Resources for the Bride
Articles on attire for your wedding gown, bridesmaids, and groomsmen. What is in, what is not, and how to accept the wedding gown of your mother (or in-law), or how to regain the family peace if you say no. The Wedding dress: Your Wedding dress is special!You may or may not know that wedding ceremonies and customs vary greatly by country. Some countries use wedding dresses of bright and vivid colors in their traditions, while others have more muted tones. Traditionally the wedding dress in the U.S.A. is white. The whilte color has often been considered a representation of purity in this culture, and a white dress used to signify purity of the bride. Nowadays, brides often wear white, whether they are virgins or not. White is considered the standard color for wedding dresses, so much so that even pregnant brides have been known to wear white in their ceremony. An alternative for second weddings that some brides use is an off-white tone, and some weddings even have a slight pink hue in the dress.
What color you wear is entirely up to you, but consider such elements as expectations of the parents and in-laws, your preference, and how traditional your ceremony will be. If you are having a wedding on a beach somewhere during a cruise, you may feel more inclined to consider a unique wedding dress (or not a dress at all, but some festive attire), but if you will be marrying in a church with a traditional ceremony and all of your friends and family, you will probably want to stick with an elegant white wedding dress that will stay true to the formality of the cherished event.
Wedding dresses can be ornately laced with hand sewn diamonds, and can be made of the finest silk available. Conversely, wedding dresses can be machine made and/or designed to look exquisite and expensive without breaking your budget. Prices will vary by state and year, but it is possible to find a dress for $99 and also a dress for $10,000 and up! A wedding dress is a special gown, with treasured memories attached. So, the big question is, how much should you spend on your wedding dress? This is a difficult question that all brides face. You will probably keep this dress for years to come, trying it on for anniversaries and showing it to your own daughter someday. It used to be easy to recommend spending $400-$1000 on a dress, but now some high school prom dresses are costing upwards of $400 alone!
It would do a disservice to recommend an exact price, but I will recommend a percentage. Look at your overall budget (if you do not have one yet, visit our budget planner to get a rough estimate). On average, brides will spend between 10% and 20% of their total budget on their wedding dress. So if your wedding budget is $5,000, you might look in the $500-$1000 range to begin, and if your budget is $10,000, you might begin looking in the $1000-$2000 range. It helps to go to the stores (or look in the sections) which fit your budget when you first start to look at dresses.
Let me give you one piece of advice- it is okay to look at wedding catalogs for dress ideas (in fact I recommend it!), but do not go looking at $20,000 wedding dresses if you plan on spending $1000! Brides often buy the first dress they try on, and bridal boutique owners know this fact! You will find them trying to double or triple the amount you intended to spend by showing you to a different section. Be careful selecting your first gown to try on, because you may fall deeply in love with it. Don’t let the store owner convince you to try on something you know is way out of your budget. You are not depriving yourself- just remember, there will always be a “more expensive” dress, no matter the budget- just look at what celebrities pay for theirs! Before you try on a dress that costs as much as you paid for your car, remember that you do not want yourself in the predicament of wishing you could wear the one you found, or worse, buying it anyway. I have seen many marriages start off shaky because of arguements over money, especially when the couple goes into debt from the wedding (visit our common conlicts in marriage section for more information). One last note: I have noticed a trend of some brides who do not want to compromise on the quality they insist on having in their wedding dress, and who feel any less than a dress equal to their entire budget will fall short. To satisfy this, they have sometimes rented their dress. I suspect this trend will decrease in the future, but if this is you, know that this option is sometimes available. Before exploring this option, please just consider whether it will be important to you to have the dress available in the future or not. Most brides will choose to buy a different dress that they can keep as their own.
Will you have an evening or day time wedding? Will iyou have an indoor or outdoor wedding, will it be cool or warm outside? Many brides consider these ceremony issues when determining if you purchase long sleeves or short sleeves, or a strapless wedding dress, but it is up to you- you can have a strapless gown in the winter if you want. See our wedding styles section for more information.
Consider if you want a long or short train (the train pins up in back during the reception, by the way), a formal headpiece with a veil or a small tiara-type of headpiece and a full hoop skirt slip or something less poofy. I remember the store manager (and my mother-in-law) kept insisting I wear a large hoop slip under the dress. When I tried it on, it did NOT flatter my figure. I was a skinny bride, with long legs, but short waisted (and well-endowed), and the hoop skirt did not show off my figure at all, but rather made me look odd. So, I took only the smaller portion of the slip for an only slightly-full look, and it was perfect! Listen to experts, friends, and family about what you should wear, but then use YOUR judgement about what is flattering to you.
Remember, you have to be happy with the pictures for the rest of your life! You deserve a great wedding, and how you look should be the least of your concerns. Look your best! If you do not feel great about your appearance right now, the engagement time is the chance for you to do something about this. You deserve to feel great about yourself! For more resources on feeling great in your wedding dress, visit beauty tips, or nutrition and healthy diet sections.
