Country-attire on an Invite

Dress code shouldn't be mentioned on invitations. The venue and invitation should set the tone for the formality of the wedding. You can mention attire on your website, but I don't think there's any way to request that your guests wear cowboy boots and then tell them that jeans are inappropriate.

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I've seen many invitations where dress code was listed on them. Also a lot of my family won't use the website so I need it on the invitation.

I would recommend putting something like "cowboy boots encouraged" or something on a details card.

Hey Taylor! I wouldn't include it on your main invitation, but I think it would be fine to mention on a details card in the same envelope What about something like "We encourage our guests to join us in wearing your favorite cowboy boots"? I'm hesitant to recommend saying "to dress for our country theme" because to me that means jeans and it may confuse people.

I agree that dress codes don't belong on invitations (even though many people do this) and also that there's really no "creative but elegant" way to say "wear cowboy boots but don't wear jeans."

I think you will either need to set aside this idea completely or relax your standards about jeans. Your guests are just going to be confused and that's not the foundation for good hosting.

View Quoted Comment Agree that “country themed attire” would make me think jeans were appropriate. So you would have to be very specific about what you are looking for.

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Just because you've seen it done, doesn't mean it isn't rude.

I think it’s going to be hard to suggest a country theme for attire and then say no jeans. I pretty much exclusively wear my boots with jeans. I would just make mention that guests are welcome to wear their favorite cowboy/girl boots.

Our website said "Semi-Formal Attire. Cowboy Boots Encouraged!". I was in cowboy boots and so was my husband, and a few of our bridesmaids & groomsmen were too. I would expect a few people to show up in jeans if the vibe is a country wedding, I would assume that's fine if cowboy boots are allowed.

Why would you need to tell a bunch of adults how you need them to dress ? People typically know how to dress for a wedding it's kinda rude to put a dress code on the invite imo

I would be careful. If I ready country attire, I would assume nice jeans would be acceptable. You could say "Country Cocktail?"

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This is FALSE! There are blacktie weddings and causal weddings and many formal levels in between. It's rude not to include a dress code.

At first I thought Country Chic, Cowboy Boots Encouraged but when I googled "Country Chic", it stated the must have item was jeans lol. I'm not sure of a way to say that without adding the no jeans part. 🤔 Maybe can you just skip the part about you wanting them to wear sundresses and button ups and just write "Cowboy Boots Strongly Encouraged" 🤔 People may not show up in the sundresses but they may show up in the boots. I think it'll look cool if people are actually really dressed up but wearing cowboy boots lol!

View Quoted Comment Yes that's a good way to word it!

View Quoted Comment Why are you shouting

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It is so far from rude to not include a dress code on invitations. To anyone reading and planning your invitation wording, please don't believe this poor advice.

Adults do know how to dress themselves (and for any outliers who don't, some words on an invitation isn't going to change that). Guests take their cues from the venue, time of day, formality of the invitations themselves, etc. If they are still confused, they can ask. There's no real reason to make up new styles of dress (e.g., "country cocktail") that are more confusing than helpful and far too micromanaging for good hosting anyway.

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You could easily go to the same venue for a 5pm wedding and it be black-tie or cocktail. Please inform me how anyone could guess what the intention is for that...

I agree you don't have to put it on the invitation, but it should be included somewhere. Why make people guess?

I agree with Caytlyn 100% - don't mention attire anywhere on the invites. It's rude regardless of whether you've seen others do it.

Also, it seems really silly to me to encourage cowboy boots but no jeans - I would never wear cowboy boots with a dress....they're meant to be worn with jeans. I guess I dont' really know what you're going for.

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Thank you for being like the only person to provide decent advice!

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Because cocktail attire is absolutely acceptable for the vast majority of evening weddings in the US. "Black tie" as a term denotes a level of hosting that is pretty rare here. Most people use it inappropriately, just because they envision a fancy wedding. But guests showing up in cocktail attire is not going to negatively affect the wedding in any way.

And using made up "dress codes" is still making people guess. So inventing new terms for a really specific vision isn't any more helpful than offering no guidance.

I don't want to argue with you and I don't actually care what you write on your invitations. I just took issue with your declaration that it's rude to not include a dress code and I wanted to address that for all of the lurkers.