Dear wedding gown designers and manufacturers,
We are not all perfect size two’s. Nor is every woman a Marilyn Monroe-esque size twelve (and pushing the top of your size spectrum). No, it’s time for you needle pushers and thread pullers to realize that brides come in ALL dimensions.
I understand that you ardently believe that the best way to showcase your clothing is by selling it only to skinny-minnies. But are you equally aware that there are scores of ladies who don’t fit your paradigm who want to wear something shapely and sexy during their nuptial celebrations?
Love,
N.t.B.
That sealed and stamped, who else here hates the fact that a lot of bridal lines only go up to a size sixteen? Not to mention that a size sixteen in wedding wear is more like a size twelve in street clothes. What’s up with that? Where did these people get the idea that plus sized brides don’t care about looking fabulous? Because that’s seriously not true. Duh.
So, what’s a big beautiful bride to do? Wear whatever makes her feel gorgeous, of course. But if you are looking for some advice, consider rocking an A-line gown in a medium-weight fabric like silk shantung or satin, which will create a smooth silhouette. A basque waist can lengthen the body and low neckline can accentuate a full bust. Checkout PlusSizeBridal for ideas. Their selection of gowns (like the matte satin number with metallic embroidery, intricate beading, and cathedral length train above) will knock your socks off.
A-freaking-men!
Brides come in as many shapes and sizes as women in general do, and all brides desrive to look as pretty as possible.
Princess seams can also be slimming and a great way of showing off the best of your curves.
Um… it goes the other way too. I’m short (5 feet) and small. Most of the bridal shops I went to had samples in size 12 and the sales lady had to pin and pull and scrunch to get a very rough idea of how the thing would look like on me. How is a person supposed to buy an expensive gown without trying their size? I and my mom were really disappointed. I bought a gown in the only store that had samples in my size.
They should have some kind of sample of the cut – cut in cheap fabric and even crudely stitched together- in every size so that all people can try their size in that cut of dress. No? And then you can use your imagination to see what it would look like in satin or lace or whatever.
That’s one reason I got mine at Alfred Angelo – everything in the catalog 2 to 24, and true to size (didn’t have to go up a size or two to get one that fit unlike getting my last bridesmaid’s dress at david’s bridal). All sorts of styles too, and they’re pretty!
They don’t have every single style in every size on the floor, but they come pretty darned close.
That stinks, Anonymous! I love your crude sample idea – that’s a fabulous notion. Then everyone could experience the joy of wedding dress shopping without having to guess!
God yes.
I’m between a size 14 and 18 in street clothes, depending on who I buy from. And I actually have loads of curves. So not only do those tiny size 8-10 samples not fit me, they’re also generally not made right for my DDs. I wear anywhere between a 16 and 22 in bridal gowns, depending on the manufacturer. I’ve also noticed that between 16 and 18 there’s often a 3-inch jump in measurements, whereas it was a 1.5 inch jumo before. Don’t get me started on plus size measurements, either, which do NOT fit me.
Henry Roth makes dresses in up to a size 32, though. Thank goodness! Gorgeous things, too, if out of my price range. Jasmine is also supposedly sending out samples that can be adjusted to fit any size up to about 20 — I was able to fit into a size 8 fit and flare gown from them, if not perfectly.
Although I lucked out with one of the dresses I’m seriously considering: a gorgeous Casablanca, and my salon happened to get a size 16 sample. Perfect fit, if I lose about 10 pounds.
Alas, the fashion industry would like to believe that women over a size 12 are deemed universally hideous and therefore no man is likely to ever want to marry them. Why on earth marry a fat girl, when you could marry a stick insect, right? I mean, did you see the revulsion on the designers’ faces on Project Runway when they had to design for real-sized women? It was like they were being asked to dress steaming piles of poo. I will refrain from my rant regarding Vile Jeffrey…
Anyway, pshaw: I hate that wedding dresses are all freakin sleeveless (unless they’re made for mormons or pentecostal child brides), and mostly strapless. A woman of substance needs a bra of substance, and strapless, backless, armless, whatever, confections are just unwearable if you ask me. Is a nice little sleeve, and room for a normal undergarment too much to ask for? Because I can’t see enjoying any day – wedding day or otherwise – while strapped into a Foundation Garment.
