My husband has a meeting in Washington D.C. next weekend and is due to give a presentation to his company's national sales team (he's not in sales but his job and info is vital to their jobs). Anyway, the itenerary says that everyone should dress in "cocktail dinner attire". What would you interpret that to mean? He has been to other meetings with the company before but it's always been business casual, this will be his first attendance at the national meeting. Thanks for you input, I have a feeling we'll be doing some shopping this weekend as he doesn't go to many cocktail parties so I suspect his closet will not have what he needs.
Thanks everyone. He decided to go with a nice brown jacket, nice dress pants, and blue shirt and a matching tie and nice new brown shoes. I must say that he did look very handsome :-) He said that most people there were dressed very similarly so he didn't feel underdressed at all. Thanks for all your recommendations.
It's the East Coast, which is still more formal than the rest of the country... my husband goes to Corporate hdqtrs in New Jersey all the time and he says they're "dressed".
So I'd say dark suit, nice tie, white shirt, shiny black shoes. Just watch CNN's White House report and copy the anchor.
My husband says that it means a suit and tie and nice shoes. My dh goes to a lot of these types of meetings. He says go to Men's Warehouse because the suits last longer and if something happens you can go into any store and they will replace it for you.
Good Luck!
I agree with the other post... East coast is much more formal than anywhere else. I worked for a large corporation in New York and "normal" business attire was business suits (both men&women). You can't go wrong with a black/navy suit & tie and shiny shoes.
At minimum, a very nice sports jacket/blazer, dress shirt and slacks...but, better to be on the safe side, I'd go with a full suit & tie.
I think a nice suit or dress slacks, dress shirt, and dinner jacket is appropriate enough. Ties are optional. If he wears a dress shirt that doesn't need a tie, then that is fine.
Good luck!
-Char
Black suit, tie, shiny clean shoes.
