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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For our last 15 minutes today, we will end the show with the June wedding season call-in on what you're asking your guests to wear at your wedding or what you as the guest have been asked to adhere to as a wedding event dress code. Anybody with a story like that? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Why do I ask? This year, you may have noticed something a bit different or at least more common than in the past. From what we're seeing, invites, as they often do, include a dress code, black tie or cocktail attire. You've seen this, some of the standards, but these days, you might notice a bit more nuance.

Recent lifestyle articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post report on increasingly specific wardrobe guidance for weddings, sometimes even including visual mood boards, believe it or not. I don't even know what that is. Here are a few that we found. Mountain cocktail. Really? That's the dress code or recommendation for a wedding. Mountain cocktail. Another one is desert formal or garden party chic. That I think I at least understand. Some even more specific, Vegas vibes, jungle fever. Come to my wedding dressed in a way that reflects jungle fever and Italian summer. The point is to coordinate some cohesion, I guess, and have a little fun that way with what people are wearing, and hopefully also make sure everyone is comfortable.

Listeners, we're opening up the phones for you to weigh in on these modern dress codes, which may demand a little more thinking and creativity from guests. Not quite Halloween, but whether you're planning your wedding dress code or are attending a wedding with this kind of guidance, tell us about it. 212-433-WNYC. Who has a creative one you would like to draw attention to? 212-433-9692. You can also text that number. Couples, if you're planning a wedding with a dress theme, how did you come to that decision? What kind of inspiration hit you and what kind of guidance are you providing for your guests? Did you create a Pinterest-like mood board to provide inspiration? Maybe you successfully pulled off a wedding with a great theme, and it happened already. Tell us the story. 212-433-WNYC.

Guests, it's customary for a wedding ceremony to be unique to a couple, especially if it's bringing together families of different cultures or maybe a couple who has ties to one place in the world or another, and as guests, we show up to celebrate the pair. What have you seen as an interesting new mash up? How did you prepare as a guest? Did you find the extra guidance helpful or were you really hoping to wear what you wore to the last wedding you went to or something you could just pull out of your closet and a specific dress code caused more confusion or just work than you wanted to put in? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Someone suggests mountain cocktail might say something about what kind of footwear guests should choose. You take it from there. Tell us about your wedding dress codes or dress recommendations or dress themes for yourself or one that you've attended as a guest. Did you like this or did you wish you didn't have to deal with it? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. We'll take your calls and texts right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls on wedding dress codes or wedding dress themes as spouses or guests. Anna in North Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hey, Anna.

Anna: Hi, Brian. Good afternoon. I'm of Nigerian descent. Wedding dress codes and colors are standard, and they make our wedding preparation so exciting. The groom side picks the color, the bride side pick the color and the couple will take a mix of that color. The cousins will wear a color or wear a special fabric. The aunties, the grandparents, everyone has a designated outfit. I'm glad it's trickling down to all the cultures, but we love our themes, colors and it just makes it fun.

Brian Lehrer: That is really cool. Thank you for starting us off that way. John in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, John.

John: Hello, Brian. Love you. Love your show. Thank you. I got married in January. I had a pretty big wedding. I love style, I love individuality, so I thought it would make it easy for all of my friends and family. For the dress code, I just put one word, which was fashion, leaving it up for interpretation. It turned out that I confused all of my friends and family from coast to coast, and everyone was calling me. It turned out, in the end, really great. I think I got across everyone that I just wanted them to be themselves and dress up or dress down, wear a wedding dress yourself, I don't care. It was a blast. It turned into basically a big fashion show.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] How did you deal with the confusion part, though? Was there blowback where people ticked off. Here's a text that says, "Our friends teased us mercily about codes for our pre-wedding party sack race casual, and yes, there were sack races, and seaside festive for our rehearsal dinner, which took place near an arena." How did your experience relate to that?

John: I actually still even when people were calling me and inquiring, I didn't really provide much more insight. I just said, "Just be yourself." It's one word. Interpret it however you'd like. People really showed up.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much, John, and congratulations. How about, let's see, Dave in Rockaway, New Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hi, Dave.

Dave: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking the call. My daughter just married a week ago. When she announced, she told us, "Oh, we're going to do a DIY wedding." My wife and I were all in, but like, "Yes, of course. We're going to help you do the thing." Oh, by the way, it's a Ren Faire theme. Oh, so now we had to go Renaissance. The groom had this fantastic coat jacket that was silk brocaded. He wore a sword. There were swords of plenty.

