Wedding guest dress - splash out on silk or stick to budget?

[PopsicleSchtick]

I have two weddings to attend this summer (a cousin’s and a friend’s) - both similar in style (country hotel) but with completely different guest lists, so thankfully I only need one dress for both!

I’ve fallen in love with dress A from Hobbs. It’s definitely over budget, but it’s also pure silk, and part of me is thinking “You get what you pay for”.

https://www.johnlewis.com/hobbs-ann-floral-pure-silk-dress-multi/p113606997

However, £350 is a hell of a lot. So I’m also looking at dress B - also from Hobbs, but viscose, so significantly cheaper. I don’t think the quality will be quite as great, but on the other hand, anything from Hobbs isn’t going to be your standard Primani viscose:

www.johnlewis.com/hobbs-carly-floral-dress-blue-multi/p113526626

What would you do? Also open to other suggestions! I’m tall (5ft 10) and a size 12, with dark hair; I find bolder colours and prints tend to suit me.

I quite like this.

Red apparently means you are the groom’s ex! 🤣

You forgot “No green”! Someone usually pops up to say it’s bad luck to wear green to a wedding.

Green traditionally isn't supposed to be worn in Church.Too Pagan.
Fine for weddings in general.

There's not like there's a shortage of non white/cream, funeral or red outfits.

or even a high quality viscose (which is less than ideal, yes, but is a step up from 100% polyester).

If you're looking at it from an ethical point of view high quality viscose is a bit more than "a step up" from polyester.

The plants used for viscose can be grown on poor quality soil, so unlike cotton not removing land from food production ; they use far less water than cotton and far less pesticide. Aside from that Tencel has a beautiful, silky, heavy drape to it.

So far as polyester, there's polyester and polyester. I don't have a great deal of polyester but brands like Sister Jane, Erdem, Baum und Pferdgarten make fabulous clothes in high quality polyester.

I like both those Hobbs dresses. They aren't remotely frumpy, or "old", though they are undeniably conservative. My worry about buying an expensive dress would be anxiety that the mother of the bride or groom, for example, might be in the same dress - think how mortified she'd be. My daughter was married quite recently, and I wanted a lovely floral silk dress rather than a typical "mother of the bride" costume, and there was one from Hobbs I considered. In the end it was worry that a well-heeled guest might be in the same one that put me off it, and I went for a more obscure and slightly pricier label!

Similar near miss at a recent wedding I went to, where the bride's mother wore a (very lovely) Me and Em dress. A fellow guest remarked that she had the same one and had very nearly worn it herself.

In the 1980s I went to a wedding in a bright coral dress from Wallis (oh, the sophistication - I adored that one). Sat down in the pew and the woman in front of me was wearing exactly the same. Nothing to do but laugh about it.

"That is crazy. In addition to no white, no black, no cream, no red, no pale pastel dresses, we are now saying no printed dresses as they will draw attention away from the bride? Come on!"

Yep, I've seen those posts @BingoJam - reckon pretty much all prints and colourways have been cancelled on MN at one time or another! Not forgetting the classic white, cream or ivory of course. And if all else fails it can go in the frumpy / "occasionwear😖" bin

Makes it extra difficult when you go into shops and a lot of wedding guest-y stuff is in precisely those colours. The Zara I went in yesterday was awash with black and ecru.

Yes, for me this is another reason for shopping on Vinted or clearance sections - as well as the obvious cost saving, it reduces the chance of someone else having exactly the same dress.

I complimented someone on their dress at the Chelsea Flower Show last year and she ruefully said she’d seen at least 3 other women in the same dress. (Very nice Me&Em floral number).

I genuinely couldn’t have cared less what people wore to my wedding. Nobody forgot I was the bride and nobody’s outfit would have ruined my day. These days of colour schemes for guests, drone photography etc blow my mind. And not in a good way.

I'm not keen. Blue and Yellow always makes me think of Ikea or the Ukrainian flag.

I suppose I could make a frock out of a couple of IKEA bags 😄 That would definitely be cheaper!

And the Ukranian flag is a bad thing?

It always amused me that the Police Scotland cars outside the Russian Consulate are the same yellow and blue.

This is a bit silly, there's only so many colors out there. Would you avoid red and white bc those are also commom flag colors?

Me neither, never occurred to me! But I guess people want curated wedding pictures now, rather than a record of the day with loved ones in all their daffy splendour.

Times have certainly changed. I remember going to a wedding in the 80s, and one guest my age being sniffy about a friend who'd turned up in a linen dress with a low back. There's a lot more flesh on display now!

OP, I am similar in height and age to you and think we have similar tastes. I tried on so many dresses when I went to a wedding 2 years ago. So many of the Hobbs ones looked lovely online, yet when I tried them on they looked more like smart office attire or senior leadership team at a big secondary school.

If you have small (or at least not very large) breasts then the Carly floral neckline will be lovely and likewise, the sleeveless Tahnia one will show off arms nicely.

Closet London is worth having a look at https://closetlondon.com/