 <p>Another option is placing an error container outside of your form group ahead of time. The validator will then use it if necessary.</p> <pre><code>&lt;div class="form-group"&gt; &lt;label class="control-label" for="new-task-due-date"&gt;When is the task due?&lt;/label&gt; &lt;div class="input-group date datepicker"&gt; &lt;input type="text" id="new-task-due-date" class="required form-control date" name="dueDate" /&gt; &lt;span class="input-group-addon"&gt; &lt;span class="glyphicon glyphicon-calendar"&gt;&lt;/span&gt; &lt;/span&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;label for="new-task-due-date" class="has-error control-label" style="display: none;"&gt;&lt;/label&gt; &lt;/div&gt; </code></pre>