Wedding Dress for Success
By Wendi Winters
The engagement ring is on your finger. You’ve set a wedding date, found an officiant, and scored a fabulous venue. Now, what on Earth are you going to wear? It’s time to start shopping for your wedding dress.
The process is one to be cherished, and it harkens back to a long-ago era, before the time of sewing machines and mass production. Certainly a bride in a hurry can buy a perfectly wonderful wedding dress off the rack. But you can also indulge in purchasing what may be the only garment in your life that is tailored expressly to your tastes, desires, budget, and body. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience (unless you’re Zsa Zsa Gabor, who married lavishly and often—nine times).
To buy a wedding dress with minimum hassle you’ll need to start 9 to 12 months before your wedding date. It will take time to construct the dress you order and ship it to the store where you purchased it. It will take more time for a fitting or two and to handle any alterations.
When you are ready to begin, sit in a quiet place and think about your wedding day and your personal fashion image. At your wedding you want to look like yourself, not an unrecognizable fantasy creature. If you are planning a wedding in a cathedral or an evening reception with an eight-course dinner in a lavish hotel ballroom, you probably want an elaborate gown to match. A midmorning wedding ceremony on the beach or in a daisy-strewn field begs for a much simpler dress. Both visions can and should be utterly magical.
Standing in front of a three-way mirror, take an honest look at yourself and your body. What do you want to accentuate? A beautiful bustline, a small waist, or great legs? Are your best features your shoulders and neckline? Is there a part of your body that you’d prefer to camouflage? Let the dress do the work for you.
Use Your Words!
Before you begin shopping, look over this list of terms that are often used to describe aspects of wedding dresses. This will give you the vocabulary you need to express your ideas and desires to dress specialists:
Basque waist: This waistline is one you rarely see in everyday life. It veers downward in a V below the navel. It is usually part of a bodice that is tightly fitted. The bodice’s vertical seams might also be boned to help shape the bodice. If you are a fan of Renaissance, pirate, or fairy festivals you are familiar with Basque-waist dresses, which are an important part of the period costuming. The Basque waist also turns up in lace-up corsets and merry widow waist-cinchers—and in designs suggesting corsetry.
Empire waist: This style is one of the prevailing ones in bridal dresses this year. Its “waist” actually rests below the bustline. Nearly every body type can wear the currently popular strapless empire styles. The style emphasizes the bust. The skirt below the bust can snug your curves, fall straight to the floor, or waft as full and floaty as you’d like. Many of the empire styles shown for this season are strapless dresses—but not to worry. Often you can order a matching bolero, shrug, jacket, or cover-up to wear for the religious service and remove at the reception.
Mermaid: There’s nothing fishy about this silhouette—fitted from the bust through the hips, it flares out into a big whoosh of a skirt. It can put curves where there were none and add some va-va-voom to a voluptuous figure.
A-Line: This silhouette is not a New York subway train. Visualize the letter A. Small on top, it gradually flares out.This style’s vertical seaming draws the eye away from a less-than-perfect waistline and elongates the figure.
Ball gown: This style is what Belle wore when she danced with the Beast—a fitted bodice with a natural waistline and a big, full, sweeping skirt. Though this style looks fanciful on most body types, it works like magic if you wish to conceal your hips or legs.
Sheath: This silhouette made an appearance in the 1920s and returned in the early 1960s, popularized by the young first lady, Jackie Kennedy. It’s a simple, elegant-looking style that falls straight from the shoulders. It looks good in short cocktail lengths as well as in ankle-grazing lengths for women who want the illusion of height.
Blouson: This style, popular in the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s, features a dropped waistline that can rest anywhere from just below your natural waist to hip level. The silhouette gives designers a chance to soften a big bustline and conceal a thick waist with soft, draped folds that drop from the shoulders and neckline to the bloused fullness at the new waistline. The fullness of the bodice is usually controlled by a hip band or sash.
Portrait neckline: This feature is a wide, open neckline that shows off your neck and upper cleavage. It often looks spectacular in closeup photos.
Halter-top: This style is popular today—in contrast to the prim, covered-up styles of 25 years ago. It shows off well-toned backs and arms.
Strapless: This style of dress is one that every body type can wear successfully with a little help from good design and fitting skills.
Tank top: This style is another popular one. It provides a little more coverage than a halter or strapless dress yet exposes the arms. It also passes muster for many religious services with no need for a coverup.
