Sporran Selection

[BlueSkye]

Hello,
Looking for advice on Sporran selection for my upcoming wedding. I've poured over so many different types and wondering about the technical details that make a sporran formal or semi formal vs. casual. Is it the cantle? Color?
Also, I've been told that it's not proper to wear a belt with your kilt in a jacket and vest but i see photos of it being done.

Thank you!

Darren Armstrong
- Invictus Maneo

[DCampbell16B]

Others will have good advice, but first and foremost, what does the bride want?

After that, what time of day is the ceremony? Normally silver buttons and cantle are for after 6pm. In Scotland tweed is correct for weddings and funerals. No silver, often little or no fur on the sporran, just plain leather.

Now, here in the States there are somewhat different ideas. Black coats and silver fittings are more common in daytime weddings.

So (if the bride agrees) the choice is yours, but it looks best if you make sure your outfit matches (i.e., daywear tweeds and leather or black coat and silver fittings).

Advice on this forum will stand you in good stead. If you are renting, don't necessarily believe everything the rental people tell you.

General points: avoid white hose, semi-formal sporrans are an oxymoron (I have my suspicions on the etymology of that name, not for here though), a fly plaid is completely unnecessary (unless all your groomsmen are kilted, in which case it sometimes is used to ID the groom, but it is a nuisance at a minimum, and really not traditional).

So tell us what you have, and especially what you'd like to look like, and we can make you look pretty good. I hope others chime in here as well.

And congratulations!

[BlueSkye]

Thanks DCampbell,
I know time of day plays a role. Our ceremony will be at 4:30pm and reception to follow happy hour beginning at 5:00p. I should receive my first kilt in a couple of days (after waiting 7 months). My bride is letting me lead the decision for attire for my groomsmen and myself. They will be in grey tweed jackets/vests. They will be kilted and I have given them the autonomy to wear their family tartans. I will be with black jacket (not a Prince Charlie) /silver buttons and yes, have a fly plaid. The fly will only be for photos and a portion of the ceremony until it is wrapped around my bride as a symbol of unity to clan Armstrong. Frankly from the advice i've received here and YouTube comments, i don't look forward to hassling with it but it won't be for very long.

I have a selection of Sporran that give me some variety however they're all fur (white rabbit, Coyote and fox). I wasn't sure if the cantle was the decider of formality or not.

The other question was whether or not a belt with matching buckle is proper or not, but as i'm learning that attire and preference in the US and the old country are different. I also realize that likely zero guest at our wedding will know what is proper and what isn't. However sharing photos with my Scot cousins i dont want to disappoint.

Thanks again,

Darren

[DCampbell16B]

Well, solid color hose or diced or tartan (up to you), not white, not mixed or tweedy. I'm not a big fan of big puffy sporrans with 2/3 of it taken up with an oversized cantle. But that's me. Sounds like you want a silver cantle with some fur. Don't go "semi-formal". Seal isn't available here in the states, but some pony and some bovine looks pretty good. Possibly a hunting sporran with a cantle, but you should have some other opinions on that.

[Troglodyte]

As the groom, you will most likely be under orders from your bride when it comes to what you wear - but if you have a free choice, you have a great variety if you want to go kilted.

It sounds as if it will be a 'dressy' occasion, so the Highland dress equivalent of traditional morning dress is quite right and proper. So no tuxedo nor Prince Charlie style evening clothes, and black bow-tie.

DCampbell is quite right in his advice, but the no black jacket and silver buttons for day time is not quite right. The black (or dark colour) barathea Argyle jacket with silver buttons is the Highand equivalent of the conventional morning tail-coat, although many men feel a charcoal tweed with dark buttons is just as good. A white shirt and grey tie goes with it.

Also, a doublet such as the Montrose which is intended to be worn with a lace jabot and cuffs is quite proper, too, and looks excellent next to the white lace and long skirts of the bride's dress.

Many men make the mistake of making their Highland dress wedding outfit a level too low for for that of the bride, and opt for day-time tweeds instead. We have to be careful not to confuse smart with formality in these circumstances. Tartan and tweeds cand look very smart, but it is really ordinary daywear in formality terms.

It was, at one time, the done thing to have a 'going away' outfit, to put on after the ceremonies of the day are over, and the bride and groom are ready to leave on their own. The bride, again, will have her own ideas, but for the kilted groom the options and choices are easy.

This is where the tweed jacket (and waistcoat if desired) are put on - you might want a change of shirt and tie and shoes also - but the kilt, hose and sporran can stay in place.

As for the sporran, there are really no rules as such. Whilst things are done differenty in North America where there is a need to codify and categorise precisely, we do not feel the same here in Scotland. A smart sporran may be a simple plain leather job, but one with fur, tassels and metal cantle has always been proper and usual for weddings here.

Perhaps the best advice is to search out a selection of others' weddding photos and choose the style and combination that most appeals and do your own version. But remember, as groom, you are there to compliment the bride - not up-stage her, nor leave her feeling you haven't tried.

[DCampbell16B]

Everything Trog says.

I forgot to address one of your questions, which is whether you can wear a belt and a waistcoat together. Yes, there are pictures of it being done. Don't do it. One or the other. Depending on when and where this takes place, a belt and jacket may be much more comfortable than waistcoat and jacket.

You mention you have a coat with silver buttons. Is it Argyll style or Prince Charlie?

I was going to post a picture of the Duke of Argyll at his wedding. He wore a tweed jacket and vest, with a leather sporran. Few would fault his choices in matters of Highland dress. Then I noticed he wore a belt with his waistcoat. So there's that...

