It’s always exciting when you receive an invitation to a friend or family member’s wedding, especially if they’re someone very close to you. However, it’s also normal for you to have a certain amount of anxiety about what to wear and how much buying a new outfit is going to cost you.
While you may have a suit already somewhere in your wardrobe, it’s important that it’s actually suitable for the occasion and still fits you as it should. This means not too narrow around the shoulders or tight around the waist. If it’s too large, you may be able to get it tailored so that it fits your current size better.
Nevertheless, the upcoming event may call for an entirely new outfit to fit the level of formality of the wedding, the venue and even the season.
From black-tie weddings to casual summer weddings, deciding on the type and colour of suit to wear can be crucial. The following tips are a crash course in understanding wedding attire for males guests and some ideas about how you can look your best.
Casual Wedding Suits
Casual doesn’t actually mean shorts and flip flops, or whatever you might have thought when trying to imagine what casual wedding attire looks like.
Unless the invitation has specified that you should wear something extremely dressed down or themed, like Hawaiian shirts and shorts for a beach wedding, casual dress for weddings usually means smart, or something similar to office casual.
You can get away with a more relaxed fitting suit or just a sports jacket paired with some chinos or jeans. You could also wear some dark denim jeans and a fresh button-down shirt.
In terms of colour, you have the most freedom here, but if you’re in doubt about what’s acceptable, don’t be afraid to inquire before you turn up looking out of place. If the married couple is on the more conservative side, casual may still require a dark coloured blazer at the very least.
Semi-Formal Wedding Attire
Semi-formal, or cocktail, dress codes allow for more freedom in attire than a black-tie or formal wedding. These weddings are the best place to showcase more modern fits that your grandparents probably would have disapproved of, such as no break trousers that expose your socks, or even just your ankles with no socks at all!
When it comes to colour, we would still recommend a charcoal or navy suit, but perhaps you could opt for a more bold pattern or lighter shade, like a pale grey, slim-fitting houndstooth three-piece. And if you’re a fan of accessories, don’t be afraid to whip out your favourite cufflinks and pocket square (just nothing too comical or jokey please).
Formal Wedding Attire
At these weddings, guests are typically expected to limit the wearing of bright or bold colours for an overall more classic and understated look. Again, grey and blue is your safe space, and darker shades like charcoal will do just fine.
With the expectation that you’ll probably wear a well-structured shirt with cuff sleeves, don’t forget to polish off your look with the perfect pair of cufflinks. A classic pair of gold cufflinks or silver cufflinks can really stand out in a sea of dark coloured suits.
Black-Tie Wedding Attire
This wedding type offers little room for interpretation when it comes to what to wear. This can be reassuring in one sense, but also daunting in that you now have to buy or rent a potentially very expensive tuxedo.
In terms of colour, you should only wear a black or midnight blue tuxedo. While you may come across white or ivory tuxedo jackets, we’d recommend leaning away. Not many people can pull these off in reality.
White Tie
White tie, also known as full evening dress, is the most formal type of dress code you’ll probably ever be faced with. Reserved for only the most special events and formal ceremonies, it requires an even greater level of attention to detail than black-tie.
This option offers the least flexibility in terms of colour, requiring the wearer to adorn a black evening tailcoat and trousers with a white tie. To the uninitiated, it might seem like a standard tuxedo, but to those that know, the white tie outfit is as fancy as it gets.
Accessories include a bow tie, vest, and wing-collar shirt, which must all be white. You'll also need studs and a suitable pair of cufflinks for the occasion.
Looking for the Perfectly Matching Cufflinks for Your Wedding Suit?
If you’ve got a certain type of suit in mind for your next wedding event, we’ll bet we have just the right pair of cufflinks to set your outfit off, regardless of the dress code. From classic to contemporary designs, take a look at our full collection at the Wimbledon Cufflink Company for the final touch to your look.