"Black Tie Requested"

How can you expect a guy to know how to dress when he can't even keep simple
vocabulary straight?

I don't see a problem.

Wear your Disco Inferno tux.

Tap your glass and stand to give a toast and quote from "Superfreak".

Dance like John Travolta.

I'll be your date if your wife says okay.

Why don't you try a vintage shop, or the thrift shops ? I've always had pretty good luck going that route.

I would not be comfortable going to a wedding/ or any other function where black tie was requested.

But in the end it is their wedding.
If the bride does not like it, it would have been her time to talk with her fiance and sort it out before sending out the invitations.

I would say, you either stick to their rules, or you don't attend the wedding.

Tempting...
Soooo tempting...

To clarify: my wife (whom I geneerally refer to here as "The Lovely Bride") does
not like it. The bride-to-be, Gabriella, almost certainly likes it.

I agree, it's their wedding and I should stay with their rules, or stay home.

It's this whole "bride rules" that gets me about weddings.

We went to a formal wedding this year. We flew thousands of miles, rented a house to host some family who would not otherwise have been able to afford to come, rented a car, etc. It was really expensive but it was "soooo important to the bride that everyone be there".

On the day of the wedding Mr. B discovered that he had left his formal shoes at home. Not having time (or at that point, the money) to buy shoes to wear once, he slipped on his casual shoes and off we went.

We had barely set foot out of the car when the shoes became a Major Issue.

It was sooooo important that we be there as long as we were wearing the right shoes, I guess.

A pair of two sizes too small shoes were found so that Mr. B could spend the beautiful evening in pain, but at least his casual shoes didn't ruin absolutely everything.

Weddings have become ridiulous.

Wow.
Whatever happened to having a good time?

That's totally ludicrous - who's looking at HIM during the event? Good Lord.

When I was a bridesmaid, the bride insisted our shoes be the same colour and texture - our dresses were to the ground and the wedding was in the back yard... she fussed like that over every single thing. Nobody gave a shite about the shoes (did they even notice?) and you sure can't see them in any of the pictures.

Sorry you have this dilemma. I'm with whoever suggested going to a consignment store. You may not find anything there, though, so the other suggestion of talking to your nephew sounds right on.

Then by all means trailer trash it is!

When I started reading it - I thought you were going to say he put on sneakers or something - goodness if I was the bride I wouldn't have even noticed the casual shoes. And if, God forbid, he had to resort to sneakers - as a bride I would have laughed my head off rather than be upset.

I don't really blame the bride, I blame the wedding industrial complex that has sold girls on the idea that they DESERVE some kind of impossible perfection on THEIR day.

Weddings are no longer a celebration but a performance.

In the case of the wedding we went to I think it was the mother of the bride that was angling for the Oscar for most wonderfully perfect wedding ever.

Well said!

Dude.

Sympathising with George..

Positively aghast about Boom's story.

How widespread is this nonsense? Like Boom, the wedding you went to -- were those people, like, fancy upper class or something? Stuck-up bourgeois, I dont know? Nouveau riches? Or is this perfectly regular mainstream middle class stuff now too?

I mean, at least in George's story - however much it sucks - you can still think, well it's just them - younno - they got wealthy and doctors and all in the fancy world, so now it's got to be like this. Doesnt solve your dilemma, George, but at least it helps against freaking out about where-is-society-going??? So I'm kinda hoping Boom's story involves more or less a similar background...

hamburger/hamburgboy went the route suggested by the LionTamer.

the hamburgers started going on cruises some years back. black tie is required for some evenings on some cruises. he eventually picked up a great tux at a retread shop. looks verra verra good. cost less than a rental and he's got it for future events.

I'm very big on vintage/consignment/thrift shoppes. If you're in a bit of a rush, George, I'd call some before zooming in.

Ehbeth, reading that page, at first, left me just aghast again -- like, who are these people? Who talks like that? Who do they even think they are to talk like that?

But as the text careened off into self-parody, it became quite funny actually - I mean, unintentionally, of course.

I'm still left wondering who these people are though. I mean, there must be millions of them. Well, globally, anyhow. I dont know anyone like that. I dont think I've ever known anyone like that. I mean, not just the going to a black-tie-required do (although the same probably holds for that one - hmm, maybe except for this one girl in a students house I lived in), but people who talk like that! And I mean, the blatant contempt or condescension for anyone not of their set! Dude.

But funny, once you get away from that. Sorta.

Some people are food snobs, some are language snobs, some are clothing snobs, some are intellectual snobs. The options are endless.

I know I'm a cheese snob and a language snob. I know I'd come off much like the black tie guy does if I had a forum about cheese.

Hmm... I'm a snob about some things too - like finding the best cake in town :-). Feeling passionate about something and raving about how perfect it can be if it's done perfectly is cool. Like, someone raving on about, damn, the sheer beauty of the perfect sense of formal dress, perfectly executed - that'd kinda take me in, even if it'd obviously be worlds away from me. Someone who can get breathless about how Humphrey Bogart (or James Bond or Prince Rainier or whatever the standard is on this) carries off the perfect suit - that's kinda cute. :-)

No, it's this condescension up to, really, agressive contempt which that webpage shows toward those who dont "get" it that really kinda took away my breath. I mean, if someone would rather take Oreos over my preferred type of chocolate cake at the Hotel Corinthia Royal, more power to 'em! What do I care? Whereas this guy makes the impression like he thinks that the people who don't "get" the rules are.. just inferior people, really. Also the classist, upper-class-despising-the-"civilians" element in it (which has a rather ugly history and all). I mean, just - yikes!

All of the above actually. With a healthy dose of social climber thrown in.

But I do think it has become main stream in all arenas. Weddings are big business, people are willing to go into serious debt throwing the "perfect" wedding.

Most wedding photographers have liability insurance because they get sued so often. The reality of the day rarely matches the brides memory of the perfection she tried to create.