Alternatives To Wedding Suits #2 – Beach Wear
The pros and cons of a wedding abroad are obvious. Cons: you have to pay for your entire family and a 747-load of your mates to fly out to an island paradise so they can join you on the beach while you say your vows. Pros: you can wear an eye-stabbingly gaudy Hawaiian shirt.
You might think that’s the end of the matter, but even when you’re more concerned about getting sand where the sun don’t shine, you’ll find that there are still issues of etiquette and one or two practical issues to consider when choosing what to wear.
What is the best thing to wear for a beach wedding?
Well, if you want to take a tip from the stars Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain married his sweetheart Courtney Love in his pyjamas at a beach wedding. Mind you, considering how that turned out, we’d probably advise you to at least purchase a suit, even a cheap one.
However, given the pleasant nature of a beach wedding, it’s not exactly the time or the place for top hats and monocles. Similarly, unless for some reason you feel a heartfelt affinity with Bognor Regis, it’s likely going to be in a warm climate, so baggier, more comfy beach wear is in order.
The ideal is to find something that looks smart without making you sweat. For this reason light-coloured suits and shirts in breathable cotton fabrics and, ideally, linen are the most advisable thing to wear.
We’d be no friend at all if we didn’t also suggest that you wear some sun-tan lotion (you don’t want to spend your wedding night moaning about sunstroke and imploring your new bride to dab you with calamine).
Equally, a beach-wedding fashion faux-pas is that sunglasses may be essential for the rest of the day but remember to hand them to the best man for the actual ceremony, as your guests have flown around the world to see the love in your eyes, not their own reflection in your Ray-Bans.
So, I’ve got my beach wear, what now?
One of the downsides of a beach wedding is it’s much harder to set a dress code, as the boundaries of ‘casual’ are much less straight-forward than those for a traditional ceremony.
Typically, there are two modern styles popular for beach weddings, often dependent on location. Firstly, the aforementioned, all white, linen style designed to style you and your guests as Angels in a beach Paradise, and secondly a quirkier ‘Hawaiian’ style that’s all brightly-patterned shirts and pinned faux flowers.
For either side a nice suggestion is that male and female guests wear different, colour co-ordinated flowers, and the men even wear different shades of white depending on if they are with the bride or groom.
Pros
- All the stress, strain, financial, social and emotional pressure of the big day is loosened up by a pair of seriously comfortable trousers.
- No, really, the day immediately becomes more enjoyable and relaxing when the attire and style chooses not to opt for the stuffy, authoritative style of weddings of yore.
- You can dress up your outfit with that Kiss Me Quick hat from the stag-do.
Cons
- Treading on broken glass and bleeding out over your bride
- Sandals. Just accept that no one can wear sandals and look good and be done with it. Flip flops are the way forward, as long as you don’t choose these ones.
Purchasing your Beach Wedding Wear
As it to be expected, the number of beach-specific wedding tailors operating in the UK is notably low, however there are a few, although more companies sell packages for your honeymoon.
Wedding Tropics are one of the principal UK suppliers and offer a wide range of beach specific wear for men, women and children.
All the major travel companies such as Thomson and Virgin offer tailored packages, although Kuoni have a good reputation for these things and offer experiences from Zanaibar to the Cook Islands.
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