There. I said it. I much prefer the LOLcats version. I believe it makes more sense and is better written, to boot.

But we’re not here to talk about Twilight as a whole. No, we’re here to talk about Bella’s much ballyhooed wedding gown, designed by Carolina Herrera… or at least the bargain movie tie-in by Alfred Angelo, which retails for $799.00. It looks like this:

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m kind of loving this. It’s rather elegant, with a bit of a slinky thirties vibe. I think the sleeves are pretty, and the lace over illusion back gives a bit of a wow factor to an otherwise simple gown. And at that price, it’s within reach of many a woman yearning for something that isn’t a strapless a-line or mermaid gown!

So here’s my vote: LOVE the dress, HATE the series… but I kind of have to thank the series for existing, because otherwise the dress (and the exponential number of knockoffs in the wings) might not have happened, and bridal couture would never include sleeves again.

While I’m not in love with every dress in Carolina Herrera’s Spring 2011 collection, I’ll admit to being strongly “in like” with pretty much all of them. As form fitting as most of the gowns are – and we’re talking wedding dresses here, so no surprises – I nonetheless feel like they’d flatter a variety of sizes. There are even some straps and sleeves in the collection, and not just teeny tiny ones only there for show.

Now I’m not saying I want to get divorced or anything, but there’s a part of me that wants to get married all over again just so I can wear the dress pictured immediately above. And the hat. Most definitely the hat.

(Images via: 1, 2, 3)

Anyway, the usual things dominate Carolina Herrera’s Spring 2010 gowns — all across the runway board, in fact. The Spring 2010 wedding dresses are overwhelmingly strapless, for one. Where there are straps, they tend toward the skinnier side of things. As does the bride the designers probably had in mind. But there are also some pretty neat details, like polka dots, vintage detailing, and boldly patterned fabrics. Overall, it’s a lot of fun, even if some of the gowns are a tad weird.

I’m not sure if Barbie has ever had a wedding that wasn’t annulled. I mean, how many times has she donned a wedding gown only to end up swinging single once again? Poor girl probably has a complex.

Maybe Ken will finally settle down once and for all, however, when he sees his best girl in Monique LHuillier. Barbie’s custom designed gown features a white silk lace bodice, full tulle skirt and a thick satin sash in sable with a rhinestone floral brooch. Her ensemble is completed with a faux diamond engagement ring (ooh, Ken), faux diamond stud earrings, lacey underthings, and an off-white garter embellished with a blue ribbon.

But if Barbie decides at the last minute that LHuillier just isn’t for her, she can simply trade places with the Carolina Herrera bridal Barbie (who wears a beautiful, beaded gown featuring ecru corded lace) or the Badgley Mischka bridal Barbie (who wears an a-line gown embellished with iridescent beading, rhinestones and embroidery).

I think that, if called to, there are few people who couldn’t conjure up an image of the stereotypical wedding. In the West (or at least North America), that wedding would feature a glowing bride in a big, lacy dress marrying a fellow in a stark black tuxedo in a church. At the reception, this couple receives their guests in an orderly fashion, dances together, and then cuts into a bright-white, many-tiered cake. As designer Carolina Herrera said in an interview with the Green Bay Press Gazette, “How different can a bride really be?”

Herrera, who has designed wedding gowns since 1986, says that brides today come to her with the idea that they want to be different, more fashion-forward. They ask for dresses with uneven hems, or say they want bold colors, even black or red.

But when the big day comes, they’re wearing a white princess gown, complete with veil, train and high-heeled shoes, just like their mothers did.

When you announce your engagement, it is likely that your Grandma Bea, Aunt Alice, and Cousin Norm are all going to immediately picture you in that princess gown. People have expectations. You, whether you like it or not, have been psychologically influenced to think of certain elements (rice, veils, church, etc.) when someone says, “Wedding.” Your mom has dreamed of dressing you like the perfect lady or gentleman she knows you really are. Your dad has dreamed of dancing with his little princess on her wedding day. Your grandpa wants to see you walk down the aisle in white.

There is fashion and there is tradition, and it is in the planning of nuptials that these two elements of life often clash, with miserable results. So, is the perfect white wedding a fashion? No, it is a tradition. Wearing a simpler but still white gown with a bright splash of color when simpler and more colorful is the current style might be considered conforming to fashion. Yet it is not bowing to any particularly rigid rules of fashion. Beach weddings go from being in style to being a cliché to being in style. But how unusual or innovative is having a party at the beach?

Weddings represent a few hours in one’s life wherein one steps out of one’s usual role, be it banker, farmer, clerk, or CEO, and into a different and far more glamorous one. However, as Herrera implied, that glamour seldom changes or, at least, changes very slowly. Dress shapes and decorative highlights change by the year but are still recognizable as wedding gowns. Many of the favors brides and grooms give their guests in the modern age might have looked just as at home at a post-nuptial place setting in 1960. Some still consider a wedding in the park the height of daring. And most wedding bands still play the old, bland favorites.

Why? Because as much as we love fashion – particularly flashy colored wedding gowns, ultra mod cakes, non-traditional ceremonies, and kooky favors – we also love tradition. And when those of us who don’t particularly love tradition and would rather embrace fashion try to exert ourselves, we discover our relatives (perhaps those writing the checks) love tradition. Which is why, no doubt, the new wedding fashions are so slow to be adopted. Thus, when a soon-to-be-bride who in her mundane life is a beacon of fashion walks into a bridal boutique, she usually makes a bee-line for the poofy princess dresses rather than the sharp-edged dresses of the runways. Behind that decision lie decades and even centuries of tradition, her childhood dreams, and, quite possibly, the shining eyes of old Grandma Bea.

P.S. – Be sure to check out what other bloggers about town are saying about the state of the fashion union!

Manolo says, here you see the Rene Zellweger in the beautiful-if-perhaps- inappropriate- for-the-beach-wedding Carolina Herrera wedding gown with her new husband the Kenny Chesney.

The Manolo he is hoping that the hunky country doofus husband, he wore to the ceremony something the little more formal than the untucked white shirt and the grey pants.

Still, the Manolo he could not be happier for the loopy Rene Zellweger and her ersatz cowboy with the hat too big for his head. And, likewise he can only approve of the intimate, romantic nature of the ceremony and the way the Rene she managed to keep the loathesome papparazzi at the great distance.

May they long be happy.

Jackie O once adviced women to dress “like a column”. I think what she was really calling for was a return to classicism in fashion, and the American designer who best exemplifies this is Carolina Herrera.

Her wedding dresses, in particular, evoke the order, proportion and symmentry that were the standards of the classical world.

These three here, although regal, remain approachable. Their classicism is tempered with a touch of whimsey and light-heartedness. They show the sure touch and confidence of a master, one who has been designing beautiful dresses for many years, and so is it any wonder that Jackie O’s own daughter Caroline, chose Herrera to design her wedding dress.