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My fiancé and I are getting married in Florida in July. He is wearing a khaki vest and trousers with a tie and brown shoes and I will wear a full length dress.

The wedding is at 2pm and the reception will be a few hours later at a restaurant which requires business casual attire. What dress code should we request for our guests to wear? We opted out of tuxedos since it’s Florida in July, but also this is a destination wedding and our guests will be traveling from Pennsylvania. What’s your suggestion?

–R, Pennsylvania

For your destination wedding, the dress code ‘Business Casual’ is more about what NOT to wear: shorts, flip-flops, t-shirt, baseball cap, wife-beater, bare feet, bare chest or bare midriff. The restaurant uses the No Bare Bodies dress code ‘Business Casual,’ because they’re encouraging  guests to wear sundresses instead of bikinis and trousers in favor of Speedos.

For your khaki vest-themed wedding, you are looking for the men guests to wear a tie with either a summer vest or jacket. Tell your guests that by using the dress code ‘Tie and Vest.’

Out of respect for you, the bride, on her wedding day, the very least the men guests can do is to wear a tie and jacket/vest.

It is traditional to have the wedding dress code coded for the men. For instance, the dress code ‘Black Tie’ means a tuxedo. As you say, it will be too hot in July for a tuxedo and ‘Tie and Vest’ would work wonderfully for your destination wedding dress code.

On your wedding website their should be a place for dress code information. As well as listing the dress code ‘Tie and Vest’ (although not in quotes) on your wedding invitation, you would also put ‘Tie and Vest’ as the dress code for your ceremony on your wedding website.

Men guests who do not own a summer vest will get it that they have the option of wearing a light-weight summer jacket — that they can always take off when the dancing begins.

We look forward to hearing more about your wedding and we would really like to see photos, if you care to share them with NewportManners.com.

~Didi