Are guests going to assume our wedding is black tie when I send out a formal wedding invitation?

Iamnowmrsjms

It's not officially "black tie." Yes, it will be a nice wedding with many black tie elements, but I don't want guests to feel like they must dress in a tux or evening gown.  Is sending out a traditional, formal invitation the "wrong" thing to do?

KatWAG

Guests would only assume your wedding is black tie, if the invite states "black tie."

A tradtitional, formal invite means your guests can expect a traditional, formal wedding. Wearing a tux or an evening gown is always an option for your guests. But let them decide how to dress.

Iamnowmrsjms

From what I've read on the boards here, attire is never supposed to be stated on the invitation. 

fwtx5815

From what I've read on the boards here, attire is never supposed to be stated on the invitation. 

Not unless it is a true, 100% black tie event. Or white tie. That's okay to put on an invitation. What's usually corrected on the boards is when brides want to put "Black Tie Optional" (because that isn't a thing, it's confusing for guests, and it means it's not really a black tie event). Or if the invitations/website try to dictate that women wear cocktail dresses and men wear suits - it's improper to tell your guests what to wear (again, with the exception of an actual black tie event). Unless there is a dress code for the venue, guests should be able to decide for themselves how they'll dress. I'm kind of in a similar situation in that our invitations are formal, our wedding will have most of the black tie elements, but not all of them. So we aren't mentioning attire at all on the invitations.

ETA - Our venue does have dress requirements (though not BT), so I'll put it on the website. Lots of people will probably overlook it, but I'm not worried about anyone being under-dressed.

flantastic

futuremrsjms said:

From what I've read on the boards here, attire is never supposed to be stated on the invitation. 

Unless it is truly black tie, in which case you can state that. If your event is truly black tie, adding "black tie" to the invites actually describes the character of the event, and if the guest wants to meet the event's level of formality, he or she should show in a gown or tux. Slightly different than requesting "we'd like you to wear the attire which normally goes with black tie although that's not our event." That would be rude.

You don't add attire in other cases because there are no hard and fast rules about what characteristics make a "semi-formal" event and what the corresponding "semi-formal" attire is, and so it becomes insulting or confusing.

A traditional, formal invite will get across exactly what you're wanting to convey - this will be a fancy wedding, but not entirely black tie and so black tie attire is not necessary.

fwtx5815

futuremrsjms said:

It's not officially "black tie." Yes, it will be a nice wedding with many black tie elements, but I don't want guests to feel like they must dress in a tux or evening gown.  Is sending out a traditional, formal invitation the "wrong" thing to do?

Also wanted to add - don't stress yourself out too much about what guests will assume based on your invitations. Even when I know the exact details of an event and the level of formality, I still freak out about what I'll wear up until I'm getting dressed and leaving the house. Seriously.  I do understand your desire to take out all the confusion for your guests, but as long as they don't say BTO, you aren't doing anything wrong by having really nice invites.

Iamnowmrsjms

Thanks, everyone!