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Outfit for a Christening

C.YoungII

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Hi All,

New member to the forum here. I have been invited to a Christening for my cousins newborn. I was wondering what an appropriate outfit would be for the occasion? The ceremony is at a church with a reception to follow at a nice banquet hall.

I was leaning towards a suit but I'm not sure if that's too dressy or not.
 

johng70

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A suit is certainly acceptable. More and more people under-dress at events like that, but traditionally a suit would certainly be appropriate.
 

C.YoungII

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A suit is certainly acceptable. More and more people under-dress at events like that, but traditionally a suit would certainly be appropriate.
Thanks for the response. I just got a new navy suit which I've been itchy to wear out!
 

jaxenro

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Seems people are more worried about being overdressed than underdressed lately. Seems funny to me as the whole casual men’s dress thing was supposed to have come about to be more comfortable and to show the individual didn’t need to conform to social norms yet many now are worried about not conforming to the casual dress social norm.

I don’t recommend a tux for grocery shopping but if your comfortable in dress pants and sports coats, or a suit, then go for it.
 

Chouan

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Use any occasion as an excuse to dress up, you'll enjoy it.:)
 

emptym

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I'd ask your cousin what they plan to wear. Different churches have different levels of formality. For my brother's kids' baptisms in southern CA, no one wore a coat or a tie. For our kids in northern CA, we wore sport coats but no ties. If we still lived in the East Coast, we'd probably have worn coat and tie of some kind.
 

C.YoungII

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I'd ask your cousin what they plan to wear. Different churches ave different levels of formality. For my brother's kid's baptisms in southern CA, no one wore a coat or a tie. For our kids in northern CA, we wore sport coats but no ties. If we still lived in the East Coast, we'd probably have worn coat and tie of some kind.
Good advice, never thought to ask.
 

maxalex

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It is a fact that our culture has interpreted more casual dress codes to mean no dress codes at all, or one single dress code for all of life. Some aspects of this trend are to be encouraged, notably the propensity of young women to consider lingerie as outer wear. In most other cases it must be resisted.

It is entirely possible that you will be the only man at the christening who has shown enough respect to dress properly. The discomfort your attire might cause other, less thoughtful guests is entirely a problem of their own making.
 

jaxenro

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It is entirely possible that you will be the only man at the christening who has shown enough respect to dress properly. The discomfort your attire might cause other, less thoughtful guests is entirely a problem of their own making.

Well said. Funny lately I have been trying to learn the “rules” about what to wear with what, what is appropriate for my age, time of year, and event. In a society that seems to have tossed all the rules for what men should wear why should I care about brown in town or white before Memorial Day? Isn’t just dressing better enough? If the average Joe is wearing shorts and a T shirt on a warm day in February why not that summertime white linen sports coat? Because I think part of the experience, or lifestyle, of dressing better is following the rules of what is appropriate to ones age, and the event and season one is dressing for and then working within those rules to express a personal sense of style.
 

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