Summer Wedding Fashion: The Coverup
The perfect summer jacket from Trina Turk.
Welcome to summer! Wedding season is in full swing. We’ve covered wedding fashion outdoors, in the church, at the beach, so hopefully you have your eye on the dresses you’ll be wearing at this summer’s ceremonies, but what we haven’t covered yet is, well, the cover-up! Yes, it’d be great if your dress covered all the bases by itself, but let’s be realistic. Sometimes weddings will take you in and out of the sun, the wind, and the air conditioning, and you’ll find yourself in need of some help for climate and modesty control. This is particularly true if the reception is going to be outdoors or in tents and the ceremony is in a church or the ceremony is outdoors and the reception venue is heavily airconditioned. A pashmina is always a safe choice, but if you’re looking to go a little farther afield, here are some ideas for cute cover-ups that are totally wedding-appropriate.
Of course the coverup that works best will depend on your dress, but for weddings I like shorter or cropped cardigans or jackets that look ladylike and let your dress shine through underneath. I also love a little ornamentation, assuming the dress itself doesn’t have so much detailing that it would look busy. A jacket or cardigan may cost you a little more than a pashmina would, but if you get the right one, you could be tossing it over dresses for dozens of weddings to come. This offering from J. Crew not only has sweet ruffles but also has the advantage of coming in a wide range of colors so that you can find one to match your dress:
Lacy crocheted trim can also be a great touch for a wedding:
Also in white. From Elie Tahari.
Totally affordable and on sale! From Halogen, also in ivory.
Jackets can also work well for a summer wedding — a light jacket with short or three-quarter sleeves tossed on over your dress looks seasonal and put together, and is easy to toss over the back of your chair later in the evening when you’re ready to get down on the dance floor. The Trina Turk jacket at top has a perfect simple silhouette that makes it hugely versatile. Here are some other options:
Another adorable offering from the queen of cute jackets, Nanette Lepore.
Damn it, the Olsen twins have sucked me in again. A great blazer from Elizabeth and James.
I have to admit, this one is hardly budget-friendly and would clearly require the right (fairly simple) dress, but I couldn’t resist including it:
Abfab! From Vivienne Westwood Anglomania.
these are hugely helpful - but a lot of these jackets are white - isn’t white frowned upon at a wedding? or are we assuming that a white jacket is differentiated from a white dress?
for more traditional weddings, i suppose that a ladylike jacket (even if it is white) is preferable to a chilly/revealing (f more colorful) set of shoulder straps or something. or worse, bare shoulders!
I think a white or off-white jacket over a non-white dress is probably fine — the whole point of no white is that you not be mistaken for the bride or draw attention away from the bride. While I would tend to interpret that pretty broadly (I won’t wear white dresses with a print, either), a white cover-up isn’t going to make you look like the bride any more than a white clutch or a white hat would. Jackets are admittedly difficult from that standpoint, though — jackets in summer cuts are frequently offered in white for obvious reasons.
No, you can definitely enjoy wearing one of these cute and trendy white jackets to attend a wedding. Its the color of summer, and summer is wedding time, so go ahead and wear that jacket!