That’s a pretty dress up there, but the halter shape gives me a neck-ache just looking at it. And plus-size models never have fat arms, like most real plus-sized women do. Never mind the fact that I wouldn’t particularly want to flash my upper-arm tattoo while walking down the aisle. I don’t regret the tat, but there’s a time and a place for these things, you know?
Stupid fashion industry.
sorry about the rant – you just pushed a button and out it came.
xo,love your blog,
Jezebella
Amen, Jezebella. The prevailing “wisdom” seems to be that plus-size women don’t care about their appearance, because if we REALLY cared about our appearance we wouldn’t be such hideous fatties in the first place.
Also, PR’s Jeffrey is an equal-opportunity hater — he seems to have it in for women of all shapes and sizes.
I am with you on the size thing especially when it comes to the chest area. My dress was the same size I would wear in real life (which was a total shock to me, I highly recommend Anjolique the dresses are close to “real” sizes) except for the chest. It had to be taken in quite a bit and sales people said it happens all the time.
Not all of us, no matter what size we are, have the bountiful chest area the dress makers design for. A size 10 might be a DD or a little old B like me.
but those of us WITH the bountiful breast area end up hanging out the top of the dress if they ARE designed with b boobs in mind, its just not practicable.
And this, ladies, is the main reason why I’m taking my mother up on her offer to make my wedding dress.
Of course, I should note that I’m single and will be for the forseeable future, so I’m just a spectator at this point.
I had much the same problem as Anonymous, above. It seems that dress are all made for the “average” women, who must be about a size 10 or 12. I’m a size 2, and it is really very difficult to find a dress in that size. I’m not anorexic, I’m just at the most healthy weight for my height! How can this be too small?! Many manufactures just don’t make “extremely” small or large sizes, I guess because most women fall somewhere in between. Grr…
Bienchen, have you considered going to an Asian boutique for dresses? I mean, many of them carry western gowns as well as traditional wedding attire and I know the sizes will run smaller.
NtB – on Anon’s crude sample idea – it’s done for couture designs. They usually make it out of muslin for the fit.
TAG — that’s good news, re: Anjolique, as my other current top choice is an Anjolique dress .. which fortunately has a corset back, so the fit will be more flexible. Such a pity that it’s so hard to find them, though. Hopefully that decision will be made this weekend…
I’ve refused to let my mom make my dress, although she wants to and is totally capable of it. I don’t want to put her through the work.
I tried an Asian dress salon in the next town from where I live and she only had sample sizes too! I had found a pretty dress (when my wedding was to be a semi-formal sit down for 150) and it had to be clipped and pulled to give me a good idea of what it would look like and even then it didn’t give me the vision I wanted when I loved the dress. The proportions were all wrong. But thank goodness my fiance and I changed our minds and went with a destination wedding (more our style anyway) and I ended up finding a great dress that only needs to be hemmed (getting the top to fit is enough of a battle, I’ll taking hemming anyday). Nicole Miller makes great dresses for petite women that are both reasonably priced and beautiful. You can get just about any dress they have in any color, so it works for weddings as well as bridesmaids.
How much would it stink to finally find the man of your dreams, only to find that the one dress that fits is the dress of your nightmares?
My personal favorite from the PlusSizeBridal group is this one.
I was pleasantly surprised, though, to check out a couple of the “modest wedding dress” sites and find that several carry a variety of styles up though size 28! I’ve seen this gown in person on several brides of varying sizes, and it’s been beautiful on all of them…
This is the same anonymous as the crude wedding dress idea – my name is cris btw – i feel jezebella’s pain on the sleeveless thing! not all us small women have nice arms either. mine are nice and wobbly underneath, they flip and flap like curtains in the wind – plus i hate having to play with strapless dresses because i have no boobs. I ended up getting a dress with straps, but a couple of my wedding pics have nice dimply arms. (the photog will fix, i’m sure). i think a woman can be perfectly elegant with sleeves or straps or whatever – you can’t be elegant if you’re not comfortable.
flat chested ladies – do you get annoyed with the obsession with fake-ifying the boob area? Why must they always stuff that area out? everyone knows i’m flat. it’s not a problem… the seamstress at the salon tried to turn me into a c-cup.
