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Wearing a suit to a black tie wedding?


White Walker Texas Ranger

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Rent the tux and then if you're giving a monetary gift, deduct the cost and note that in the card, e.g., -$75 for tux rental, preppy douche. Or if it's a gift in kind, mention the better gift you would have gotten them had it not been for this black tie business. That will teach them.

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I am probably in the minority here because I work with a bunch of classical musicians, but nearly everyone I know has a tux or evening gown. I can just imagine going to be fitted and pulling out your violin/viola/cello/flugelhorn/whatever and making sure the cut is wide enough to allow you to play. 

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40 minutes ago, Weeping Sore said:

Rent the tux and then if you're giving a monetary gift, deduct the cost and note that in the card, e.g., -$75 for tux rental, preppy douche. Or if it's a gift in kind, mention the better gift you would have gotten them had it not been for this black tie business. That will teach them.

$75? I wish it was that cheap. One cost me $200+ and the last wedding I went to it cost me  $160. 

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3 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

$75? I wish it was that cheap. One cost me $200+ and the last wedding I went to it cost me  $160. 

I find if you rent from undertakers you can get a good deal if you don't mind the redolence of embalming fluid.

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2 hours ago, Whitestripe said:

I am probably in the minority here because I work with a bunch of classical musicians, but nearly everyone I know has a tux or evening gown. I can just imagine going to be fitted and pulling out your violin/viola/cello/flugelhorn/whatever and making sure the cut is wide enough to allow you to play. 

Same here. I use both my black- and white-tie outfits mainly for choir performances, with the occasional Ph.D. defence thrown in.

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4 hours ago, Whitestripe said:

I am probably in the minority here because I work with a bunch of classical musicians, but nearly everyone I know has a tux or evening gown. I can just imagine going to be fitted and pulling out your violin/viola/cello/flugelhorn/whatever and making sure the cut is wide enough to allow you to play. 

Oddly enough, for the number of higher end events and wedding I work, I've never had a tux.  The expense still never seemed worth it.

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2 hours ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

Well, I read more carefully and it says Black Tie attire preferred, so I'll just go with a regular suit.

Unless the wedding is at like 7 o'clock at night you can turn up comfortable in the knowledge that everyone who's wearing a dinner jacket is being terribly gauche anyway.

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Aren't weddings usually in the morning/around noon? According to protocol black tie is only for evenings after 6 pm or so (as is white tie). Proper wedding attire would be the so-called "morning coat" (similar to the Ascot garb).

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3 hours ago, Jo498 said:

 Proper wedding attire would be the so-called "morning coat" (similar to the Ascot garb).

That’s what I got married in, but we left it to the guests to wear whatever they wanted. (In fact, the proper dress code is “white tie” or “full evening dress”. “Morning coat” is much less formal, and allows for Southron heresies such as dark wests, and a (non-bow) tie. You would be very out-of place with that at a  “white tie” invitation.)

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Sure, you could not wear the morning coat for a black tie event, simply because of the daytime! But as far as I understand it the morning coat IS the formal wear on morning, noon and afternoon occasions. For such occasions "full evening dress" (white tie) or black tie is not applicable because it is not in the evening. And most wedding ceremonies take place around noon. And most receptions follow immediately afterwards. I guess that in highly formal weddings there would be several parts and guests would attend the ceremony and reception afterwards in the morning coat and change for the evening dance into either white or black tie attire.

But in my (admittedly limited, I never had occasion to wear any of that stuff) understanding, black tie at 2 pm is simply bizarre because it is evening wear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_dress#Occasions

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Thanks! this does make it considerably less mysterious! It really sounded like a gauche pseudo-posh idea to wear black tie in the early afternoon.

In any case if one wants to go with formal wear one should keep to the tradition that it is tied to certainy times of the day.

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