Start talking about weddings, and chances are pretty much everyone gets the same initial image: a woman in a big white gown with a veil on her head.
Of course, you will be wearing something (unless you are having a full-fledged naturist ceremony), but what is actually necessary? What’s optional? What do you really have to wear on your wedding day?
A recent article by my most esteemed collegue garnered a lot of anti-veil (or at least veil? meh) comments by our readers. On the other hand, while many seemed more than ready to give up veils, most brides want something to replace them.
So I went looking for the perfect replacements this morning, and lo and behold, I found a positive gold mine.
I was browsing Manolo for the Big Girl just the other day when I came across this comment posted by one prowlcat:
ah yes! the poor taste in wearing bare-shouldered, backless, plunging-neckline wedding dresses in religious ceremonies. vera wang what have you wrought? also brides with crowns or tiaras. brides rejecting the veil, but keeping everything else. its all symbolism; borat will not put you in a sack and carry you away if you wear a veil. its traditional. dyed to match shoes, however, are not. and no flip flops at weddings, even in the jungle!
Now I do detest dyed-to-match shoes — though I’ll admit to fancying them when I was eight or so — and wedding flip flops, particularly the ones embellished with all manner of lace and rhinestones are indeed an abomination. But I can’t say I harbor any vitriol toward brides who choose to walk bareheadedly toward matrimonial bliss.
It was Vera Wang who said, “Other than the wedding ring, [the veil] is the most symbolic accessory a woman will ever wear.” I believe it was Never teh Bride (hey, that’s me!) who said, “Tradition be damned — honey, you’ll be just as married if you say ‘I do’ while wearing jeans and a bad case of bed head.”
There are as many reasons to ditch the headgear as there are to wear it proudly. I, for example, can’t stand having stuff in front of my face or flipping about my head, and thus find anything remotely veil-like entirely uncomfortable. Some brides don’t care for the potentially patriarchal origins of the veil tradition, whether or not it actually has its origins in bride-nappers tossing blankets over the heads of their prey or fathers tricking gullible young men into marrying the wrong sister. And I’m sure there are brides out there who think veils are just plain unattractive.
