DEAR ERIC: My husband and I recently hosted the wedding of our daughter in our beautiful, upscale California beach town. The reception was described as “cocktails, dinner, and dancing,” and children were not included. The dress was “Festive Cocktail Attire,” which was communicated via a save-the-date notice sent on paper via the U.
S. postal service and email. The notice was sent nine months before the wedding.
The dress code was also mentioned in the material that accompanied the invitation, sent two months before the wedding. It was a fabulous event, with great Spanish cuisine, a 12-piece live band and fun, colorful decor chosen by my daughter. With one weird exception: My husband’s older sister, a woman of 76 years, who lives in an even more upscale nearby town, but who arrived at our event looking like she had just taken a walk on the beach, in white jeans, very casual sandals, and the sort of untucked shirt you might throw on to go grocery shopping.
Meanwhile, her husband followed our dress code, as did her daughter in a lace designer cocktail dress and stilettos. This older sister was the topic of much speculation, as she stood out like a sore thumb. Several of our daughters’ friends who had, of course, dressed up, asked if she had done it on purpose, as did a couple of my friends.
I don’t know what to think, except that this event harkened back to my own wedding more than 35 years ago. In the spirit of building cordial relations, I had asked my husband’s sister, whom I had only met a couple of times, to be one of my bridesmaids. After I included her on a group trip to choose bridesmaid dresses, she phoned my husband to demand that he pay for her bridesmaid dress.
Later, I overheard her belittling the bridesmaid dress to a couple of friends. I had put this incident completely out of my mind until she showed up at my daughter’s wedding dressed inappropriately. What do you think? – Attired Correctly DEAR ATTIRED: I think your sister-in-law was dressing comfortably because “Festival Cocktail Attire” actually doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Technically, it’s supposed to be a mix of cocktail and semi-formal with a little flair added to it, but even that is vague enough to be of little use. I think everyone got a little confused about it in the early 2000s and stopped trying to care. I cannot tell you how many events I go to where the dress code is “Festive Cocktail Attire”, and people show up wearing whatever they want.
It’s chaos. There are too many words in the description. We’ve lost the plot.
Your sister-in-law sounds like someone who doesn’t place the same value as you do on fashion trends. I suspect she lives a very different kind of life. So, for her, perhaps white jeans and a casual shirt was appropriate for a wedding in a beach town adjacent to her own.
Dressing inappropriately is a very unsatisfying form of revenge. So, it’s far less likely that she was doing this to send a message to you. Unless that message is “I’m 76; this is who I am; congratulations on your special day.
” (Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.
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