Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Her Ivory Dress + His White Shirt = ?

I'll be picking my dress up in 2 weeks, and so I think it is probably time to start thinking about what my groom will be wearing underneath that hot suit of his.

Here is a reminder of what my dress looks like:



If I pair up a white shirt under all of the suits with my pretty pretty dress am I going to be suffering from the dreaded "dirty dress" phenomenon? You know, the one that all mother's seem to believe in that dictates that ivory dresses will look scrungey next to a crisp white mens shirt.

Almost all of our groomsmen are church attenders that wear white shirts to church every week and so I know they already have a favorite white shirt hanging in their closet (hopefully right next to the black suit they will be wearing). Putting everyone in white shirts under their black suits would be free, and save me a lot of time (and money!) tracking down ivory shirts for everyone. Not to mention the fact that That Groom is insanely picky about dress shirts.

White shirt or Ivory shirt? What have you seen in the past?

12 comments:

EthidiumBromide said...

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the ivory and white combination -- my mother wanted me to wear an ivory dress, but my husband doesn't do ivory well, and we tried an ivory/white combo and everyone agreed it looked terrible, so we both went with white. But we had everyone renting tuxedos for a black tie reception, so there wasn't the factor of groomsmen already owning shirts -- so it may be worth sucking it up and doing the ivory/white just out of convenience. You may even consider putting the groomsmen in white and then finding an ivory shirt just for That Groom -- the groom often wears a different color, so it may actually not look as clashing as it sounds in my head, and you will be next to him in most pictures to stand out, versus the amount of ivory in his shirt next to the amount of white in his groomsmens' shirts.

Naturally Blessed said...

EB above gives a nice solution with the groom in ivory and the others in white.

i keep forgettting that you'd have to buy it if you went with ivory, so for the sake of the budget, i'd probably let the gm wear white.

and since you and that groom are the 2 main attractions you want to compliment each other in pics.....i'd think it would look good to have him in ivory.

my fi will be in ivory and the others will be in....in....you know? i have no idea! lol...i should figure that out!

Kelly B said...

Of all of the weddings I have attended, I have never noticed the difference in the ivory colored dresses and white shirts the groomsmen wear. I think with the help of a tie to cover up the color, no one can really notice. Plus, I'm all for saving money!

I'm afraid of the groomsmens' tuxes not being matching black, so I understand your agony over color issues!

Ellen Mint said...

I've never really seen a big difference between the guys shirts being either ivory or white.

I doubt many other people would either. Especially if he has his jacket on. All that black would make a much bigger contrast.

Cate Subrosa said...

I was concerned about this too. In the end I decided my shirt was such a dark 'ivory' (personally I'd call it cream) that it wouldn't clash with white.

This is such a difficult question, I do wonder why more grooms don't go for a shirt in an altogether different colour...?

Holly said...

This is one of those wedding issues that NOBODY seems to have a fool-proof solution to, but we just decided to throw caution to the wind and rent white shirts that, frankly, didn't bother me and my light ivory dress one bit. :) The pictures don't give away my little secret, and if you can't tell there, I say pick another battle! :)

Rachel said...

I agree with the others - I think most people won't really notice, but if you're still unsure, maybe having your groom wear an ivory shirt would work.
You may also think of having them wear champagne ties/vests. That may help "blend" the white shirts with the ivory dress.

Allison Hasel said...

Ahh! I never even thought of that or noticed it in the MANY wedding photos I've looked at in the last year. I'd go with the white shirts since it is cheaper unless you find an ivory one your groom likes.

My biggest pet peeve has been the white white flowers with an ivory dress. I am really worried about that. I think it clashes severly.

Autumn said...

I say go with the white shirts. They'll only show a tiny bit under the jackets and ties anyway, and in any picture with your dress next to a man, their jacket, not their shirt, will be closest to your dress. Plus it's cost-effective to boot!

I think putting the groom in an ivory shirt while the rest of the guys are in white might look funny.

Rachel said...

OH. MY. GOSH.
I went through this nightmare this weekend! I think the guy at Men's Warehouse probably thinks I'm a total witch.
Good news: they do rent ivory colored shirts.
Bad news: they have 2 styles, and one is severly "cream" colored. Not ivory. And the other has a stand-up collar where only the tips point down.

I got the whole lecture about how my dress would look dingy.... blah blah blah. I wanted to smack him, he was being so condescending. Personally, I guess the shirts with the stand-up-y collars will work, but I want to take in a swatch of my dress just to see if it'll look okay with white (I think it might), and then stick my tongue out at him if it does! (Real mature, I know).

Why is it, when most women do not wear bright white gowns, that they don't have a nice "off-white" - not creamy yellow-y ivory - shirt with a normal collar??? Hello??

Jenna said...

Ok, there is not right answer. I guess I should just stop stressing about silly details that don't even matter? How does this happen to me?

Unknown said...

We recently struggled with this issue before our wedding in October. My wife changed the color of her dress from white to ivory a month before the date. She wanted me to change the color of my guys' shirts, but one of them had already had custom white shirts made. We went ahead and used the white shirts, although I wore an ivory vest. The guys all had black vests. Pictures look great, there is no drop off in the beauty of the dress. It does not look "dirty" or less white...in fact in our situation the white is hardly visible under the dark tuxes and my vest.