After all, minis are on trend right now, but – according to Peters – you will regret wearing one on your wedding day for the rest of your life the instant minis aren’t fashionable any more.

Me, well, I wouldn’t choose a wedding look purely because it’s fashionable, but to assume you’ll hate your own taste in five years because Vogue is now showing something very different is frankly insulting. I’m gearing up to celebrate my ninteenth anniversary with Mr. Twistie, and my wedding album makes me smile. Why? Because it’s an accurate and beautiful representation of an important day in our lives. Because it’s filled with pictures of people we love, some of whom are sadly gone from this world. Because no matter whether the clothes are dated or not, we all looked good.

Peters goes on to say we should all follow the ways of the British royal family in picking our wedding gowns. They, apparently, and with the painfully blatant exception of Princess Diana, ignore fashion completely and thus wear entirely timeless wedding gowns that they can be proud of. Well okay, then.

Is anyone here honestly going to tell me that Princess Anne’s 1973 wedding gown doesn’t look like a gown from 1973? It does. It’s absolutely fashionable for its day… and it’s still a beautiful gown. But it got some serious chuckles in the eighties and nineties.

In thirty years Kate Middleton’s gown is going to look dated, just as Anne’s does today. That doesn’t mean either woman should have chosen a different gown. It also doesn’t mean that a woman with great legs who loves showing them off should cover them up on her wedding day.

Fashions change. That’s the point of fashion. Next week, whatever is in your closet now is going to be out of style. So my take is that you should choose what truly speaks to you. That way no matter how dated it looks, you can still look at it fondly.

You know, sort of like how you should choose a spouse by how well you get along and what values you share in common rather than choosing someone based on whether they’ve got a cool job or not. Cool changes, shared values are less volatile.

My wedding gown is as dated as it can be. Frankly, it looks like it stepped out of a production of Pride and Prejudice. I still adore it… and Mr. Twistie. Was it fashionable in its day? No, it wasn’t. Is it fashionable now? No, it isn’t. Is it timeless? No, it isn’t. Is it a perfect garment for who I was then? Oh, yes it is. Would I choose the same dress today? Quite probably not… and yet I still adore it. I still look at those photos happily.

Oh, and before choosing a wedding gown, I would choose a date and venue. It’s far easier to decide what to wear when you know when and where you’re going to be wearing it than to fit the venue to the dress you happened to pick. Peters disagrees with me, believing that the gown should be your first decision. But then again, she also believes that choosing a dress that isn’t utterly timeless will ruin your wedding album, too.

Your wedding is a big day in your life, but it’s a particular day, in a particular year, in a particular place. Spending too much of your efforts on denying fashions you love is just as big a mistake as trying too hard to follow fashions you don’t care about or dislike.

I would never advise anyone to sublimate their own tastes to the whims of current fashion on a day that’s such an important expression of your individual tastes and beliefs. If you hate the currently fashionable halter necklines, be my guest and tell the consultant at the bridal salon that you don’t even want to look at them. If you loathe lace, buck the trend!

But if you are dreaming of a halter neckline, don’t let fear that it won’t be fashionable in a few years stop you from picking it. If you have dreamed for months of that cool detail you saw in Vera Wang’s latest collection, don’t worry that it won’t always be the latest thing. It won’t be. And that’s okay.

Don’t pressure yourself with adding being utterly timeless to the list of reasons to stress about picking your wedding gown. After all, you’ve got to worry about: budget, ordering schedule, fittings, payments, accessories, pleasing your intended and quite possibly your parents, making sure the gown fits your venue and general wedding concept… that one dress already has way too many pressures riding on it.

Relax. Pick what speaks to you. I do agree with Peters that worrying too much about being fashionable is not a good idea in picking a wedding gown. I just think she takes it too far the other way.

Your wedding is a day when you want to present yourself as utterly you. Whether that’s someone who’s always on trend, someone who bucks trends for breakfast, or – as is far more often the case – something in between, you should wear what makes you feel like you.

Maybe someday you’ll look at your wedding pictures and cringe a bit, but so what? Another day you’ll look at them again and smile. You’ll realize that the most important thing about those pictures isn’t whether your hairstyle turned out like you’d planned or whether you managed to make everything look ‘timeless’ but the fact that it’s a record of who you were and what you felt on that one day, in that one year, in that one place, with the people you loved best by your side.