[Tomo]

Now I will hold my hand up to sometimes wearing a belt and vest - mainly because it I then remove my jacket and vest (often late in proceedings when the whisky is flowing, to be fair) I prefer the look as otherwise I always feel there is something missing - of course I know some frown on this...

For my own wedding I wore a charcoal tweed and vest. In terms of sporran, my choice would have been a leather day sporran with tassels - but my bride expressed preference for a pale grey seal skin evening sporran - so that's what it was.

[OC Richard]

Hello,
Looking for advice on Sporran selection for my upcoming wedding...wondering about the technical details that make a sporran formal or semi formal vs. casual.

To answer such questions I take the long view, keeping in mind the evolution of Highland Dress over the last couple centuries and how what's deemed "proper" or "traditional" today has come to be.

The short answer is that in the first quarter of the 20th century civilian Highland Dress underwent a near-total overhaul and the Highland Dress that had itself sorted out by the 1920s is still with us today.

That Highland dress sorted itself into two quite distinct categories: day/outdoor/field/morning dress and evening dress.

There's no "semi-formal" or "casual" categories per se.

And keep in mind that the two categories don't have 1:1 correspondence with any of the various "Saxon" (non-Highland) dress categories.

So traditionally weddings held during the day called for Day Dress, that is, tweed jacket (of any of the traditional tweed colours), brown leather sporran, self-coloured hose "to tone with" the jacket, and plain black shoes.



This is still with us, we've all seen over the last few years Royal events where the "Saxon" men are in Morning Dress and Scots are in Day Dress as seen above, and numerous photos of Scottish weddings.



Evening events called for Evening Dress, a jacket of fine cloth or velvet with silver buttons, white collar and black or white bow tie, or jabot, sealskin sporran with silver top, tartan hose, and black shoes with silver buckles.

Here's a modern Kilt Hire Era take on traditional Evening Dress, notice that only half the men are wearing the traditionally required tartan hose, and only one gent is wearing shoe buckles. The wearing of buckle-less Ghillies, and plain hose, in Evening Dress were two of the 1980s Kilt Hire innovations.



These discrete Day and Evening categories started getting muddled in the 1980s with the rise of the Kilt Hire Industry which saw men throughout Scotland hiring kilt outfits for their weddings.

A new mode of Kilt Hire dress was quickly cobbled together by mixing various bits of the traditional Day and Evening outfits.

So today men have a choice of sticking to traditional Highland Dress modes or going with the post-Kilt Hire "anything goes" approach.

I've been told that it's not proper to wear a belt with your kilt in a jacket and vest but I see photos of it being done.

Traditionally these belts were called Dirk Belts and were worn to support a dirk but not otherwise.

Unlike trousers, kilts weren't designed to be supported by belts.

At some point in modern times some kiltmakers started putting a couple loops on the back of the kilt intended to keep the sporran strap in place. Americans not accustomed to how kilts work saw these and thought "belt loops! Kilts are like trousers! I'll shove my dirk belt through them!"

In fairness it might not have been just my fellow Americans but also perhaps Scots not accustomed to kiltwearing who hired kilts and weren't exactly sure how to wear them.

About the term "vest" be aware that although "vest" and "waistcoat" were used interchangeably in Scotland through the first half of the 20th century more recently the meaning of "vest" in Scotland has been transferred to an undershirt.

So when speaking of Highland Dress it's best to use "waistcoat".

[Troglodyte]

OC's pictures are a useful guide.

The difficulty a good many people have with Highand dress, is understanding what level of formality it equates to in more widely understood terms.

The black-and-white pictures show men very neatly attired, but the tweed jackets and sporrans are the same things that they will wear to relaxed, informal events such as a Highland games. They look smart, right enough, but are they right and proper to do justice to the effort the bride has made?

What we see is the tweed suit equivalent, not morning dress or even lounge-suit. Tweeds, sartorially speaking, are leisure-wear or 'country casuals' despite how expensive they might be, or sharp-looking. The tweedy kilties look like they are wearing just what they wore the previous weekend at their local Games.

If the bride is going to be in a ball-gown style of dress, it is the duty of her groom, her father and ushers to match their outfits to compliment hers, so the day-time tweeds seen in the pictures must have been a bit of a let-down for the respective brides.

We can imagine the conversation in the car as bride and groom drove away. 'You said you would make the effort,' she might say. 'You've only worn your normal clothes, when I've got my lovey new dress, and veil, and flowers and everything. You could at least have tried to make the effort.'

Come on, lads. We all know the tone of voice that would be said in - it's the you-had-one-chance-and-you-blew-it tone of enduring disappointment. Don't go there..!

When so much of life is lived in jeans and t-shirts, many people now think dressing smartly (even for a wedding) is simply putting on a clean pair of jeans and a shirt with a collar, and the old conventions now seem wildly extravagant.

True, the tweed combos will get a lifetime of use after the wedding, so seem justifiable as a choice, but that is what the going-away outfit is for. If you don't already have them, buy the tweeds and hire a black Argyle with silver buttons - as soon as the toasts have been drunk and the music is playing, the Argyle can be relagated to the back of the chair and never worn again. Your going-away tweeds - the things you really want - will be with you for ever.

And so will your bride's gratitude.

[Father Bill]

Well said Trog. I’m not a great expert on highland garb, but being a priest, I’ve been to more weddings than most men, and if the girl is worth investing your life in, she’s worth dressing well for. You can easily change for festivities and departure and don’t worry about outshining a princess. You can’t You’re just a photographic foil for her and a backdrop for her beauty.