Hadley Freeman ponders wedding attire etiquette
Many questions come to mind after seeing the photos from Leah Wood`s wedding to Jack Macdonald last weekend. Number one: Was Keith Richards` Edward Scissorhands-meets-Björn Borg look wise? The answer probably depends on whether you think a pensioner in a headband looks rebellious or ridiculous. But the question that`s even more to the point is surely: Why on earth would anyone invite Kate Moss to their wedding anymore? If there`s any day on which you`d want to be the center of attention, that`s it. So why invite the woman who, deliberately or otherwise, always grabs everyone`s attention? Moss turned up to the Wood-Macdonald nuptials looking gorgeous in a full-length Chanel dress that was such a light shade of gray that it looked dangerously close to bridal and sporting the most photogenic of accessories: a rock star boyfriend in a rather fabulously anachronistic suit, and a cherubic daughter (in fur, no less). As an outfit, it beat even the formerly unbeatable white shorts suit with fedora she wore to Katy England and Bobby Gillespie`s wedding in 2006. And the fact that Moss turned up late, arriving after the bride, surely did not help Leah`s mood.
But Moss` outfit raises the interesting conundrum of what constitutes suitable wedding-guest attire these days. At Beyoncé and Jay-Z`s wedding last month, guests were instructed to wear white, thereby overturning everything your mother told you about wedding etiquette and suggesting that Moss may not have made such an attention-seizing faux pas after all. Or perhaps not—by getting all of her guests to dress in the same color, Beyoncé not very subtly ensured that absolutely none of them would stand out. At Jenna Bush`s wedding earlier this summer, guests stuck, predictably but wisely, to the more traditional, anonymous fare (who would want to annoy the Bush clan in Texas?). But the real question is what the dress code will be at the two most anticipated if as yet unconfirmed weddings this summer: Brangelina`s and, yes, Kate Moss`, rumored to be held on the Isle of Wight in early September, supposedly at a music festival. A pregnant bombshell and the world`s leading trendsetter are not women to be trifled with. In both of those cases, I`d wager the one rule is really the only one that still stands: Don`t take attention from the bride. Or else.
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