re: Why don't people dress up any more for occassions, like weddings, church, grads, etc?

Well that’s a great reason to dress like an oaf. Never want to offend a morons sensibilities

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Well that’s a great reason to dress like an oaf. Never want to offend a morons sensibilities

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If you meet one a-hole on the street, they're the a-hole. If everyone you meet on the street is an a-hole, you're the a-hole.

A jambalaya wedding at the VFW Hall in Gonzales, LA is not going to be nearly as formal as a wedding at a nice venue in Manhatten. You are dealing with very different cultures and very different expectations of guests. Know your audience.

I've been to weddings where groomsmen are wearing jeans and cowboy boots.
I've been to weddings where the wedding party is in tuxes and formal gowns and all the guests are in coat and tie.
I've been to weddings catered by their uncle with his black pot of jambalaya and a keg of bud light featuring their brother in law's cover band.
I've been to weddings with string quartets catered by award winning chefs with a formal sit-down dinner on china.

What matters is what the bride and groom want, and if it's a good time.

If you take a stick out of your arse and conform to the expectations of your peers rather than worrying about petty pride, you can embrace the chaos and have a lot of fun.

We still dress our Sunday best at my church

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trash society, plus suits and dress clothes are expensive, as is dry cleaning

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This. Nobody in Ascension Parish (except for trial lawyers, politicians, and try-hard carpet-baggers/white-flighters from BR who still send their kids to private school) even wears a suit outside of funerals or weddings, and rarely even then. Heck, most of my friends didn't even own a suit before I got married! Suits are expensive, hot, and unnecessary for most people and most occasions these days. Heck, I didn't even own a sport coat until I was a junior in college!

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Forgive me, if you will, for injecting socio-political ideas into this, but American cultural "elites" see: TV and movies, and whoever else, have been pushing us toward less formal ideals of address, discourse, dress, etc. for 70+ years.

What we have today is the goal of "egalitarianism" where "arbitrary" mores, norms, etiquette, etc. are disavowed. They're derided as old-fashioned, stupid, "who are you to tell me how to __________________?" (insert dress, speak, whatever you like in the blank.) And the justification of "well, it's polite, or appropriate" is often met with a shurg and "so, the frick, what?"

How many threads on here do we see where at least more than one poster will post " why do you care how another grown man dresses?"

I'm guilty of it too, often enough, wearing dress or even khaki pants with a dress shirt, only, to Church on Sunday instead of at least a tie and coat if not a suit.

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Even worse, we've downplayed shame in this culture, or that there is a "right" and "wrong" way to do something. Formality infers that there is a correct, read: proper, way to conduct oneself or to achieve something. We've tried very hard as a society to make sure that every way to do something is special (therefore nothing is), and that people are not held accountable for their choices.

This is what happens. You shouldn't look down on someone because of how they dress, at least that's how the "culture" wants you to act.

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This is what happens. You shouldn't look down on someone because of how they dress, at least that's how the "culture" wants you to act.

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If you're dressed like a fool, I just assume you don't know how to dress. There is a difference between someone who is dressed poorly but seems like they were trying and someone who dresses disrespectfully.

I guess if you are a high school librarian it might be on par with normal work attire. The guy looks like he took a negative image of a picnic tablecloth and turned it into a shirt.

ETA: You probably shouldn't get your fashion advice from a website called "Doctor Leather".

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You gain comfort by dressing down but you lose something too . Dressing appropriately to big events is a way to bestow honor and respect upon that event . It’s something that is cross - cultural and universal to mankind . We dress in our best to our more significant events - it’s a sign of mutual respect - to each other and to our larger culture. As that is being lost, it is likely that the significance of those events and the respect we extend to others are being diminished as well .

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Apparently JFK started the trend of not dressing AS nice, he didn't wear a hat so men stopped wearing hats and it has gone downhill ever since.