Ever since one of ya’ll prompted me to look into more modest gowns, I’ve totally been digging on the new spring gowns from Eternity Gowns. Um, the bridal collection, that is. The evening gown styles they offer get a little wacky. Anyway, today’s gown can make you feel like you just landed the starring role in The Prince & The Showgirl. I love this charmeuse mermaid under gown with sheer beaded lace overlay. The ribbon accents are wide yet subtle enough as to not make wearers look too abundant. And the whole look is completed with a short train that allows the bride ease of movement.
Love!
That’s quite lovely, NtB. Simple, elegant, wearable, and appropriate to almost any setting. It looks like the sort of evening gowns that were popular shortly before WWI, a style I must admit I’ve always had a bit of a fetish for.
I’d love to see more gowns like that that aren’t strapless, aren’t overdecorated, and aren’t ridiculously juvenile on a bride of more mature years.
Much agreed, Twistie. I, too, have a soft spot for such vintage looks. I do wonder, however, how this particular style would look on someone with the sort of curvy figure I have. It wouldn’t do to look like a sex bomb because of hips and boobs!
Very pretty. And the models looking friendly is nice, too. But I was struck by how much larger one of the models looked in this gown http://www.eternitygowns.com/assets/bridal/2006spring/images/8315sm.jpg
than in gowns with a fitted, well-defined torso.
I found when I bought my own dress that I looked much better in a fitted waist. Which surprised me, because I have no waist. I was looking at dresses with all kinds of crazy wraps and empire waists, and they just weren’t as flattering.
I think Eternity Bridal originated near where I live, so I see their stuff in magazines/catalogs/newspapers all of the time. They’ve got some lovely gowns; but my big gripe is that nearly every dress featured is so overaccessorized! The models all have very “done” hair, plus earrings, plus big ol’ necklaces, plus tiaras plus the occasional gloves, bracelets, etc., etc., etc. Ayyyyyyy! What’s that Coco Chanel saying? Something about “…before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off”? Just make sure that the one thing you take off is not your dress…
(cont’d)
My future sister-in-law just bought this “modest” dress for her May wedding. I think that it’s gorgeous: covers everything, but still manages to be elegant.
I don’t know, Jenny. To me they don’t look so overaccessorized. Most women do something special to their hair for their weddings, and most wear a veil or tiara or hat or something on their heads. And while the necklaces and earrings chosen are dramatic, they’re not huge or tacky. Gloves are also a common wedding accessory. All in all, they look nice to me.
The most important thing to keep in mind about accessories in any fashion photo shoot is that they’re merely suggestions. If they showed one or two without all the jewelry, the women would still look wonderful, but some of us enjoy the extra bling.
Then again, the earrings I wore on my wedding day were large circles of beaten silver and my arisaide was held in place with a silver brooch of an extremely stylized dog with huge teeth and nasty, pointy spines. I considered something less agressive, but my MOH, my brothers, and the goom all said the dog was too cool not to wear. To me, big funky jewelry is a way of life. ; )
Best of luck and all happiness to your future SIL. I’m sure she’ll be lovely in that gown. I like the fact that it shows off the bride rather than the bridal boobs.
That gown is great, jenny! Very elegant and understated.
Twistie: I would love to see a pic of that brooch! It sounds super!
You’re right, Twistie. I’m probably judging everything by what I wore (or would wear, were I not yet married) to my own wedding. I went with a long white linen dress, miniature white handmade “bouquet” earrings & flowers in my hair. Looking at my pictures I’ve decided that they almost say “Homecoming Dance” rather than “Bridal Attire.”
I tend to lean towards understatement—understatement to the point of being about as exciting as cold oatmeal, unfortunately for me and for my outfits. I have accessory-overload-anxiety.
(BTW, I hope you checked out the back of that dress I linked to. That’s the best part!)
Yes, I did check out the back and it’s lovely…as is the front. And there are times when I almost wish I could pull off a minimalist style. Something in me won’t allow things to go unembellished. ; )
The great thing is that if you look around, there’s plenty to satisfy both the minimalists and the maximalists.
Your wedding outfit sounds prettily understated. BTW, I’m wondering why the quotation marks around ‘bouquet’ in your post. Were the flowers artificial? I carried a silk bouquet in my brother and SIL’s wedding (the bride was allergic to almost everything), and it looked lovely in the photos.
Well, my flower-earrings were itty-bitty porcelain flowers; the ones in my hair were real (and promptly died, but that’s another story).
But I’m a firm believer in silk flowers: as much as I love real, there’s definitely a time and a place for silk. My sister, for example, had more than one reception (that’s what you get for marrying an out-of-towner) and just couldn’t afford fresh flowers at both of them. And where silk flowers once looked only minimally better than their Memorial Day plastic scary second cousins, the ones they make now-a-days are often incredibly realistic and nowhere near as delicate as some live flowers. Your poor SIL, though! Springtime must be an absolute living hell for her.
Am I the only one who isn’t a fan of this dress? It looks so busy! Thumbs down I’m sorry NtB.
Honestly? I don’t like it. It’s too busy and the horizontal lines to the lace flatter only the very, very thin.
What I don’t get is why “modest” dresses seem to always be covered with excesses of lace and beading and other busy, fussy silliness. To me, whether you go modest or show some skin, a simple elegant dress of clean lines is always most appropriate and modern. I very much like the dress linked to by Jenny, it’s lovely and it’s not covered with details that compete with the beauty of the bride herself.
Hey, different strokes for different folks, Dataceptionist 🙂 If everyone liked the same dresses, weddings would get pretty boring, pretty fast…of course, finding a dress would prove much, much simpler as gown makers caught on.
jj: There are plenty of modest dresses featuring cleaner lines. I’m not usually a fan of too much busy beading and so forth even though I do like this dress. I have found, however, that when I look at the simpler dresses with t-shirt style tops, I feel they look too much like plain white t-shirts for my taste. But that’s just me, of course!
I’ve looked at a lot of gowns on both these sites and I see a lot that’s nicely detailed without being overdecorated, even by a standard a lot more minimalist than mine. There’s a nice medium between meringue and tee shirt, and it seems more than possible to find something appealing to a wide variety of preferences in both these catalogues.
Take another look, JJ and Dataceptionist. I’m sure you’ll see something you like better than this example. There are gowns with just tiny touches of decoration in sillhouettes that are easier for mere mortal women with less than perfect figures to pull off.
As for me, while I know it wouldn’t flatter me with my short, beer keg figure, I’m going to sit here and drool a bit more. On the right woman, that would be stunningly beautiful.
I agree–horizontal stripes are good on almost no one, especially on the lower half of the body. There’s a certain self-rightousness to these “modest” gowns, isn’t there?
Really not getting the ‘self-righteousness’ of making wedding gowns that women who prefer a more covered look, whether for religious, aesthetic, or comfort reasons.
A good friend of mine had a terrible time finding a wedding gown because she wanted it to cover the scar from her open heart surgery. Strapless wasn’t de riguer then, but off the shoulder ballgowns were all the rage that year. Nothing self-righteous about her need for something that didn’t have a plunging neckline. Nobody wants a big chest scar to be the first thing people notice in their wedding album!
Me, I just like high collars and long sleeves. I don’t think anyone looked at my wedding gown and thought ‘self-righteous’. I think they looked at it and said it was a pretty gown that suited both my body type and my personality.