Long, short. Patterned or smooth. Wear a headdress or let your hair dance freely. There are many unknowns about what is proper protocol and what is not at a wedding.
Added to the difficult choice of clothing are the protocol rules that set out in detail what you should, can and are not allowed to wear to a wedding. Although over the years the wedding protocol has lost strength and the bride and groom give their guests more and more flexibility in terms of the dresscode, there are five unbreakable rules at a wedding that every guest must know and respect.
Forbidden black and white
Black is one of the colors that look best but unfortunately, the bridal protocol prohibits it. “The protocol stipulates that the only event you can go to totally in black is a funeral,” explained the protocol expert Andrea Vilallonga. However, there is a color that is even more prohibited than black and that can only be worn if the bride allows it: white.
White is the color of the bride. It indicates the protagonist, together with her boyfriend, of the event, so in no case should this shade be worn without the explicit permission of the person getting married. You don’t want to overshadow the bride.
Rocio Osorno in a black and white Mango dress
The thousand and one ‘buts’ of headdresses
The headdress is a must at British royal weddings. In recent years we have experienced a ‘boom’ of this trend and now we see it continuously at weddings. But putting on a headdress requires a series of obligations and protocol rules to follow. The headdress or hat can only be worn at a daytime wedding, that is, when the ceremony is in the morning and the invitation is at noon.
In addition, as Vilallonga points out, “if you wear a headdress or a hat, you cannot take it off during the entire ceremony, not even during the reception.” The only time you can get rid of the accessory is when the dance part begins, in modern times, the disco.
Teresa Andres Gonzalvo and Marta Lozano during the wedding of Marta Pombo and Luis Gimenez
The dresscode: what the couple say goes to mass
There is a rule in the wedding protocol that curiously, if it is imposed by the couple, nullifies any of those set forth in this article. The bride and groom ultimately decide the ‘dresscode’ of the guests so what they say goes to mass. Do you want a medieval wedding? The guests must dress up according to the theme, do you want an Ibizan wedding in white? Everyone to look for dresses and suits of this color.
In this sense, Vilallonga reminds us that we must respect the requests of the couple, however crazy they may seem. It is their day and they have to be able to live it as they see it in their imagination and, of course, as their pocket allows.
The link between Emelie Lindmark and Gerard Sabé
You have to put up with the type until the party
Although the guests do not have half the rules that the guests do, they do have to keep a couple of things in mind. “They cannot take off the jacket at any time during the ceremony or invitation,” warns the protocol expert. In fact, this rule can be extrapolated to all the accessories that a man can take to a wedding. The bow tie or necktie, the cuffs or, in the case of the groom, the morning suit.
Eugenia Silva at the wedding of Edgardo Osorio, founder and creative director of Aquazzura, and the Italian publicist and co-founder of the brand, Ricardo D’Almeida Figueiredo.
Mothers, the bridegroom chooses color first
The mothers of the bride and groom are guests of honor. They are also, in part, protagonists and therefore can choose the color and shape that pleases them. However, her wardrobe is subject to a single claim that, more than once, can cause conflicts.
“The mother of the groom has to choose the color of her dress first and notify her mother-in-law so that they do not repeat the hue,” says Vilallonga, adding that it is one of the most traditional rules in wedding protocol.
María Pombo accompanies her mother in a religious ceremony
By day, short. At night, long.
The golden rule of weddings, but the most neglected in these times is the length of the dress according to the type of wedding attended. At night weddings you have to go long, while in daytime ceremonies you have to wear a short dress. And what is short? As long as it is not up to the feet, it enters the measure.
Laura Escanes at an event in Rabat