Matinee length: This length is a good one for an informal wedding; it touches the leg at mid-calf.
Floor length: This length is not meant to drag on the floor. It should ideally be about a quarter inch from the ground. To be measured properly for this length, wear the shoes and undergarments you intend to wear on the Big Day during your fitting.
Train: This appendage is the thing everyone manages to step on! Some trains are detachable. They go onto the back of your dress for the walk up the aisle and you can arrange them beautifully for photos. Then you can whisk them off for the reception. Watteau trains can be simply slipped off your shoulders. Others are unbuttoned from the waist. Some trains are not detachable but can be drawn up in a bustle at the back of the dress. A cathedral train is the big kahuna that can trail behind a dress for yards and yards. Its length depends upon how many volunteers are willing to hold it. A chapel train trails for about four feet. A brush train is a barely there swish at the rear of the gown.
Crinoline: This full, multilayered petticoat made of tulle or netting is either purchased separately or built in under the skirt of a ball gown to prop it up. Some versions have flounces for more fullness or have plastic sewn-in hoops to hold out the shape of the ball gown’s skirts.
Wedding lace: This ornamentation comes in many types. Some of the more popular laces include Chantilly; Alençon; Venice; Battenberg; and laces on tulle, organza, and chiffon. Lace trim can edge a hem or a border. Lace appliqué and lace medallions can be stitched to a bodice or any part of a dress or veil. Some laces are accented with embroidery, beads, stones, or crystals; still others feature a touch of metallic thread. Lace, beadwork, embroidery, or appliqués can individualize a simple design, turning it into an extravagant one—many dresses feature some detail work on the bodice and edging the hem of the skirt.
Now that you have a better idea of what’s available, clip out photos of wedding dresses that you like. Consider your lifestyle and the time and place of your wedding. If you’ve spent your life in jeans and T-shirts you will not be comfortable in a tricky, boned dress with a 20-layer petticoat on a hot day. Your dress should be a reflection of you, not the other way around. You will be wearing the dress for much of the day. Comfort should be a primary concern.
When you’ve got a pile of photos, a good idea of the silhouette you want, and the budget for your dress, it’s time to go shopping.
To the Bridal Shop!
Plan on spending at least one day, possibly a couple more, in the effort. Dedicate two to three hours to spend at the bridal shop, at the bridal department of a large store, or with a bridal couturier—usually a small firm with a good business built on word-of-mouth references. The warm, personal service in these places is unlike the treatment you’ve received in inexpensive chain stores, where the only store employee you encounter is a cashier. The salesperson will be in the dressing room with you, to assist you in maneuvering into the dress and to help with the many buttons and hooks and eyes.
Show the salesperson the photos you’ve collected and have an honest discussion about your wedding plans, what you are looking for, and your budget.
The dresses you try might not be your size: they are samples intended to give you a range of possibilities. In a good shop your dress will ultimately be sized and hemmed to your body specifications. Trim and design details can be added or subtracted. Don’t be shy about asking for something that’s not on the dress; often it can be added to the dress—and to the price.
A wedding gown can cost as little as $500. Such a dress has little or no hand stitching and is usually made from a nice, quality polyester. At the other end of the spectrum gowns can cost $50,000 or more. Most brides spend from $500 to $4,000 on their wedding dresses. The upper level of that range offers natural fabrics; a significant amount of hand stitching, embroidery, and detail work; and the cachet of a designer label.
Don’t want this season’s trendiest dress? You may also wish to look beyond what is offered in the stores. A couture salon experience enables you to order a dress that is ahead of the curve. Such an experience involves having a one-of-a-kind, custom-designed dress created especially for you.
When your dress arrives make an appointment to try it on as soon as possible. Take along the shoes you plan to wear on your wedding day. Once in the dress, make sure that the length is exactly as you want it and that you can walk and dance easily and gracefully in the dress. If it does not fit properly arrange for alterations.
Once the final alterations have been made, don’t go on a crash diet to lose a few more inches. (Talk about last minute chaos!) Wear it well and enjoy your special day.
Post-Wedding Dress Dos
What do you do with your dress after the wedding?
Hang your dress up after wearing it and ask a trusted member of the wedding party to spot clean obvious stains, such as a splatter of Bordeaux, before they have a chance to set permanently.
