Can you wear black to a wedding?

Yes — with three conditions, and one hard exception.

Black at a wedding stopped being a faux pas roughly two decades ago, and at an evening wedding it is now among the most common guest choices. The old objection was that black read as mourning. That reading is gone almost everywhere in the US and Western Europe. What replaced it is narrower and more practical.

The three conditions

1. Evening, or a formal daytime venue. Black at a 2pm garden wedding reads heavy. Black at a 6pm ceremony reads correct.
2. The fabric has to do the lifting. Black has no colour to carry interest, so satin, crepe, velvet, beading or a strong silhouette has to. A plain matte black shift reads like work.
3. Break it somewhere. A metallic shoe, a jewelled earring, a bag that is not also black. Head-to-toe flat black is the version that still reads severe.

The hard exception

If the couple asked you not to, do not. Some families and some cultures still read black at a wedding as inauspicious, and a small number of invitations say so directly. That instruction outranks every fashion argument on this page.

The related question

All-white is still off-limits, and so is anything close enough to photograph as white — ivory, cream, champagne, oyster, blush so pale it reads neutral in a group shot. That rule has not moved.