If you have a problem using JQuery validation with .form-group
bootstrap as below :
Here the code to initialize the JQuery Validatation
$("#validate-form").validate({ errorElement: 'span', errorClass: 'help-block', highlight: function (element) { // hightlight error inputs $(element) .closest('.form-group').removeClass('has-success').addClass('has-error'); // set error class to the control group }, unhighlight: function (element) { // revert the change done by hightlight $(element) .closest('.form-group').removeClass('has-error'); // set error class to the control group }, errorPlacement: function(error, element) { if(element.parent('.input-group').length) { error.insertAfter(element.parent()); } else { error.insertAfter(element); } } });