Wedding Dresses

June is weddings month here at Lina's Lookbook as well as for most of the rest of the country. I've been planning hypothetical weddings for myself and loved ones since I was twelve, so this is a subject close to my heart. But despite my love of wedding planning and fashion in general, the wedding dress remains ever problematic for me. Perhaps it's because I've developed such high expectations for fashion and weddings that I've never found a wedding dress I really loved. Here are some (hypothetical!) candidates:



I'm generally a fan of all-over lace dresses, especially when the traditional fabric is paired with a modern silhouette. It's hard to tell exactly since the model is lying down, but I would say this dress is a curve-hugging sheath with the skirt flaring out into a train. The only thing I don't love is that the dress is strapless (how many brides have I watched constantly tugging up their strapless bodices during a wedding!), but if it had little lace cap sleeves, it could be perfect for practically any wedding.



Other wedding dresses are far more specific. This one, for example, would only work for an evening wedding, preferably one with a glamorous cocktails theme and more mature bride. Despite its limitations, I'm always a fan of the sexy-goddess look. But to make this dress bridal the wedding itself would have to feel very modern, sophisticated, and casual. Think Caroline Bisset Kennedy, who with one picture made this type of wedding dress so famous.



The one problem with wedding dresses that are essentially white evening gowns is that I always feel that in a perfect world I would have the opportunity to wear them somewhere else, whereas your wedding seems like the one chance to wear something you could never ever get away with wearing to any other event. (This is a recent, twentieth-century idea. Nineteenth-century brides, even the wealthiest, were expected to wear their wedding dresses periodically during the first year of marriage.) This gown has that all-out quality, as well as two features I generally favor in wedding dresses: tulle (and lots of it!) and long sleeves. Long sleeves were de rigeur for formal daytime and evening weddings until the late-twentieth century. But the simplicity of this dress, particularly its lack of surface ornament, makes the traditional long-sleeved ball-gown silhouette and tulle fabric look modern and fresh.



In the mid-twentieth century short wedding dresses became very popular for less formal daytime weddings, and it's partly because I associate them with Grace Kelly (in High Society) and Audrey Hepburn (in Funny Face as well as her own wedding) that I love them so much. This one combines two of my aforementioned favorite elements, lace and tulle, with a very trendy ribbon around the waist.


My real problem when it comes to wedding dresses is that nothing I've seen in real life compares to the dress that Julie Andrews' character wore in the Sound of Music. Those long sleeves, the high neck, the sexy fitted bodice, the beautiful satin fabric, the endless tulle veil, the little wreath of greenery! She looks like a sprite and a queen rolled into one. Even if I could find a dress like this, I probably wouldn't be able to get married with a crowd of nuns behind me and with a captain and a couple of bishops up front. But just in case Prince William or Harry proposes, at least I know what I'll wear.