The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings (80 page)

Make a quick trip into your closet. (That's right, this time you are encouraged to go back into the closet.)

Look around at what's in that closet. What do you like to wear? Do you ever dress up, or are you strictly a 501s kind of guy? Are you a woman of many looks, or would you just as soon wear a comfortable shirt and Birkenstocks?

Think about how what you wear influences how you feel.

Walk out of the closet (whew), sit yourself down, and consider the following: How much money is budgeted for clothes for your wedding? Have you been envisioning a white wedding? Do you want to look a special way that will make a certain impression on your future spouse? And do the two of you want to coordinate your outfits?

What you ultimately choose to wear to your wedding may be guided in part by the season, the time of the gathering, and the sense of formality (or lack of same) that has been woven throughout your wedding plans up to this point. (For example, nearly everyone who has their ceremony in a house of worship keeps their clothing conservative out of respect for the location.) In fact, there exist very specific rules of etiquette that purport to spell out the definitive answers to such pressing questions as: Can I wear a morning coat in the evening? Should I wear a long formal train in the afternoon? Is a white dinner jacket acceptable for a January wedding? We, of course, feel you should be able to wear anything you like—sure, even a dress with a train, just so long as you don't trip on it and fall.

Between the fuss that has been made over wedding fashion for the last several centuries and the fact that yours is by nature an unconventional wedding, what you decide to wear will be a major act of personal expression. When same-sex couples talk about choosing wedding attire, their answers are invariably prefaced by some fundamental principle that brought them to their final fashion decisions. Ultimately, the clothes reflect a basic ideology about this whole wedding business.

“We wanted our wedding to be like us. We don't share the same sense of style, so we decided before we went to buy our outfits that we could each wear what we wanted. We wanted to feel comfortable as individuals.”

“I had decided to get a bridesmaid's dress, something understated but classy. So I was looking at the bridesmaid's dresses, but over on the other side of the store were these beautiful white wedding dresses. I started to feel like a second-class citizen. I thought, I'm a bride. I want a bridal gown. So I bought one.”

“As extravagant women, we decided to have a formal event. We each wore long dresses, and our attendants, male and female, were all in black tuxes.”

“Matthew and I got married on the beach, and decided that board shorts were too casual. So we wore khakis and matching T-shirts.”

“We did it campy. I wore a fedora, a bustier with sequins, and a long ivory skirt, and Greta wore an electric-blue jacket with nothing underneath, white pants, and shades.”

“We both wore silk pants and white tops made of flowing rayon with silver thread. We put flowers in our lapels.”

“We ultimately decided against it, but John's into themes and at one point we were going to be married in Elizabethan garb. We ended up in tuxes.”

Same-sex weddings are the perfect occasion to bend traditional gender-related fashions. We all know that it's possible for a woman to look equally as hot in a tuxedo as a man does. Women have dressed in classic men's clothing for years. Consider Katharine Hepburn, whose sense of style in a man-tailored suit was rivaled only by Cary Grant. From Madonna donning double-breasted suits and a monocle, to Meryl Streep's überprofessional wardrobe in
The Devil Wears Prada,
man-tailored clothes on a woman are smart, stylish, and chic. Two brides all decked out à la Dietrich are sure to be real crowd pleasers.

Conversely, if you have your hearts set on a wedding with a groom wearing a satin gown with a hoop skirt, you may have to work a little harder to create an atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable. Your grandmother from Dubuque may have to be warned in advance. Still, for some gay men, drag, and in this instance, bridal drag, is the appropriate fashion
and
political statement.

Ultimately, the choice is up you. But put this in your pipe and smoke it: lesbian and gay weddings challenge tradition in a multitude of ways, so if it's what you want to do, why shouldn't you challenge the rules of fashion too?

We're going to split you into two teams now—pants and gowns—and deal with the sexes one at a time. However, please feel free to read outside of the category you technically qualify for.

There's a famous line from an episode of the classic TV series
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
in which Georgette and Ted, off to a formal affair, arrive in matching tuxedos. “I feel like the top of a gay wedding cake,” Georgette tells Mary.

Little did she know.

If a classic look is what you're after, guys have a narrower range of choices in selecting their wedding garb than women do. Formal menswear (and, some would argue, men's fashion in general)
hasn't changed much over the last century. This isn't saying that men put less time or planning into wedding attire than women, or that they're any less vain than women when it comes to duding up; it's just that their choices come with less societal baggage. Two men getting married in tuxes just don't make the same statement as two women in full bridal regalia. Go figure.

“Everyone looks great in a tuxedo” isn't far from the truth. Black (usually) and slenderizing, elegant and spiffy, it was the attire of choice for many of the male couples (as well as many women) we spoke with. There's really nothing quite like a tux. You can rent it and have it tailored for you, and best of all, you can return it the next day, stains and all. Over and done.

The cut can be classic American or tailored European. The lapels are either notched (currently most stylish), peaked (the classic), or shawl collar (a vintage look—like Bogey's white dinner jacket in
Casablanca
).

Shades of dark gray and black are the only ones the etiquette gurus want to see on grooms in a formal wedding; they suggest saving the powder blue tuxedos and pastel accessories for the prom. (We say just keep a safe distance from burgundy.) White dinner jackets are kind of a throwback to the fifties but are making a comeback; they are traditionally worn with black trousers and accessories for a spring or summer wedding.

The cutaway or morning coat.
Think of it as tails for daylight hours—a long black or gray coat worn with black or gray striped trousers, pearl gray or black waistcoat or black cummerbund, white wing-collar shirt, and a striped ascot or bow tie.

The stroller, walking coat, or sackcoat.
A looser and longer tuxedo coat without the buttons. The jacket is black or gray, the trousers black-and-gray or black-and-white pinstripes. Worn with a four-in-hand tie (see “Formal Accessories”) and optional gray gloves. Favored by attendants when the groom wears a cutaway.