No Hats

I must admit I don’t really understand why it would make you feel uncomfortable as you would not be wearing them only the guests. But you could add something to the invites like : we respectfully ask for no headgear as we prefer a more relaxed vibe.
Or something similar.
Personally I don’t care what everyone else is wearing, I’m focussed on my dress and the wedding party. The guests can do whatever! As long as no one turns up in anything ridiculous.Good luck

Yeah just include a dress code section on either the wedding website or within the wedding invite info. I would outline the rest of the dress code and then add a sentence along the lines of ‘we request no hats or fascinators’. Keep it short and sweet.

I completely get this! I hate the whole hats and fascinators thing, personally I think they look a tad stupid and I would rather be able to see people's faces in photos! My Mam (mother of Bride) isn't wearing one because she doesn't like them!
Maybe in the invite could say something like "we kindly request no hats or fascinators as per NZ tradition"? Tradition might not be the right word but maybe draw attention to the culture difference? Maybe after sending invites casually mention it to as many people as you can? Or saying "we want to see as many faces so please no head gear"? Although I would prepare in case someone does turn up wearing one because people suck sometimes 😂🙄

Unless this is a super huge issue and would literally ruin your wedding, then I would just leave it. Some people may want to wear a hat if it's sunny, or because they have hair loss, and other people may wear a head covering for religious reasons.

You could try to discourage hat-wearing by saying something along the lines of 'we look forward to inviting you to our relaxed, informal, New Zealand style wedding' and hope that this gets the message across, but telling people they are forbidden to wear hats seems unnecessarily draconian.

We’re having an informal wedding too so I was thinking about writing something like this on the invitations:


‘No hats, no fuss! Please come wearing whatever makes you feel most comfortable’

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Thank you everyone for your replies - very helpful!