Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. Dress Length and Formality By Cori Meloney train. You can also wear long sleeves, or if your dress is sleeveless, long gloves. How do you know if your wedding is formal? Consider your timing (evening rather than morning), location (church rather than outdoors) and the number of guests (more than 200 is usually more formal than less than 100). Formal. Are you having more than 100 guests and holding your ceremony in a church or other luxurious locale? Your event is formal, but less so than the previous category. Appropriate dresses for this type of ceremony are floor length and have a chapel or sweeping train. You can also add a hat or gloves. Semi-formal. We suspect many of you fit in this category: your ceremony has 100 or so guests and your ceremony is outdoors, in a church or at someone’s home. Dresses for these types of weddings are floor or cocktail length and you can add a hat to complete the look if that fits your style. Your train, if you have one, should be shorter than those on more formal dresses. Informal. Getting married at the courthouse or in a ceremony with fewer than 50 guests? The most appropriate kind of dress for an informal ceremony is a simple style - you can also wear a suit or cocktail-length dress. Trains are too formal for this type of event. The length of your dress can depend on the formality, timing and location of your ceremony. You’ll look overdressed in a cathedral-length gown with long sleeves at a rose garden wedding and underdressed at an evening church wedding without a train. Here are some hints as you plan the type of wedding you want and start dress shopping: Very formal. For an ultra-formal wedding, consider a floor-length gown with a cathedral-length 44 | SOUTHERN MARYLAND WEDDINGS WINTER / SPRING 2009