Overdressing for Mass in Tennessee

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old_man_chris

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Greetings all, I am a transplant from England who has recently moved to Tennessee. I have always put on a suit for Sunday Mass, nothing outlandish, gray suit, white shirt, black tie. I recently attended my first Mass in Tennessee, and was the only guy in Church with a suit on.

It would be going against a few decades of muscle memory to not wear my Sunday best, but if I continue with my suit am I committing a cultural misstep?

Thank-you for any guidance.
 
I wouldn’t worry. I lived in TN for awhile, and always dressed well; sport coat and such. I guess it would depend on the parishioners.
 
Never!
I always dress my best for mass (while maintaining modesty of course). There’s no such thing as overdressing for mass (as long as you’re not being showy or vain). In my parish, most people dress casually, but there’s also people who dress well.
We should always strive to be our best in front of the Lord, He’s literally the king of everything!
Maybe you can even inspire others to do the same.
 
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As long as you dress modestly and not be to flashy, when I say to flashy I mean things such as designer, etc, you are good 😃
 
Fascinating you should ask this question. I’m not from Tennessee. I’m from a blue state that has many residents who would look down on folks from that area.

Anyways, we went to Easter Sunday Mass in TN last year. I remember the church we attended was filled with people who were a notch below our own church in terms of folks’ resources.

Know what? Every kid was impeccably behaved; every woman was appropriately dressed; every man was wearing a clean shirt.

My own church, for all its $, would have had none of those 3 things.

I walked out at the end & said to my wife, “these folks could teach our parishioners a few things.”

To answer your original question, I’ve gone to Mass everywhere across the US: Texas; California; Las Vegas; Florida; New York City; the middle of the Adirondack mountains in upstate NY (and in England too). Outside of Easter & Christmas, maybe 1% of men wear a suit to Mass on Sunday (I used to, when I was younger). It’s just not commonly done.
 
old_man_chris said:
Greetings all, I am a transplant from England who has recently moved to Tennessee. I have always put on a suit for Sunday Mass, nothing outlandish, gray suit, white shirt, black tie. I recently attended my first Mass in Tennessee, and was the only guy in Church with a suit on.

It would be going against a few decades of muscle memory to not wear my Sunday best, but if I continue with my suit am I committing a cultural misstep?

Thank-you for any guidance.
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Tennessee is a warm Southern state, it is August, and Catholics are not uniformly known for wearing dress clothes for Mass, nor is anyone (outside of more severe TLM circles) scandalized by someone not doing so. Catholics don’t tend to police each other’s dress. I would say to wear what you like.

More formal, “old-school” Protestant Christians do wear their “Sunday best”, so you wouldn’t be committing a “cultural mishap” in the least.
 
i was a camp nurse one summer in new york state and a lot of our counselors were from england and they told me how shocked they were the way american women dressed when they went even to shop, they told me their MUM would wear a dress to go to the supermarket and they were so surprized how casual americans dressed everywhere. I took a train to montreal one time and i remember seeing so many well dressed women in the streets at the lights pretty clothes wearing highheels to work when at home id see women in sneakers well the real peak was going home at the trainstation i could tell who the americans were and who were the canadians, The american women were in big sweatshirts baggy sweat pants , or big baggy tee shirts and im telling you keep wearing your suits to church, I guarentee you you will start a trend.
 
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I think it’s respectable and appropriate.

A lot of places in the United States, I think you might be hard pressed to find a Protestant preacher wearing a suit/coat/tie anymore. More like blue jeans and a golf shirt, if that. Especially in Tennessee.

Keep on doing what you’re doing and look your best.
 
Some places have turned significantly more casual in the last couple of decades. I live in a place very similar to Tennessee in that respect. However, there are always people who dress a little better. Don’t feel a bit bad about being one of them. It’s not a cultural misstep and it isn’t a distraction. Perhaps you’ll start a trend to bring others around you back better sartorial choices. Trust me, our relaxed fashion choices aren’t necessarily a good thing.
 
old_man_chris said:
It would be going against a few decades of muscle memory to not wear my Sunday best, but if I continue with my suit am I committing a cultural misstep?
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You’re definitely going to stand out.

My husband was a Presbyterian who went to his own church maybe once a year with his dad, and on days when they went, they all dressed up in their good suits because I guess that’s how Presbyterians were expected to dress at their church. Sometimes my husband would go to Mass with me if I pushed him to do so, or if we were on vacation and he had to drive me. For about the first 10 years, he insisted on wearing his suit even though most of the other Catholic men wore khakis and a nice polo shirt and I told him he didn’t have to wear a suit and that he would stand out. He said, “When I go to church, I wear a suit.”
One time we were at the beach and he dragged the suit along and wore it to Mass and because of how he was dressed, the elderly ushers asked him, a total stranger and not even Catholic, to help them take up the collection. He did.

After that he started wearing the khakis and polo shirt like all the other fellows.
 
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In the south, they’ll appreciate it. I don’t wear a suit to Mass, but I almost always wear a button up shirt, and black slacks or khakis. I’d be more worried about the heat. Even in Tennessee, it gets mighty hot this time of year, even in the mountains and the plateau. By the way, welcome to America, and welcome to the south!
 
adamhovey1988 said:
the heat.
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This is a major factor in what I wear to Mass. My local parish church is from the late 1800s. It does have some kind of jerry-rigged air conditioning system, but the air circulation in the church is generally poor, it does not have fans, they do not open the windows or the doors, and it gets very stuffy. I have had a couple incidents of feeling very hot and like I was going to faint in there because of lack of air. The fact that we now have to wear masks in the church makes it worse. When it gets above 80 degrees out, I try to wear the lightest clothing I can and sit as close to the AC vents as possible in there, to avoid getting overheated or lightheaded.
 
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Lucy_1 said:
cough
I think you may have missed a few dozen posts in the forums.
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They post on the forums to vent. They don’t usually run up to each other at church and tell each other, “Hey, you’re dressed wrong.”

A Catholic who did that to another person at Mass would likely get the smackdown from his pastor. Even at the traditionalist parish in town, where dress is expected to be more formal, the bulletin contains a notice that if anyone sees someone who they think is dressed “wrong”, they are not to approach the person themself. Rather, they are to tell the priest, who will decide what if anything to do about it.
 
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Ah well, who am I to point a finger. I’ve done some myself. Not about dress, but plenty of other things. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
 
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