I'm so so so annoyed. When did formal/semi-formal mean jeans?

I'm from the midwest, a lot of my family is from the west. Most of us grew up in towns with like maybe 10000 people, not a very formal setting and we're all really lax people usually. I've never seen any family event be specified as any kind of formal.

But... on the invitation AND the wedding website it says dress code: semi-formal. Theres a Q&A section on the website that very specifically says NO JEANS!!!

Yes, jeans can be okay... at your wedding.

I also thought it was just a thing to have something for every occasion in your wardrobe. Like at least one nice bottom and one nice top. I grew up, my immediate family at least always had something nice. Even my dad who is very famously known for lounging around in his underwear with guests in the house and going to events wearing overalls.

I didn't realize that this apparently isn't a common thing (for my people at least) until yesterday. I messaged a specific friend because I know him well enough to know he might wear jeans. I was asking him if he had a good dress shirt and dress pants. He told me he had a very nice pair of jeans to wear.

When I asked if he had any kind of khakis or slacks, he said no. He said these jeans look really good but I've been in that boy's closet.

So I asked him what size he wore and he told me and I spent over an hour calling everyone I could think of to see if they had the same size so we could borrow a pair of dress pants. My Papaw is the same size as him so when he told me I was so so happy and I told him I would need to borrow a pair of dress pants. He goes to church very religiously so I thought he'd have an extra pair because youre supposed to wear nice clothes to church right?

When I mentioned this he said "You and (brothers name) are pissing me off!" Cause my brother also had him wear dress pants to the wedding. Hes family, family at the very least in this kind of setting with all the pictures should be wearing nice dressy clothes especially because jeans would just not fit in right in my formal vision.

Again, if you are cool with people wearing jeans to your wedding thats what you are cool with but this is a semi-formal attire wedding.

I called a few other people who all were just kinda like "Wait... I cant wear jeans?" To which I responded "It would be very much preferred you not wear jeans" and I mean everyone is absolutely understanding to this other than a few people (for example: my Papaw) who were not happy.

I'm actually going to go buy the dress pants for my friend but my god I just wanted to rant about this because anything other than just casual does not mean jeans... right? 😭