Weddingbee Blog

You just heard about Eagle’s “to black tie or not to black tie” dilemma. For us, black tie wasn’t ever something that was truly “debated.” It had been lingering in the back of our heads for a while, but, with a nighttime wedding (ceremony at 6:30pm, cocktails at 7:30pm), we knew that the overall vibe of the event would be on the formal end of the spectrum.

Many of my inspiration photos involved candles Source

Black tie was one of those “we’ll figure it out later” things.

When the venue changed, we had to rethink a lot of the details of the reception. After all, we were going from a unique, completely open space with lots of light to a more traditional ballroom.

I know, I know, you haven’t seen any pictures of the new space yet—soon!

It was during all those discussions that black tie came back up. We knew it wouldn’t require any huge effort or change if we went that route. After all, we had already decided (spoiler alert) the men would be wearing tuxedos and the bridesmaids had each chosen a fabulous navy cocktail dress* (seems to be a common misconception that black tie = long dresses).

During this transition, I ran into a former coworker, M, at the airport and we ended up chatting about the wedding. After I mentioned that we had changed venues and were working on details, she suggested (unprompted) that we go black tie. She said that, for her wedding, it brought up the excitement level of her guests and many of them went all out—getting their hair and nails done, etc. Now that M has children and doesn’t get dressed up as much, she said a recent black tie event she attended was a real treat!

A black tie NYE wedding I was 23 at the time, and getting all fancy was a blast (rocking a short dress)

I thought about what M said and then thought about our guest list. We’re at the age where a number of our friends have formal attire due to attending multiple black tie events—either for charity or work—and our guests with children had already told us how much they were looking forward to getting dressed up and having a night off out. So, with that, the Turkeys decided to go black tie!

We added the “optional” part so that men didn’t feel like they needed to go out and buy or rent a tuxedo (we have a number of relatives in college or younger). To help, we included info on our website about the attire.

A snapshot from the wedding website

We added in the part about what the bridal party attire - thought it might encourage short dresses for those that wanted to wear them! My info came from Emily Post.

As nonchalant as we were about the black tie aspect of our wedding, we’re really happy with the choice and many of our guests have told us how excited they are to have an excuse to buy a new clothes get dressed up!

Are you opting for black tie for your wedding? What prompted the decision?

*People have asked me if we had made the black tie decision earlier if I would have requested long dresses for the bridesmaids. My honest answer is no.

NOTE: The title of this entry is meant to reference one of my favorite all time Justin Timberlake songs. Do we feel like this is an appropriate entry song for Mr. and Mrs. Turkey? Because I love it.