Dress Code for English Tea

[elbenn]

We will be taking a family trip to England soon and I think my kids will mostly be wearing athletic type shoes. We want to sightsee and don't need to go to any fancy restaurants so I was going to skip bringing dressier type shoes for them. But if we wanted to do an English tea somewhere kind of nice, what would the dress code be?

[jgenie]

My kids have worn collared shirts, khaki pants and sneakers for our meals, including English teas, in England. We generally eat after touring without returning to our rooms. Dress shoes would have made them miserable during the day.

[mom2binsd]

If they don't have "clean" and nice looking athletic shoes, then Hey Dudes are lightweight and would be easy to pack, they tend to look dressier, that's what DS has used when sneakers weren't right and real dress shoes not necessary. Boys either a polo/golf shirt or collared/nicer dress shirt, no huge logos/words and pants (some of the golf/athletic style pants would do instead of khaki/chino style pants), for girls skirts/dresses or nice pants, nothing too short or revealing, maybe a cardigan over a tank top, again nothing too tight/low etc. Can you google pics of the venue?

[elbenn]

Thanks for the replies. I will pack some golf type pants and collared shirts and hope that those will dress up their athletic shoes enough.

[hillview]

i think it depends. We just went to london and had tea at fortum and mason (it was very nice and also not cheap!) and I wore jeans. Brown's and the Ritz has a dress code (I think?) so I'd check the websites for dress code so you can plan.

[elbenn]

i think it depends. We just went to london and had tea at fortum and mason (it was very nice and also not cheap!) and I wore jeans. Brown's and the Ritz has a dress code (I think?) so I'd check the websites for dress code so you can plan.

Fortnum and Mason was actually one of the places I was considering. Good to know you can wear jeans. What about kids wearing tennis shoes?

[gatorsmom]

Fortnum and Mason was actually one of the places I was considering. Good to know you can wear jeans. What about kids wearing tennis shoes?

Tennis shoes should be fine. You can dress up tennis shoes and even jeans if your boys wear a collared shirt. Just don’t let them wear sandals.

[mmsmom]

In December we had tea in London at a fancy hotel- can’t remember name. We wore jeans and sneakers because we were out of hotel for the day. If hotel was closer I would have considered changing but it just wasn’t feasible. We were not the only ones casual and I think it is accepted that most tourist will be casual.