The London Lounge

I had expected the whole British Royal Family to turn up at the wedding of Mr. Peter Phillips and Miss Autumn Kelly at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle all dressed in the so-called tradtional grey morning dress, but was surprised only Prince Charles observed the "rule". Even the bridgegroom wore the more ordinary black morning cutaway.

See http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/ ... 0633d.jpg

or

http://www.merryroyals.com/wp-content/ ... -3-nc.jpg

Perhaps because he married a lowly suburbanite?
(I say that with tongue in cheek, she is from the burbs of my home town).

I get the impression from the photos that Chuck was not in the wedding party. So it was OK for him to dress for the race track.

For his own recent wedding, you'll remember that he wore the black coat.

Black "more ordinary" are you mad! Grey is for the races and for hire.

Though there was a previous discussion on the appropriate colour of a morning dress for a gentleman at a British wedding, I cannot recall the exact thread, except that a related article in Wikipedia written by one of our honourable loungers included the following remark:-

"Traditionally, only the groom and bride's father are allowed to wear a grey morning coat to a wedding and all other guest wear black morning coats."

Slightly unrelated, but I just discovered this little tidbit on Wikipedia about King Zog of Albania:

The King's Chamberlain was instructed to accost well-heeled visitors to the local hotel in the capital Tirana with the demand that they attend a Royal audience, at which formal morning dress should be worn. The visitor would be referred to a local outfitter where they could buy the requisite clothes, although this turned out to be quite expensive. The subsequent audience at the palace would be brief and perfunctory. The outfitters was owned by King Zog.

Someone turning up to a wedding in a grey morning suit is either:
1 too short of funds to buy a black one.
2 too mean to buy a black one.
3 trying to draw attention to himself.

I suspect number 3 in this case.

culverwood wrote:Someone turning up to a wedding in a grey morning suit is either:
1 too short of funds to buy a black one.
2 too mean to buy a black one.
3 trying to draw attention to himself.

I suspect number 3 in this case.

Or he is a prince of the realm, indeed heir to the throne, and may do as he pleases.

The rest of the family had good enough manners to follow convention and that includes his father.

I am reminded of a story, perhaps apocryphal, of an occasion when the Queen and Mrs Thatcher turned up to an event in outfits of precisely the same colour. When asked by the press to comment Buckingham Palace stated that "The Queen never notices what other people are wearing"

I heard this story as: the Thatcher office rang the Palace to ask what the Queen was wearing to some event to avoid a clash and the Palace replied that they never comment on what the Queen is going to wear. Anyhow, whichever version is accurate, I recall this as a real circumstance. I have to say that I am coming around to MA's view that obsession with the prescriptions of overly strict convention, in this modern age, is cloying. Even if I cannot change my spots, I can change my tune!!
NJS

culverwood wrote:Someone turning up to a wedding in a grey morning suit is either:
1 too short of funds to buy a black one.
2 too mean to buy a black one.
3 trying to draw attention to himself.

I suspect number 3 in this case.

4. Sending a message about how he regards the couple.

I had another look at a video tape of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

The bride's father, the Earl Spencer, wore a light-medium grey cutaway, waistcoat and trousers. He had a white pocket square in his chest pocket and a large white carnation in his right lapel.

Someone shorter than the bride, who was already not very tall, being only as tall as her mother, help the Earl Spencer up the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral. I think he might have been her brother. He wore a medium grey cutaway, waistcoat and trousers. The Earl would have looked much smarter had he used a Malacca cane instead.

Prince Edward wore a dark, probably black, cutaway and put on a light grey tophat.

Bishop of Briggs wrote:

culverwood wrote:Someone turning up to a wedding in a grey morning suit is either:
1 too short of funds to buy a black one.
2 too mean to buy a black one.
3 trying to draw attention to himself.

I suspect number 3 in this case.

4. Sending a message about how he regards the couple.

LOL!

I believe in this case it is mixture of 3 and 4. And about breaking the rule, there is the irony of our times: In a world full of dandy-wanabes, a truly elegant man has to break a convention in order to be spotted amongst the rest.

Guille wrote:. . . . a truly elegant man . . . .

Charles?!?