This is a trope about fictional portrayals of gay men's weddings, in which one of them will invariably be wearing a white tuxedo, and the other a black tuxedo. The reason for this trope is that a white tuxedo functions as a man's take on the bride's white dress. Sometimes, a Gender Flip will be seen in which two women marry and one of them, usually a Butch Lesbian, wears a black tuxedo, pantsuit, or skirt suit while the other, often a Lipstick Lesbian, wears a traditional wedding dress.
While the lesbian variant is popular in real life, for men this became a Discredited Trope once more open gay men started telling their own stories. One need only take a look at the wedding blog Men's Vows
to learn that it's far more common for gay male grooms to either wear matching suits or their respective favorite colors to their wedding, specifically to avoid implying that one of them is the "bride." Even if one of them is a professional Drag Queen, he'll still wear a suit to his wedding rather than a Fairytale Wedding Dress, since it's the actual person getting married and not the stage persona.
See also Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple, another trope in which same-sex couples play opposite-sex roles.
Examples:
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Advertising
- In the final Long Long Man commercial, a man wears a white tux, but he's marrying a woman. Then the Long Long Man shows up in a black tux (with a very long tail) and proposes to Tooru, the white-tuxed man in question, who accepts it (because Chi-chan, the woman he was marrying, previously cheated on Tooru with Long Long Man) retroactively turning it into an example of this trope.
Anime & Manga
- Lyrical Nanoha: A piece of official artwork shows Nanoha and Fate marrying, with Fate in a suit and Nanoha in a dress.
- Strike Witches: In one episode, Eila has an Imagine Spot of marrying Sanya in a Church with Sanya in a white bridal gown and herself in a black tuxedo.
Comic Books
- Alan Ford: Gender Inverted example. When co-protagonist Minuette Macon temporarly divorces Alan to marry the Baroness Isolde Von Strascen note , the former wears a very feminine dress with a diadem, the Baroness is impeccably dressed in a groom's tuxedo.
- The Authority: Midnighter wore a white version of his costume when he married Apollo. They also tend to be drawn in outfits like this in fanart, but with the colors reversed, since their uniforms are white and black.
Films — Live-Action
- Strange variant in the The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when a wedding march plays and Rocky and Frank N. Furter walk off to Rocky's room together. Frank N. Furter is wearing female lingerie, and Rocky is wearing male.
- In Baby Mama, a small child asks what a lesbian is and is told it's "a woman who wears pants to her wedding."
- Brüno (2009): When Brüno winds up with his assistant, Lutz, at the end of the film, a photo of the two of them in white tuxes holding their adopted black son OJ, is hanging in their house.
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (pictured): Despite being the page image, this is actually a major subversion as the titular "grooms" (Adam Sandler and Kevin James, respectively) are both really heterosexual friends only posing as a married gay couple so that Larry's kids can be insurance beneficiaries due to a bizarre coverage policy.
Literature
- Love Over Gold has a lesbian example. On their wedding day, Diane wears the traditional white dress, while Katrien wears a black dress.
Live-Action TV
- Noah's Arc: In the movie, the tuxes are light gray.
- Happy Endings: Eric wore one to his wedding with Derrick. Oddly enough, Derrick is by far the more effeminate, yet was wearing a conventional black suit.
- Averted on Glee: Kurt and Blaine were both wearing white suits to Brittany and Santana's wedding since they were part of the wedding party. But when they last minute decide to get married and make it a double wedding, they both change into black (albeit different) tuxes.
- Averted on Roseanne, where Scott and Leon both wear black suits for their wedding.
- Gender Flipped on The Last Man on Earth. When Gail and Erica get married, Gail wears a black dress.
- Gender Flipped in the Ghosts (UK) episode "Perfect Day" where one of the brides, Clare, wears a white pantsuit while the other bride, Sam, wears a traditional gown.
Video Games
- Averted in Borderlands 3: neither of the grooms wear tuxes, because they spontaneously decide to get married in the corpse of an Eldritch Abomination.
- Final Fantasy XIV allows players to marry each other in an Eternal Bond. Since two players of the same gender can be wed, they can choose whatever colors they want for their tux or dress.
- In King of Prism: Prism Rush! LIVE, Louis and Shin have a wedding in one event. While the white/black motif was already present for the pair, Louis actually does one better by sporting a dress to the wedding.
- In the in-game gag manga for Princess Connect! Re:Dive, Jun jokingly says she would have to marry anyone who sees her face. Cat Girl Matsuri, who really wants to see Jun's face, imagines the two of them getting married with Jun wearing a wedding dress over her suddenly white armor, and Matsuri wearing a white tux.
- Story of Seasons:
- Zig-zagged In Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. Both the female player character and their chosen bachelorette will wear white dresses in a gay/"Best Friend" wedding, but the male player character wears a white tux regardless of the spouse's gender.
- Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town allows the Player Character to choose between several wedding outfits, the two male-coded ones being a black tux and a light gray tux. Meanwhile, each potential groom will show up at the wedding in a different outfit, resulting in this trope being possible, but hard to plan for unless the Non-Player Character groom's outfit, which is supposed to be a surprise during normal gameplay, is known in advance. For the record and extra context:
- Ralph's tux has a white jacket (and black pants), while Emilio's is completely white, so the straight version will happen if the Player Character groom picks the black tux.
- A downplayed version induced by the Player Character groom picking the light gray tux can happen if the other groom is Damon, who wears a black tux.
- Jack will show up in a navy blue tux and Iori in a colorful Far East style outfit respectively, which keeps the trope from happening in any shape of form.
Web Comics
- Averted, or maybe doubled, in Questionable Content, with the marriage of Henry and Maurice. Both grooms are in white.
- Played With in Shortpacked!: Robin is the "groom" of her and Leslie's wedding, and wears what looks like a white tuxedo top with a skirt, seen in the last panel.
- While Lisa wears a wedding dress when she and Ally get married in Sunstone, Ally opts for a very smart-looking white skirt-suit with white nylons and heels.
Western Animation
- Inverted in South Park: Big Gay Al and Mr. Slave both wear dresses when they get married.
- In The Simpsons, Patty nearly gets married in a suit, while her bride really a cross-dressing man wears a dress.
- When Ruby and Sapphire get married in Steven Universe, the usual conventions are reversed: the more butch of the two is the one wearing the wedding dress, while the more feminine one wears the tuxedo. When they fuse after the wedding, Garnet wears a snazzy tux/dress combo.
- Subverted in Voltron: Legendary Defender: Shiro and his newlywed husband Curtis both wear white tuxes at their wedding in the final scene.
Real Life
- Ellen DeGeneres wore a white suit at her wedding to Portia de Rossi, who wore a dress.
- Subverted by real life couple George Takei and his current husband Brad Altman. At their 2008 wedding they both wore white tuxes.
