don’t see anything wrong with it. A dress code for an event is really not exactly unheard of and it’s really not difficult to base your outfit around a certain colour. I wouldn’t want any of these eye rolling miserable gits at my wedding anyway. By chance a lot of people wore red to my wedding and I love that people are matching in the photos it looks great. Do what you like a ignore the haters

Please don't. If I got an invite like that, I wouldn't go.

That’s ridiculous and so hypocritical to you apparently being ‘relaxed’…
let guests wear what they want

I’d deliberately wear a colour not on the list

Lots of colours to choose from and you are happy if guests incorporate with something small like their shoes… I’m not sure how this is going to make them look “involved” in the photos. Sounds like it won’t be obvious that there is a colour scheme at all. Seems a bit pointless to be honest.

It depends on how you approach it.

i really wanted to put ‘Black Tie’ on my invitations but decided it would cause too much stress and expense for my guests.
instead I talked to my friends about it.

some said I should have and they’d have loved it. I explained why I didn’t but that I hoped they’d take the wedding as an opportunity to really dress up and go glam.
not that I was expecting them to otherwise choose rags to wear but sometimes women hold back at weddings for fear of upstaging their bridal party.

the blokes obviously wore suits (so much easier for men) but the women all looked fab in their black tie / cocktail dresses.

just have a conversation with your friends

Yes, me too! 🙄

@Thanksitsfromvinted i think we need to know EXACTLY how you’ve phrased the request!

I think this is where invites are important for setting the tone. If I were to relieve a very classic one I would dress so, a brightly coloured fun one and so on.

Having said that I have given stress codes for events before but would say 'festival vibes'

I think it’s a Fantastic Idea, if I’d had my way I’d have worn a rainbow wedding dress but I chose a pink Ballet style one, neither my future MIL nor my mother would come at that, I thought my mil was going to shit pink marbles when I told her so, Veto that, I ended up wearing a white & pink taffeta & lace monstrosity that I hated.

Should have called their bluff... They wouldn't have missed the wedding just because you had a different colour dress.