Black Tie Wording

Our invitation suite had three cards; the invitation itself, a card about our wishing well, and a card about RSVPing (no website).

At the bottom of the invitation card we included the words "BLACK TIE ATTIRE" - short, sweet and to the point.

If it’s a true black tie event, you can put on your invitation “Black Tire Attire” at the bottom. Otherwise, it’s frowned upon to include dress code on invites.


We included attire “suggestions” on our website only because over half of our guests were traveling to Southern California from the Midwest/East Coast during February and we wanted them to know that even though it is California, it would still be a little bit chilly since it’s winter. We also wanted to encourage our female guests not to wear stiletto heels since it was outside with lots of grass areas and they would sink in.

As a bride and a planner, it's extremely common and totally fine to put your attire requests on your invitations. I would put it on an information card or your wedding website, or both! Guests like knowing what's going on and don't want to feel out of place. I would put "Black Tie Attire" or " Black Tie Attire, Please"

Black tie and formal are not interchangeable. Which type of wedding are you having?

View Quoted Comment I am asking for both, so this can serve as a guide for other brides.

View Quoted Comment

If you're having a true black tie event, then you can include "black tie preferred" at the bottom of the invitation. It's generally not appropriate to include the attire on the invite itself unless you're having a black tie event.

If your attire is "formal" but not black tie, then you can list this on your wedding website. This is the route we took. Technically, our wedding could have been classified as black tie because we had all the required components, but we didn't want guests to feel pressured into renting tuxes so we simply listed "formal" as the attire on our wedding website. Some showed up in tuxes and several women in long gowns but most just wore cocktail dresses and suits.

View Quoted Comment

I agree with this!

We put the attire information on our website as well. On the back of our invites, we just have a picture of us with a snippet about going to our website for more information as far as accommodations, directions, and RSVPing goes. Our wedding is semi-formal, so that's what I put in our FAQ tab, and I also warned guests that we expect it to be chilly, and it's an outside ceremony, so please dress accordingly.

I stuck this blurb on our website. It might be too specific or wordy but I am pushing for long dresses with breezy, lightweight type fabrics/colors because our ceremony and reception overlook the sea and I don't want people to think in this case that formal = dark, heavy gowns. I reworded it like 9 times haha.

"The Ceremony and Reception will be held outdoors on the stunning grounds of Villa La Susana so lightweight, coastal-friendly formal attire recommended."