Guest Attire

The formality of the event is indicated by the formality of the invitations. Unless the venue has specific dress requirements (eg a country club where men must have a jacket and tie on) or your wedding is black tie (which is a lot more than dress), it’s generally frowned on to have a dress code on or in with your invitations - adults should be able to dress themselves. However. I am aware that there are people in this world who think that jeans and a ratty t shirt is suitable wedding attire. I’d suggest a details card which includes your wedding website and you can put something on the website about dress. And if there are people you know who will under-dress, maybe have a word with them and tell them the venue has a dress code (even if it doesn’t).

We had suggestions on what to wear since most of our guests were from out of town and our wedding was outdoors. That was more for weather purpose and not formality.


We didn’t have a dress code, but our level of hosting as well as our invites set the tone for our wedding’s formality. Everyone dressed appropriately— mostly cocktail dresses and suits.

I'm putting any attire suggestions on my wedding website

As a PP said, the details of the wedding usually indicate formality: venue, time of day, and invitation. We didn't put any dress code, but we were having a Saturday evening wedding at a country club, so men all wore suits and women all wore cocktail dresses from what I remember. At the end of the day, if someone comes underdressed, they're the ones that will look silly, not you. And a good photographer will be good about maybe positioning them in the back of the group shots lol. If you're worried about a particular person or 2, maybe trying to casually bring up wedding attire can work to get the point across.

I’ve always gotten invitations with the dress code printed on them. We put ours at the bottom.

Our Wedding Website States That Attire Is Formal, Guests Will See It When The Go To RSVP.

We're including the dress code on our details card. I've seen so many people show up to weddings in jeans!

We put it on our details card. Even though we have "fancy" invitations and the wedding is at night at an upscale venue, there are plenty of people who think rhinestone jeans are appropriate. I also know that people aren't checking our wedding website, so it had to be included with the invite somehow.


The details card says "Formal Attire (Black Tie Optional)", and our website has it with a brief explaination of what that means.

I didn't say dress code directly on it but i had a wedding website and asked for semi formal

Putting the dress code on the website with online RSVP, so I know they'll see it. As others have said, though, the location, time, and formality of the invites typically represent the formality of the event, so they should get the hint from those details.

View Quoted Comment I love this!!

We put the attire details on our wedding website

Unless the dress code is super formal, super casual or costume required, most people wear Sunday best by default. You really can't dictate what they wear unless the venue itself has a dress code requirement.

We've been guests at weddings since we had our own, and I say the less guess work for your guests, the better.

We added a details card with the website, and included a FAQs area where we addressed what to wear: