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Personalized Poems for Wedding invitations, wedding toasts or wedding gifts.
Dressing Your Wedding Guests
By Rudy Vener
When Jennifer began to plan her wedding, she ran into one novel
problem: how to dress her wedding guests.
Normally, this isn't a problem. By tradition, a wedding is a
formal event where guests are expected to show up either in
tuxedos and gowns if part of the wedding party, or in suits and
formal dresses if an invited guest.
By and large, everyone understands and accepts this. The details
of proper attire for the guests is left entirely to the guests
themselves. The bride has enough trouble worrying about her own
and her brides-maids' gowns. Usually this works splendidly.
Most people already know what they should wear to a wedding, or
if not, they at least have enough sense to ask a mother or sister
who will be delighted to explain exactly what they should and
should not wear.
Of course, even this does not always work. Now and then you find
a poor schmuck with a sister who has a vindictive streak and you
get a wedding guest who arrives wearing a plaid jacket, red and
green striped tie and a yellow beanie with a propeller on top.
But this is rare. Mostly your guests are well behaved and arrive
appropriately dressed, sober and with the suitable amount of
discomfort required of all wedding guests everywhere.
Jennifer's wedding was going to be a little different. She (and
her fiance of course) had decided to have a casual dress wedding
at a country club overlooking the beach. The bride's dress was
still planned as a formal gown, but the bridesmaids would wear
sun dresses and the best man and groom would wear khaki slacks
and summer jackets.
Jennifer wanted her guests to know that they were encouraged to
wear casual clothes. At least, fairly casual clothes. She
wanted the ladies to come in summer dresses or skirts
with nice blouses and the men to come wearing sport shirts
and slacks with a jacket. No suits or ties, but also no T shirts
and cut off shorts if you please. And especially no swim suits
and bikini tops, thank you very much. The total effect was going
to be a casual, country club style atmosphere. Relaxed but not
scruffy. No, definitely not scruffy.
Jennifer wanted to say this in a nice way, without
having to include a lengthy and offensive dress code decree in
her invitation package. There is nothing quite so objectionable
as having someone tell you in specific and didactic detail how
you are supposed to dress. Jennifer was very much aware of this
potential etiquette land mine and wanted wholeheartedly to avoid
it.
On the other hand, she couldn't just leave it to chance and
simply say "casual attire" because sure as tank tops, someone
would construe casual to mean T shirts, shorts and sneakers.
Jennifer fretted about this for days, trying several versions of
her dress code message, none of which satisfied all the
conflicting requirements of brevity, inoffensiveness and clarity.
Finally Jennifer hit upon the solution: a short, humorous poem,
printed on an index sized card along with the invitation.
This would immediately let people know exactly how to dress and
would offend no one. Since the poem would also be humorous, it
had the benefit of being entertaining and therefore easily
remembered.
Jennifer overcame the last hurdle of being unable to write poetry
by hiring a poet and working with him through four drafts until
she had exactly what she wanted: eight lines of lighthearted
verse which told the guests how they should dress and left them
with a smile.
With a sigh of relief, Jennifer could now focus on the next
problem which needed her attention: the weather....
The poem included here is NOT the one written for Jennifer, but I
hope you'll enjoy it anyway.
Guest Attire
Our wedding day approaches, we hope that you will come,
Attire will be casual but here's some rules of thumb:
By all means dress in comfort, no formal suits or ties,
But we'd prefer that no one shows their bare feet, knees or thighs.
A summer dress or floral skirt to help you gals relax,
A lightweight jacket for the guys with buttoned shirts and slacks.
Let's keep it cool and stylish so all will be at ease,
While making sure that no one comes in shorts and T shirts please.
to help keep those wedding memories fresh and new forever.
Thank you for visiting Occasional Poems.
COPYRIGHT 2005 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Rudy Vener
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