One thing to note – the wedding industry is still using the women’s size charts that were in use decades ago, while modern size charts have been altered for vanity purposes. Marilyn’s Monroe’s size 12 would be an 8 or even a 6 today.
This doesn’t excuse the industry’s inattention to the needs or desires or plus-sized brides, but it does explain their sizing.
Although I lucked out with one of the dresses I’m seriously considering: a gorgeous Casablanca, and my salon happened to get a size 16 sample. Perfect fit, if I lose about 10 pounds.
Stacy, I don’t know if this is possible with all Casablanca dresses, but my dress was a Casablanca, and I was able to have it special ordered so that it was a different size in the hips, waist, and bust. I still had to have some alterations (large ribcage + small bust + strapless dress = wardrobe malfuction), but I had a very good starting point.
Good luck!
That is soooooo fab Becky. I wish more designers had that sort of option. *sigh*
AMEN! I have searched and searched for the perfect dress in my size, and finally decided to just take the design I want and have it made by a tailor I know who can make anything if she has a photo. I am a plus size bride with a pretty large bust, so unless I want to look positively bovine, that means no strapless or spaghetti straps. Ball gown styles make me look huge. And yet, that’s all I’m finding in my size, hrm. I want an empire waisted, halter top, fairly slim fitting sheath style dress. There’s enough of me already, don’t need to double the visual with a mountain of fabric!
OK. I actually work in a bridal store and I’m plus size, so I know how hard it is to try on wedding gowns. As to what Becky said, Casablanca will do any kind of customizing, i.e. adding straps, sleeves, and most importantly Custom Measurements! Jasmine bridal also does both, and I love their gowns. Allure has a really nice women’s collection, too. The Vineyard collection through Priscilla of Boston also will do a custom muslin fit gown, if you have 6-8 months to get your gown.
But, in the defense of bridals stores everywhere, most people can try on a 10, 12, 14 ( we have really good clips for small girls) . We don’t get very many plus size brides, and most of our brides don’t even bother to look at the gowns we have in plus sizes. Strictly speaking, what good would having a ton of stock in large sizes, if nobody even looks at it?
I think it becomes a vicious cycle, Rach. Bridal salons don’t serve the ends of the spectrum (the very large and the very small), so women who are on those ends of the scale don’t bother coming in to feel neglected/dismissed, so the bridal salons decide since those women aren’t coming in it isn’t economically feasable to serve them, so the large/small women can’t find anything to fit them and tell their large/small friends not to bother…and the cycle continues.
What we need is to break the cycle. If a few more manufacturers make the larger/petite sizes AND AGRESSIVELY ADVERTISE THE FACT THAT THEY DO THIS, and send a couple larger/smaller samples or the aforementioned muslin mock-ups to the salons, then more women who don’t wear those midrange sizes would feel welcomed in the stores and buy the clothes.
With the average American woman wearing a size 14 in street clothes and the so-called obesity epidemic in full swing, you cannot convince me that it’s economic suicide for manufacturers and sellers of bridal gowns to serve the actual majority market.
I know that as a plus-size petite, I never bothered to go to a bridal salon when I was getting married. I knew that petites weren’t served and plus-sized women weren’t being served. Why would I have bothered trying a salon?
It’s like Field of Dreams: if you provide reasonable styles in a wide variety of sizes, the underserved majority of brides will start shopping in bridal salons, and the designers and salons will see more happy women buying their clothes, thus raising profits.
It’s a vicious cycle, but the power to change it is firmly in the hands of those providing the product. The rest of us have already voted with our feet walking out of shops that don’t offer us anything that works for us.