the bride's dress revisited

May 11, 2008

the bride's dress revisited

Curiously, for someone who hasn't given marriage much thought, I give weddings and its related traditions a lot of thought. For instance, I'm convinced my wedding will feature chilli crabs.

I also think a lot about wedding dresses (and have posted about it here and here), and a number of things this weekend prompted me to think rethink it again:

a) My colleague is getting married and reminded us to let her know if we were attending Mass, which made me think of weddings and what her dress would look like;

b) Out with friends on Saturday, we passed a park where a couple was getting their wedding portraits snapped, and we lamented over why the wedding dresses we see most people don are poofy and frilly and so...wedding-y;

and c) I picked up a copy of the May edition of Vogue UK, and there was a piece about the wedding dress.

It made me wonder for instance, why most people pick dresses with full skirts. Does every woman out there have a princess fetish that skipped me? And do all wedding dresses have to be long? I mean, long usually equals special since most of us don't wish about in floor-grazing dresses but short can be special too. I'm happy to stick to tradition - I have no issue with white, cream, ivory etc, but where's the variety beyond puffs of satin/chiffon/tulle?

I don't know if I'm just rebelling against a convention out of instinct (unlikely, because I'm not a rebellious dresser), and if short was the norm then I would have opted for long. But I just hope that if I marry, I get to choose from a little more, or I can somehow find someone to rustle up the dress of my dreams.

They can see below (or the above; Givenchy Haute Couture spring '08) for inspiration. I don't think they're very traditional, but not embarrassing either, and I think they're special enough for a very special occasion.