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Vintage Etiquette & Tradition
Vintage Wedding Etiquette

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Retro Tuxedos

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Vintage Wedding Etiquette

• Pre-1930

Prior to the 1930s the dinner suit was intended only for informal evening gatherings.  Evening weddings were relatively rare in America and when they did occur (in cities such as San Francisco and Atlanta, for example) they were always formal affairs requiring tailcoats. 

• Classic Age (1930s): Semi-Formal Evening

Traditional etiquette authorities continued to insist that "no man should ever be caught in a church in a tuxedo" but by the late 1930s menswear magazines acknowledged the growing trend of "semi-formal" evening weddings by providing detailed guidelines for such occasions.
 

One of the earliest such references is this pictorial from the June 1937 issue of Esquire.  In it, a black dinner jacket is depicted as being appropriate for town semi-formal weddings while a white coat is suggested for ceremonies in the country.

A more detailed written description of the groom's options appeared in the June 1939 issue of the same magazine and it is evident that little had changed in the intervening two years:

In town, the black or midnight blue dinner jacket, with wing collar, semi-butterfly tie, and black patent leather shoes.  In the country or at a resort, the shawl collar doublebreasted dinner jacket of white tropical worsted, washable fabric or Palm Beach is worn, with midnight blue or black dress trousers; a starched, pleated or soft bosom pique or silk shirt and black semi-butterfly tie are worn with both the regulation and the summer dinner jackets.

In June of the following year the publication enhanced its descriptions and expanded them to include groomsmen and  guests.  However, the article's definition of "formal evening wedding" and its explicit association of warm-weather attire with "semi-formal" makes it clear that latter dress code was not yet associated with church ceremonies:

• War & Post-War ('40s, '50s): Semi-Formal Evening

In June 1948 Esquire once again defined wedding formality by winter versus summer instead of town versus country.  The writers also added a bit of flare to warm-weather ceremonies by insisting that groomsmen wear bow ties, cummerbunds and jewellery in matching color, either maroon, black or midnight blue.

Despite the relaxed standards of the new era, traditional etiquette authorities were slow to accept black tie at religious ceremonies.  In the 1952 first edition of her series of etiquette books, author Amy Vanderbilt advised that

A tuxedo, essentially a frivolous garment, should not be worn in church for any reason.  For a night wedding, even at home, full dress should be worn by members of the wedding party, unless they prefer the alternative of dark sack suits.  In summer they may wear white flannels with blue coats or for an evening garden wedding, white dinner jackets.

Elsewhere in the book she provided some leeway: “For a smaller, less formal wedding in the evening, a dinner jacket is permissible . . .  If the bride wears street clothes [as opposed to bridal gown] then the groom wears a dark business suit.  If the bride wears a dinner dress the groom wears a tuxedo.”   Mrs. Vanderbilt also noted that it had even become usual for young men to wear a tuxedo to a formal wedding but only as a guest - wedding party members and fathers of the bride and groom were still expected to wear white tie.

Emily Post did not even acknowledge the semi-formal evening wedding until the fourth version of her famous Etiquette books in 1955.   At that time she finally allowed for a dinner jacket to be worn to "less formal" evening weddings and prescribed the double-breasted white model for tropical ceremonies.