Posted byJen is having a Halloween wedding with costumes encouraged for guests. But, since there will be kids at this wedding, she wanted a way to, both, encourage costumes and discourage anything too revealing or too scary. So her fiance, George, came up with a super clever and awfully cute way to ask guests to keep it kid-friendly…
The bikini-kitty just kills me.
Establishing a costume dress code for a wedding is a delicate balance between encouraging creativity and preventing a guest from showing up in a way that traumatizes the flower girl or ends up in a permanently awkward wedding album. The kitty bikini approach works because it uses humor to set a firm boundary without sounding like a hall monitor.
If you are planning a themed event and want to replicate this success, here are several ways to expand on this playful enforcement strategy:
The Tiered Approval Chart
Create a visual spectrum of acceptability using a mascot or a well-known character. For a Halloween wedding, you might show a classic Universal Monster.
5 clever ways to tell guests your wedding dress code
So you want to tell your guests what to wear, but you don't want to be overbearing, and ideally you'd like to be a little... Read more
- The Green Zone: A dapper Dracula in a tuxedo (Classy/On Theme).
- The Yellow Zone: An inflatable T-Rex (Funny, but might block the view of the ceremony).
- The Red Zone: A shirtless slasher movie villain with realistic prosthetic wounds (Too scary/inappropriate for dinner).
The Costume FAQ (with a wink)
Anticipate the most chaotic guest questions and answer them on your wedding website with a bit of snark.
- Q: Can I wear my realistic zombie makeup?
- A: Only if you want to be responsible for explaining the concept of the afterlife to our five-year-old nephew during the salad course. Please keep the gore to a minimum!
- Q: Is a swimsuit a costume?
- A: Unless you are a Victorian-era bather in a full-body wool suit, let’s save the beachwear for the honeymoon.
The Costume Concierge
Offer a carrot instead of just a stick. Announce that there will be a Best Dressed award for those who stay within the lines of the theme. By defining the categories—such as Most Elegant Gothic Attire or Best Group Costume—you subconsciously guide guests toward the sophisticated side of the costume shop and away from the revealing or low-effort aisles.
The Emergency Accessory Station
Even with the best guides, someone might misinterpret the prompt. Setting up a basket of masks, capes, or fancy hats at the entrance allows guests who missed the memo to upgrade their look. It also provides a polite way for a coordinator to say: This is a beautiful outfit, but why don’t you add this elegant velvet cape to make it more wedding-ready?
The goal is to make the rules feel like part of the entertainment. When guests feel like they are contributing to the atmosphere rather than being restricted by it, they are much more likely to leave the kitty bikini in the drawer.
I usually try to keep my comments intelligent, but all I can say to this is: OMGROFL!!!!!1
Brilliant. Just brilliant. Kitty bikini FTW.
Ha! Win.
Love this 🙂
I know what my kittys are wearing this Halloween! Bikini kitty awesomeness! w00t! lmao (They have their claws, so I don’t dare!!)
Bikini kitty is hawt, but my favorite is the scuba cat. I wish that was a real costume.
Can you imagine trying to stuff a cat into a wet suit?! LOL
My favorite part about the SCUBA kitty is that the wet suit extends all the way down the tail!
hahaha! This is great!
Hey, that’s my friend Jen! We printed these at my work, and they had us all laughing. I especially love SCUBA kitty. 🙂
Speaking from experience, having just lived through my own costumed Hallowedding with a good number of very young kids, people will always have their own level of what they consider appropriate, and it’ll shock you, no matter how clearly you state your preferences!
We had:
A fully masked, glowing red-eyed, “forest spirit” that frightened the crap out of the small ones.
Tobias Funke, with too-short cut-off jean shorts, and blue face paint. Okay, to be honest, this was probably the favorite costume of the night, but, you know. On the edge.
And, probably the biggest head-turner: My friends brought their daughter dressed as Cinderella, and they themselves dressed as the wicked stepsisters (yes, the dude too), complete with blond curly wigs & balloon-stuffed boobies. The guy made sure to leave his fluffy black beard for effect. Again, they got the biggest laugh of the night, walking in a little bit late, right before the ceremony started. But I was totally not expecting that level of cross-dressing, for some reason. 🙂
Anyway, it’s not like it really mattered in the end, but, if you don’t want glowing scary masks or balloon boobies, you might have to be more specific.
I going with the kids being able to dress up for mine. Guests can wear ears and witches hats. I don’t trust people to read much of anything these days.