The etiquette maven Lizzie Post has mixed feelings about black-tie optional weddings.
“I get sad sometimes over the ‘optional,’ because I think it causes more people to dress down,” Ms. Post said. “But I also think it’s wonderfully useful,” she added, because the term cuts certain guests some slack.
“Not everyone has the means to rent a $168 tux from Men’s Wearhouse,” she said. “And not everyone has a relative they can borrow a tux from.” A dark suit, the standard recommendation for gentlemen in those circumstances, offers a step down the formality ladder and is less of an ask, she said.
Where that leaves guests who don’t identify as gentlemen is far less clear.
Even the most meticulously crafted mood boards, crowded with color palettes, texture swatches and venue vibes, can only do so much to clear up years of uncertainty and fluctuating expectations around what wedding dress codes mean now.
Gabrielle Hurwitz, a New York City wedding stylist, noted that “liberties have been taken” with the type of dress code strictures Ms. Post’s great-great-grandmother, Emily Post, might once have been called on to clarify.
Black tie optional might yield unintended outcomes like jersey knits instead of silk or satin. Context clues have gone murky.
“People are doing black-tie weddings outdoors at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., instead of the traditional after sundown and indoors, just because they want the wedding to be a formal affair,” Ms. Hurwitz said.
And they may be choosing black tie optional, not to spare the pride of guests with limited funds or wardrobes, but to spare their own reputations. “I think the term black tie optional has become kind of a compromise for some,” Ms. Hurwitz said. “They want their guests to dress on the more formal side, but they don’t want to be seen as difficult or demanding.”
A black tie optional designation is not guaranteed to get them off the hook.
“It does cause confusion, where everybody calls around and says, ‘What are you wearing?’” said Mara Urshel, an owner and the president of Kleinfeld Bridal. These days, “a lot of people aren’t really sure what black tie means,” never mind the optional, she said.
San Le, a wedding content creator in Philadelphia, wasn’t taking any chances when she planned her 2023 black-tie wedding in Delaware. On her wedding website, she specified long dresses for women and tuxedos for men. Defectors among her 200 guests were few. But she was surprised by a different type of dress code rebel: bellyachers.
“I was shocked at the number of people who reached out to me and my now-husband to say, ‘Is this really required? Do I have to dress this way?’” Her husband directed his share of those inquiries to her: “‘Of course,’ I would say.”
Tori Moore, who goes by Dress Code Girlie on Instagram and TikTok, doesn’t approve of such bellyaching. But she does offer an explanation. While society as a whole settled into its sweatpants during the pandemic, she said, couples who put off weddings had a chance to envision elaborate productions where friends and family arrive at their spiffiest. “There’s this interesting push and pull, because people getting married want formal, but people attending don’t want to get dressed up anymore,” Ms. Moore said.
Invitations mentioning any dress code other than black tie were unusual until the mid-1990s, said Ms. Post, who lives in Vermont and is a president of the Emily Post Institute. Under traditional etiquette rules, she explained that “black tie and white tie are technically the only designations,” meant to appear on invitations. Today, however, couples routinely include a wide range of dress codes, reflecting a yawning expansion of wedding norms.
Ms. Hurwitz said those who might be trying to minimize the burden of black tie by tacking on the word “optional” may do so because “they don’t want to get called bridezilla or groomzilla.” But those unflattering terms are perhaps more often reserved for couples who call for attire that is difficult to parse.
“Sunday best” seems vague. Other suggestions can be overly specific. Ms. Moore was recently asked for advice by a follower invited to a “formal autumnal” wedding. The confusion was caused by the addition of the words “circus attire encouraged.” Ms. Moore, who lives in Los Angeles, suggested orange with polka dots or stripes if the friend felt inclined toward circuslike whimsy.
“The circus part was in parentheses,” she said. “So it seemed like kind of an afterthought.”
Couples may be dialing back the inclusion of creative codes on their wedding invitations, but their desire to control the visual narrative of their celebration is only intensifying. “They’re usually done with the best of intentions,” said Ms. Hurwitz, referring to elaborate creative dress codes and aesthetic instructions. “But they can get overwhelming.”
Still, the urge to elucidate a desired wedding look continues apace online. On Canva, searches for “wedding moodboard” were up 47 percent in 2025, according to Kailyn Nunn, the company’s North America influencer lead. On Pinterest, searches for “mood board wedding inspiration” were 230 percent higher in 2025 than in 2024, according to a spokeswoman.
Recently minted categories that have become more familiar, such as “farmhouse formal” or “Western chic,” can be helpful because they offer hints about the setting as much as the formality level. Cowboy boots, for instance, might be OK at the Western wedding.
Ms. Urshel, who lives in New York, thinks that dress codes are helpful for guests. “It gives people something to think about and to plan for,” she said. Ms. Le agrees. “I love to have a theme or something to guide me when I’m shopping,” she said, whether it’s a description in the FAQ section of a wedding website or a mood board.
But in Ms. Le’s work as a wedding content creator, she has seen guests ignore them. A woman who recently wore a red dress to a wedding whose hosts asked guests to wear garden pastels, for example, caused a minor upset.
“There were plenty of comments about it,” she said. “No one was sure why she didn’t adhere to the dress code.” Ms. Le didn’t judge. “We have to give her grace. Maybe she was a plus-one whose partner didn’t communicate to her what she was supposed to wear?”
Ms. Moore, who taught cotillion classes in her native Atlanta, started the social media accounts for Dress Code Girlie in 2025 because “I’ve always been very opinionated about dress codes,” she said. “My fiancé was tired of me telling him how inappropriate everyone was and told me to take it to the internet.”
She has a plan in place should guests stray from the “garden formal” look she’s requesting at her September wedding in Atlanta.
“I would care, and I would notice,” she said. “But I wouldn’t make a scene. That’s the art of being a good host.” Still, if a certain egregious violation presents itself, action may be required.
“If someone shows up to my wedding in a wedding dress, my sister will have a glass of red wine at the ready,” she said.
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