Have your dress carefully cleaned. You can simply put some polyester dresses in a washing machine and hang them to air-dry. If you know how to hand wash and iron silks—almost a lost art—you can wash a silk dress at home. If you dry clean your dress, avoid any offers to seal the dress into a box. There are many scams out there—in recent years brides have opened the boxes years after their weddings to discover they are empty or that their dresses have been replaced with inferior ones. Instead, have the dress cleaned and then store it yourself on a padded hanger in a cloth bag—not a plastic bag. Place it in a closet with plenty of space, away from heat (a boiler on the other side of the wall, for instance) and light.
Not planning to store your dress? Here are some alternatives:
Donate it to a thrift shop run by the Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries, or a local hospital or other charitable group. You’ll get good Karma for making the dress available to a grateful, budget-minded bride-to-be.
Take it to a consignment shop. You will get a slight return on your investment—and delight a bride on a moderate budget.
Another recent trend is called Trash the Dress. It is a misnomer, as most dresses can be easily cleaned afterwards. In short, the bride (and often a very interested groom) has additional professional photos taken after the honeymoon. The bride poses in places where her dress might get dirty, rumpled, or wet—no-nos on her wedding day. Gone are the stiff, formal stances. Brides have rolled in the grass, sat in rusted old cars, walked into the ocean, gone bowling, or staged their own From Here to Eternity scenes with their eager hubbies—all while wearing the dress. Afterwards, most dresses are restored by simple hand washing or dry cleaning—then stored, consigned, or donated.
Under the Dress
What to wear under the dress can be a perplexing dilemma.
Most grooms will assume that their brides are wearing some exotic cross between the undergarments of Scarlett O’Hara and those of a bordello madam. If you’re the bride, just smile and agree with him. When you change out of your wedding dress and into your “going away” outfit, that’s the time to put on the fancy, ruffled, satin and silk stuff. (He’ll never know the difference.)
The undergarments you wear on your wedding day should be appropriate to the dress you wear over them. It makes no sense to strap yourself into a boned, laced-up corset if you are wearing a drapey, body-conscious, satin, 1930s Jean Harlow–inspired design. Just because your mom and grandmother girded and girdled themselves for their wedding days like bulletproofed knights going into battle, that doesn’t mean you have to.
Discuss your undergarment options with the salesperson in the wedding shop or department. When you purchase your dress look inside the sample. Or turn the dress inside out. If it has a built-in bra, push-up padding, or underwiring, then you probably don’t need a bra. Boning would make wearing a corset redundant. Does it have sewn-in petticoats or crinolines? If not, what kind of undergarment does this dress need to help you look your best? Do you need a spandex-rich garment to slim your waistline, thighs, or hips—just a little—under a revealing dress? There are plenty of styles to choose from in the lingerie department.
Is the dress lined? Many top-of-the-line dresses are routinely lined in satin, taffeta, or crepe. If your dress is lined and does not need additional fullness, a slip or petticoat is redundant, extra weight.
If you are wearing a dress that weighs 20 pounds or more, consider reducing what’s underneath. It’s going to be hot in that dress, even in winter weather. Many pantyhose styles, for instance, have built-in panties that boast their lack of obvious panty lines. Some of those pantyhose panties have the same tummy-flattening features offered in control panties and long-line girdles. Try them out before the wedding. Avoid multiple bulky layers of underwear.
You might also wish to look at the barely there styles, like those offered by Spanx.
Similarly, if the bra or corset is not built into the dress, take the dress with you when selecting a bra to wear with it. A good long-line strapless bra can help you defy gravity, for example. There are bras designed specifically for halter-top styles and plunging backless dresses and others that have straps that can be hidden under the narrowest of tank tops.
One note here: it may be cool to wander around town with your multiple, colored, contrasting bra straps showing on a casual outing. Visible bra straps on women and baggy, droopy pants on guys are generation Y’s way of irritating their baby boomer parents. Despite that, it is not cool to have bra straps showing during a wedding ceremony. And 20 years from now it will look even less cool in the old photos.
The bridal shop might have a selection of undergarments to show you. Or, if you are in a department store, the bridal salespeople can usually bring you bras and other undergarments to try on.
A good salesperson will be thrilled you asked for her advice.
Wendi Winters wore a strapless, ivory taffeta ball gown for her wedding on a Manhattan pier. The dress was a wedding gift from the fashion designer Akira Maki and was selected for her by Patty Hearst.
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