That’s the part that’s timeless, even if one glance at your wedding album tells everyone precisely what year the pictures were taken.

So what do you do if you love DIY but don’t have the time or the space or the talent? Why you go to people who have those things and pay them to do it for you. And that’s where Etsy comes into play.


Your invitations will say a lot more than just the time and place you’re getting married. Whether you’re looking for something whimsical or elegant, modern or old fashioned, chances are someone is doing invites on Etsy that will appeal to you. Me? I’ve fallen madly in love with these hand calligraphed ones by PaperandCalligraphy. See? They’re even sealed with wax! At $4.00 apiece and frankly not very practical to send through normal mailing channels, they aren’t for everyone. Still, if you’re having a very small wedding and only inviting people close to home, it’s a charming option.

I’ve fallen madly in love with these pom-poms of dried flowers put together by EcoLectic Events. Styrofoam free and made of organically grown flowers, they’re completely eco-friendly. And at $19.50 each, they’re even pretty budget-friendly as bouquets or as general decoration in the room.

If you’re looking for a special veil on a budget, you might do a lot worse than this English netting bandeau veil with handmade flower decoration by Fascinating Creations. It’s a charming look, and at just $68.95 it won’t harm your wallet at all!

You can even get a custom wedding gown on Etsy!

How about this charming informal wedding dress by atelierTAMI? At just $530.00 (made to your measurements, corseted bodice and petticoat included!), it’s hard to beat for price or perkiness.

Even if you can’t DIY for love nor money, there’s no reason you can’t have a few custom, handmade touches to your wedding, if you want them. It’s all a matter of knowing where to look.

But if you aren’t getting married in white, that opens up every possible color in the rainbow to you. What to pick then? Well, right now a lot of brides are looking to shades of silver, steel, platinum, and just plain grey.

Grey? For a wedding gown??? Yep. I say don’t knock it until you take a look at it.

Take, for instance, this strapless Aria gown in platinum floral print on a cream colored background shown here with a narrow spring green sash (sold separately, which means you can do without, choose another color, go wider, or choose something with beading instead, if you prefer).

It’s simple, festive, and definitely not the standard wedding gown.

But shades of grey can go dramatic, too.


For instance, this steel tulle ballgown by Wtoo features metallic beading and embroidered lace embellishments. With all those ruffles, it’s definitely dramatic. And in that color, it would look spectacular with the currently popular pink and purple blooms.

Even the seriously budget-minded can get in on the trend with this steel blue Casrin strapless gown. In fact, it can be ordered for a mere $131.79, plus shipping. What’s more, just another $25.00 gets it in custom sizing.

Or you can go entirely custom, like this delicious gown made of vintage cream uchikaki with silver silk charmeuse trim:

White wedding gowns are great, as are ones in cream, ivory, blush pink, gold, emerald green and bright purple. But if shades of grey make a good frame for your face, seriously think about wearing one of them. It can look amazing.

And I know. My cream-colored wedding gown featured silver grey lace trim way back in 1993. Little did I know then I was a trend setter! I just thought it was pretty.

This one from her spring 2013 collection, though, well… I have to say I’m HATING this one. I’m not sure if she’s standing in the middle of an attack of interstellar Charmin or if the entire world just dumped their used tissues on her, but either way she’s being swallowed whole with no escape.

Now excuse me while I go throw this poor waif a lifeline.

And then there’s that… sleevelet? That odd little blip hanging halfway down her left arm. Is that meant to be a sleeve? Is it meant to be there at all? Because it looks a little like someone told Ramona Kaveza that sleeves are in and she tucked a Kleenex around the model’s arm to see how it would look and forgot it there.

In short, I’m HATING this one, and I don’t think if it fit it would help very much.

What say you all?

The other day on the Huffington Post wedding page, in the Ask Amsale column, a bride asked what to do if she doesn’t look good in white.

Amsale tells the bride to look into a gown in ivory, blush, caffe, or champagne.

Those are all good suggestions… as far as they go. But there’s an important thing to keep in mind: what color you wear makes no difference to the legality or spiritual significance of your wedding, or the commitment you feel in your marriage. White or a neutral color is not required to be a bride.

