To me this looks like the kind of dress a blushing bride puts on under her wedding dress, not the wedding dress itself.

Being that I like to believe that we are becoming a more thrifty and ecologically minded people, I also like to believe that the large number of used and new wedding gowns for consignment are the result of generous souls rather than divorced or cold footed ones.

Craiglist, EBAY, Freecycle, and other sites of that ilk have become a goldmine for enterprising and frugal brides, young and old alike, to find everything from shoes to dresses to favors to funny shirts for the bridesmaids. And I applaud that.

The thing that sticks out in my mind, however, is the rather large numbers of wedding dresses being sold by owners who say the dress has never been worn. The typical reason involves the blushing future bride finding a dress she liked better. While a few of the dresses in question leave no question as to why she would want to change her dress selection, such as this one, which from the back looks like an overdecorated meringue tart:

Most of them look rather stunning, like this Casablanca Bridal number:

I just don’t understand it!

After seeing Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons inkjet-printed silk gown with giant velvet bow and cake-shaped headpiece modeled by Katie Holmes in W Magazine, I am almost glad to see that Holmes and her shortstack beau have decided to postpone their nuptuals in favor of creating mini scientologists.

When the first chill of the autumn season sets in, provided your geographical location supports such a thing, it may seem like the time for thinking about beach weddings is over. But since most weddings are planned months, if not years in advance, that is when I begin to have golden dreams about the ultimate seaside wedding.

In many cases, the seaside wedding is treated as a casual affair or a free-for-all of sandy shoes, nowhere to sit down, and gritty cake. But inside every girl is a prima donna of planning! Deep down in the heart of every lady beats the drum of a matrimonial general, ready to position her troops effectively on any terrain!

Taryn Bussewitz of UltimateWedding.com reminds us future brides that it pays to think about tents, tides, tables, and even toilets when we’re thinking about our big day. Give people a place to put their shoes and handbags. And for goodness sake, somewhere to sit.

Not to mention, of course, everyone’s favorite part: the dress. Keeping in mind that there will be great quantities of sand involved, consider a shorter, simpler dress. You wouldn’t believe how much sand can get stuck in layers of lace and you don’t want to bring the beach home with you after the reception. To see a few gowns that would look great on any tropical isle, take a gander at JCREW for the brides.

Without a little effort, hopeful beach brides can make sure their wedding snapshots will look like this:

Instead of this:

Manolo says, here is the wedding fantasy from the John Galliano, it is the dress not just for the Fairy Tale Wedding, but for the Wedding of the Fairy.

Manolo says, the Kleinfeld’s they are moving!

t is like losing the Dodgers all over again: Kleinfeld, the storied Brooklyn wedding gown emporium that has festooned generations of American brides, is moving to – horrors! – Manhattan.

Officials at the store, the largest designer wedding-dress outlet in the country, said yesterday that they planned to shut down the store that has long drawn hordes of gown-seekers to Bay Ridge and transfer operations, including the 185 employees, to 20th Street near Avenue of the Americas this summer.

The new store, just west of Manhattan’s Ladies’ Mile shopping district, will be 35,000 square feet, with roughly double the selling space of the current store to accommodate what officials say is a rapidly expanding business.

Ronald Rothstein, a co-owner, said that Kleinfeld Bridal had looked to stay in Brooklyn, where the business maintained a Madison Avenue sophistication at the same nondescript Bay Ridge corner after opening as a fur store in 1941. But the complex requirements of selling thousands of high-priced silk, tulle and lace confections each year – including the multiple fittings – and the fact that about 80 percent of the future brides work in Manhattan, Mr. Rothstein said, justified the move.

[...]

Over the years, Kleinfeld developed an international reputation for its enormous selection of designer wedding gowns and came to be considered the ultimate destination for pampered, one-stop shopping with an old-world emphasis on personal attention. Many of the brides, accompanied by family and friends, came from New York and neighboring states, but others routinely arrived from across the country and around the globe.

The store, which turned exclusively to wedding wear in 1968, went through financial difficulties and changed ownership in the 1990′s before it was acquired at the end of the decade by Mr. Rothstein and his partners. They include Mara Urshel, a fashion executive, and Wayne Rogers, the actor who is probably best known for his role as Trapper John on early episodes of “M*A*S*H.”

The company is now doing well, Mr. Rothstein said, with bookings for wedding gowns up by 25 percent this year. An average sale, store officials said, is in the $4,000 range.

But Kleinfeld has outgrown its space, Mr. Rothstein said, necessitating the move.

Manolo says, there is the picture from Reem Acra bridal show in the New York on the day before yesterday.