The Journal — Black Tie

A black tie wedding is one of the few occasions where the dress code is both genuinely strict and genuinely worth following. The stricter the code, the more clearly dressed the room — and the more the well-dressed stand out from the people who guessed.

Black tie is the most misunderstood dress code in men's and women's fashion. It appears on invitations to galas, charity events, film premieres, and weddings, yet most people arrive either underdressed, overdressed, or wearing something they'll regret in the photographs.