So pick a color you like, look and feel good in. You are still a bride whether you wear white, pink, bright orange, ice blue, kelly green, or purple like the woman in the photo at top of this article. My own beloved mother wore scarlet from head to toe – including her stockings! – at her 1959 wedding to my father. When she died more than thirty years later, they were still in love.

That’s the part that matters. Not what color the dress is.

The gowns range from the messy (see above) to the merely expected:

to the frankly kind of tacky.

On the further downside, these gowns are available in sizes from 00 to 12. Yeah, that’s right, size 12. Just for reference, the average woman in America wears a size 14 when last I heard. The model shown in the gowns is – according to the text – 5’9″ and wears a size 6. I like the fact that there is a reference in that regard, but couldn’t they have shown something on a shorter or heavier model? Or one who isn’t white? Or something?

On the upside, the most expensive gown in the collection, the Kate Middleton homage, runs only $2,500, making it the most expensive gown in the collection. Designer gowns for under two grand are pretty rare. In this case, there are several under $1,000, and even a couple under $500.

All in all, I’m kind of disappointed. I didn’t expect Bebe to be much of a bastion for elegance or size acceptance, but I have really loved a lot of Kashou’s designs in the past and was hoping to be able to sit up and applaud a bit more. The designs are scattershot without a real point of view. The design work is some of the weakest I’ve seen from this designer.

Still, I’ll keep a weather eye on the experiment. Who knows? Perhaps if things go well the next collection will make more sense and look less random yet uninspired.

PS: There’s still time to enter the drawing for the gorgeous tiara from USABride. Get your entry in now to have a chance to win something sparkly for your wedding!

Of course a train this long isn’t very practical for your average wedding. The materials alone cost over seven thousand dollars, and the length would fill four football fields.

So how does one make a getaway in a gown with a nearly two mile long train?

In a hot air balloon, natch!

Then, last year, something happened.

Kate Middleton wore a wedding gown with sleeves, and the world stood up and cheered at the style.

Cries went up for copies. And then the last Twilight film came out and Bella wore long sleeves, too. The knockoffs started hitting the markets nearly immediately.

So one popular royal bride and one pop culture fictional bride made headlines for wearing sleeves… and suddenly they’re starting to show up on the bridal couture runways again.

Oh strapless isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s still the thing seen most on the runways and on the racks from Kleinfeld to Besty’s Bridal in West Igotlost. Strapless shouldn’t go away completely, ever. I’m all about options. Some women look and feel their best in strapless and they ought to have that option, absolutely. I’m just glad the rest of the population is finally after all these years getting a chance to wear what looks and feels best on us.

There aren’t even a lot of designers showing sleeves yet.

Ramona Kaveza is the strongest proponent of sleeves. Her spring 2012 collection shows everything from strapless to long, lace sleeves. In fact, she’s got a couple off-the-shoulder gowns with long lace sleeves!

In addition to a couple strapless gowns with small boleros, Oscar de la Renta is showing one trumpet gown with long, lace sleeves.

Jim Hjelm’s collection features one gown with elbow-length lace sleeves.

As you can see, there aren’t a lot of sleeves yet. Those you can find are almost universally long, tight, and composed of lace. All the same, it’s the start of a trend whereby women who don’t want to expose their arms aren’t suddenly required to do so, brides will have one less reason to shiver in the cold when they marry in the winter, and more brides will be able to express themselves sartorially without being forced to look outside the realm of bridal salons.

Not everyone wants Kate Middleton’s sleeves any more than everyone wanted strapless all these years. But at least we’re seeing a choice now. And that, my friends, is all to the good!

That’s only one reason that Karen Bell’s wedding gown is so remarkable. It’s also a rather ambitious DIY upcycling project. When Karen and her new husband Simon decided to tie the knot, they reasoned that since they’d both been married before in white weddings, they wanted to do something different. They decided to celebrate their hometown of Manchester, England across the Atlantic… oh, sorry. Flashback to that production of Hair I saw once. Anyway, yes, their hometown of Manchester, England where they both still live, and the football team they both support.

Over the years, Simon had developed a collection of Manchester-themed shirts. He handed these over to Karen who spent the next eight months at her sewing machine turning them into the gown shown above.

After the wedding, the happy couple went straight to romantic Etihad Stadium to watch their beloved team play. There is no word on whether or not the bride changed her clothes first.

Whatever the case, I do wish them the very best of British luck, and may Manchester City win often.