9 Perfect Wedding Guest Dresses for a Winter Wedding

During every other season of the year, finding a wedding invitation dropped in your mailbox is, at the very least, the best-ever excuse to get shopping ... but a winter wedding? Well, that's a different story. That panic you're feeling right about now, trying to find an outfit that's stylish and seasonally-appropriate? We know it well.

Or actually we should say we knew it well. Ahead, we found three trends — soft velvet, elegant solids, and luxe lace — that make the prospect of getting dressed for a frosty formal event in 2018 easy as can be.

Crisscross this velvety wrap over your frame and pretent you're Joan Crawford heading to a society friend's 1940s nuptials in a ridiculously glamorous dressing gown. (Or maybe that's our own personal fantasy.)

Or...channel Jerry Hall, or Bianca Jagger, or, frankly, any of Rolling Stone Mick’s 1970s love interests in a halter dress in smoky rose velvet. (Just be careful not to steal the spotlight on the reception hall dancefloor.)

This sheath dress might feature the most classic of classic silhouettes, but its super-soft velvet grounds it firmly in January 2018.

There is absolutely no rule that says you have to stay covered from neck to ankles just because there’s snow outside—after all, it’ll be toasty as can be indoors. Slip into this monochromatic dress, add a couple statement jewels, and boldly give winter the cold shoulder.

Elegant enough for formal evening nuptials but rendered in a chiffon that keeps it from feeling fussy, this gown in a winter-berry shade is almost made for slow dancing.

Managing to strike the tricky balance of sexy and refined, this structured dress skims your shape without scandalizing even the most conservative guests at the nuptials.

A classic midi shape is anything but by-the-books in verdant lace.

A little trumpet flourish on this pretty black lace dress brings just the right amount of whimsy to your friend's formal I Dos.

Equal parts short and sweet, thanks to a scalloped hemline, fit-and-flare lines and lovely lace.