I ended up with just a casual tunic, but I did have a waist belt. On that waist belt, I hung a dagger. We all really had a good time with it. Our only challenge was really making sure that my parent's generations who are in their 80s and 90s understood, "Please don't show up in the tux because you're going to be the only one in traditional garb." They embraced it just with light, casual clothing. It ended up being great.

Brian Lehrer: First you didn't know what to make of it as the dad, and then you got into it.

Dave: Right. We were so happy that we were able to give my daughter and her now husband everything that they were looking for.

Brian Lehrer: Dave, thank you so much for that story. Janine in Hoboken, you're on WNYC. Hi, Janine.

Janine: Hi. How are you? Long time listener, first time caller.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on.

Janine: I have an interesting scenario. I have very close friends getting married in Mykonos this summer. My husband and I didn't get to go on our honeymoon due to the COVID pandemic, so we're going to go on our honeymoon years and years later. We're going to go to the wedding and then we're going to go to Italy for two weeks. It's going to be beautiful. However, this wedding is a white party, a welcome drink party that's glitz and glam, and the wedding theme, get this, is Grecian glam mixed with Mamma Mia, and it's a black tie affair. My husband needs a tuxedo, I need a gown and I need to take this all with me for two weeks on my honeymoon in Italy.

Brian Lehrer: You sound like you're doing it, but there are aspects of this that's too much.

Janine: It's a big ask. They're dear friends, so we're happy to do it, but my husband is going to get a tuxedo from a consignment shop and then leave it at the hotel. He will not be schlepping it around Italy with us for two weeks.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, what do you think about this? A listener texts, "If I have to buy a theme outfit for your wedding, please consider that my gift to you."

Janine: [laughs] My gift is my presence. My present is being present at your wedding.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] There you go, and airfare to Greece. Janine, thank you very much. Nelson in Bushwick. This may be the most unusual one of all the ones we're getting. Nelson, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Nelson: Hey. How is it going? My wedding attire is either going to be just normal jacket and tie or full baseball uniform, like cleats and caps because I'm getting married at the Field of Dreams in Iowa.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, wow.

Nelson: If I'm going to make a destination wedding in the Midwest, I want it to be as fun as possible. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: You're giving people a choice, it sounds like. Normal wedding attire, as you call it, or full baseball uniform.

Nelson: Yes. It's going to be summer in Iowa and be like 95°, but I want people to be comfortable, too.

Brian Lehrer: Why Field of Dreams. Are you and your spouse both super into baseball?

Nelson: Oh, yes. Our whole relationship is built around baseball. She's a Mets fan, I'm a Tampa Bay fan so we don't fight that often.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe you should all come as Willie Mays.

Nelson: Oh, yes. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: All right. Thank you very much. We have time for one more. Look who it is. It's Kousha. Kousha Navidar, who's about to host All Of It. What do you do when you're getting ready to host All Of It? You listen to The Brian Lehrer Show what? Hi, Kousha.

Kousha Navidar: I do. Hi. I'm a longtime host, first time caller. I got married a month ago, Brian, as you probably know. I got married in New Orleans, and I heard you talking about this, so I just had to call to see if I could be one of the people talking about this, too, because the theme of my wedding was jungle disco. My wife and I said that we wanted festive cocktail attire as our dress code. What that meant was you can wear a jacket or a dress, but wear the brightest colors you can.

People really understood the assignment because we had folks wearing bright jeweled blues. There were tie dye suits. Someone actually printed a custom Hawaiian shirt with my wife's face and my face on it. My wife and I wore white. The metaphor was that all the colors combined to make white, which is us being reflective of our whole community. It was one of the nicest parts of our wedding.

Brian Lehrer: That's really cool. Do you think that there's something that bonds you and your wife even more than you would have been before by having this kind of wedding, not just doing regular wedding attire?

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. I think the process of saying what do we want it to look like in the pictures and what do we think our guests will really enjoy doing based on all the people we invited and their personalities, really helped us feel connected with each other as deciding what we wanted our wedding to represent together, which was really beautiful.

Brian Lehrer: That is awesome. I'm going to let you go because you have to go and get ready to interview Medium Bill about his new album and Katherine Lewin about how to host the best dinner party. We've got a little overlap there. We'll be hearing you in about a minute, Kousha.

Kousha Navidar: Cool. Thanks, Brian. Talk later.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks for sharing your story. That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits our national politics podcast. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio. We had Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. Stay tuned for Kousha. He's got somewhere to be on All Of It. Talk tomorrow.

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