What each phrase on an invitation actually asks for, and how to tell guests what to wear without anyone having to guess.
Why this is worth getting right
A dress code is not etiquette theatre. It is the only instruction guests get about a room they have never seen, and getting it wrong is genuinely miserable — being the only person in a lounge suit at a black-tie wedding ruins someone's evening. Two words on a card prevents it.
What each phrase means
| On the invitation | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| White tie | Tailcoat, white waistcoat, white bow tie. Vanishingly rare. | Full-length gown. |
| Black tie | Dinner jacket, black bow tie. Not a business suit with a bow tie. | Floor-length gown, or a very dressy cocktail dress. |
| Black tie optional | Dinner jacket if you have one; a dark suit and tie if not. | Long or cocktail, dressy either way. |
| Formal / Black tie invited | Dark suit, tie. | Cocktail dress or elegant separates. |
| Cocktail | Suit, tie optional. | Knee or midi-length dress. |
| Semi-formal / Dressy casual | Jacket, no tie required. Not jeans. | Dress or smart separates. |
| Beach / Garden formal | Light suit or linen, open collar, loafers. | Sundress or midi, block heels or flats. |
| Casual | Means smart, not literal. Collar, no trainers. | Sundress or smart separates. |
The two that confuse everybody are black tie optional — which means the dinner jacket is welcome but not required, and a dark suit is entirely correct — and casual, which almost never means what it says. If you truly want people in shorts, say so explicitly or nobody will believe you.
Match the code to the venue, not the aspiration
The dress code has to survive the actual conditions. Black tie on a lawn in August is a room full of people quietly suffering. Stiletto heels on grass, gravel or a boardwalk do not work, and if your ceremony is outdoors it is a kindness to say so — "the ceremony is on grass" tells guests more about footwear than any dress code does.
Say the practical things plainly on your website: outdoor ceremony, the walk between ceremony and reception, whether the evening turns cold, whether there is a long flight of steps. Guests dress for the building and the weather far more usefully than for the adjective.
Where to put it
Lower right corner of the invitation, or on the reception card — two or three words, no explanation. The detail goes on your wedding website, where you have room for the venue, the terrain and the weather. If you have no website, the reception card can carry a short line.
For how the pieces of the invitation suite fit together, see assembling wedding invitations, and the wording guide for the card itself.
The colour questions
White is still the one genuine rule: guests do not wear it unless the couple has said otherwise. Cream, ivory and champagne sit close enough to be worth avoiding. Some couples now explicitly invite guests to wear white, which is a lovely idea and only works if it is stated unmistakably and more than once.
Black is completely fine and has been for years, at any wedding that is not explicitly daytime-casual.
If your wedding party is in a specific colour, consider mentioning it — guests generally prefer not to match the bridesmaids by accident.
What the wedding party wears
Your attendants are dressing to a brief you set, and they are paying for it. Two things make that go well: name a price ceiling out loud, and give them latitude where you can — same colour and same length, different necklines, is now the default and it flatters a group of different bodies far better than one dress repeated eight times. How to choose bridesmaids covers the asking; how to flatter your figure covers the shapes.
For the groom's side, the ideal colour for the groom’s suit covers how the suit should relate to the season, the venue and the gown. And the gown itself has a vocabulary all of its own — the archive is unusually good on this: silhouettes, necklines, sleeves, trains, fabrics and veiling between them cover what every term on a bridal salon tag means. Shopping dos and don’ts is worth reading before the first appointment.
