White Whales - Wedding Guest special

In your early adulthood, there will be one to four Summers which will be taken over by weddings. Maybe more if you are very popular. There will be town halls and barns and dry hire halls, there will be planes and ferries and coaches, there will be a two man taxi company in the middle of nowhere syphoning 150 guests back to the station at midnight. There will be bell tents, bellinis, outfit changes, silver service, bare feet, releasing of doves, buffets, pizza vans and foie gras. All kinds of extreme parties and gatherings, some grand and some casual - all of them expensive, most of them wonderful in their own way.

When you are invited to a wedding, do not be fooled into thinking it is just a party. In the same way Christmas Dinner is not ‘Just a Roast’, a Wedding is an occasion so heavily laden with expectation and meaning and expense that to treat it with anything less than caution and reverence is pure bad manners. That’s why the outfit is tricky: this is not just a party, this is a big, mad, high-stakes organism that you need to fit into. You need to pull roughly in the same direction as everyone else, which does sometimes mean foregoing personal preference. Study your invitations, research the venue, figure out how you can match the occasion.

Sorry to bring it back to food again, but this is a lot like menu planning: just like you don’t need to reinvent the wheel when making food for friends, there are a few outfit formulas that are useful to have in your repertoire if you don’t share my love of prolonged shopping quests or just don’t have time to overthink things.

Very few places you could go where a not-too-skimpy navy dress, a bright lip and some good jewellery wouldn’t allow you to blend in seamlessly. The navy is softer and less funereal than black, but it could also be a brown or a burgundy dress. You want something very boring looking on the hanger in a nice fabric.

Something like this from Victoria Beckham (obviously I can’t afford it either, but just as an inspiration pic)

I used to work at a lot of very smart parties when I worked for a Museum, and a thing I saw women wear a lot was a plain thing with a highly decorative removable accessory. Something like this, this or this (pictured respectively below - swoooooon over the Erdem coat, again just an inspiration pic rather than a sincere suggestion). It looks completely timeless, effortless and appropriate without being boring. Just a good cheat code to keep in mind.

Higher risk this one, and only for more casual affairs, but a surprisingly hard worker in your occasionwear (bleurgh - horrible word) wardrobe is a very glamorous version of a casual thing. I mean something like this silver t shirt from HUSH:

Or this sequined blouse from H&M

The silhouette is familiar and comfortable, but the fabric and colour is pure disco. A couple of pieces like this will be useful for many Christmas parties, winter weddings and hen dos to come.

OK, onto reader shopping questions, which people have submitted on the very jolly So Good Substack chat.

Where to start looking for a stylish, comfortable, different, unweddinglike outfit for the mother of the groom in December. The usual suspects.. Hobbs, Phase eight etc are not me at all. On the petite side too with no waist - anything waisted is out, skimming ok. Not panicking just yet 🫣 but....... Where does one start? 🙏 Jane McAvan

Mother of the bride/groom is so tough! You are a big part of the day, so you will be photographed loads, and there will be lots of schmoozing and chit chat with people you perhaps haven’t seen in a while so of course you want to look your absolute best and not like a Golden Girl.