AFROTC Dining Out

Hello! My DS is a first year AFROTC cadet & I'm very new to all this. We just received an invitation to Dining Out with ROTC. The invitation states that Military should wear "Mess Dress" and Civilians "Formal Attire". I'm looking for a little more clarification on what specifically the parents should wear...Would that be Tux or Dark suit/tie? Evening gown/coctail dress?
Thanks for any insight! I'm really looking forward to seeing my DS decked out in full uniform for the first time! He'll also be performing with the AFROTC Blades drill team - I'm probably not calling it the right thing - shhhhh - don't tell him!

A Tux would probably be too fancy for dinning out, the only people that will be wearing something like that will be the active duty military members (i.e. cadre, guest speaker), the cadets will be wearing full service dress or the equivalent of business formal.

At my det's dinning out parents arent invited, but you can bring dates. Male dates wear either suits or dress pants with a long sleeve dress shirt and tie, female dates wear nice dresses (not formal gowns, but nothing super short or low cut either). So Mom should wear a nice dress and Dad a sharp suit.

At our DSs det parents wore dark suits and semi-formal cocktail dresses. Think of a Saturday night wedding at a nice location. The girlfriends wore either gowns or cocktail dresses. Boyfriends wore dark suits.

The only people in tuxes were like Non Ducor stated, the cadre, the POCs and parents that were military.
Craniums up, in case your DS forgets. You don't sit until the dais enters. You will do a lot of toasts in the beginning so takes little sips.

Pima said:

At our DSs det parents wore dark suits and semi-formal cocktail dresses. Think of a Saturday night wedding at a nice location. The girlfriends wore either gowns or cocktail dresses. Boyfriends wore dark suits.

The only people in tuxes were like Non Ducor stated, the cadre, the POCs and parents that were military.
Craniums up, in case your DS forgets. You don't sit until the dais enters. You will do a lot of toasts in the beginning so takes little sips.

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Or get a bigger glass

Pima, you helped me out a great deal at my DS's first Dining Out. I'm looking forward to the second one next month.