So I’m Engaged: 99% Of Wedding Dresses Are Fugly
Posted by: Amelia McDonell-Parry
Filed in:
relationships
10:00AM, Thursday April 10th 2008
This may come as a total shock to you, but there are a lot of hideous wedding dresses. I expected to see a bunch of them when I went on my first wedding dress shopping trip, but, as an admitted shop-a-holic with a pretty decisive “style”, I didn’t expect to find the whole process so difficult. Not to obnoxiously reference that TV show, but you know that episode of Sex and the City when Carrie is engaged to Rub-Mah-Belly-Baby-Aidan and she and Miranda try wedding dresses on and she gets a crazy case of the hives? Well, my reaction to putting on my first bridal gown was not that extreme, but I did get a bit of the clammy palms, cold sweat, and “holy crap”-need to swallow hard.
As I think I’ve mentioned before in this column, I haven’t spent much time thinking about how I wanted my wedding to be “someday”. When I was a teen and my wildest fantasties consisted of falling in love with Stone from Pearl Jam and riding off into the rock ‘n’ roll sunset, I still didn’t really think about weddings. And despite my love of clothes and fashion and pairing wacky things like red Michael Jackson-esque jackets with violet shoes, I’ve never put much thought into what i would want to wear on the day I got married. So when I stepped into the bridal store and started thumbing through the racks, I couldn’t stop making a “blech” face. So much poof! So much crinoline! So much tulle! And beading! And rouching! And doohickey-ing! And rosettes! My god, the rosettes. One dress we saw has a bejeweled corset that much have weighed ten pounds, with a skirt with so much poof it made Scarlett O’Hara’s look like pencil skirts, covered in gigantic satin rosettes. It was barftastic. I should have tried it on.
What I did try on was pretty, mostly. I discovered sexy wedding dresses floated my boat the most, which I guess shouldn’t be so surprising considering my day job. Beading, even on the most “refined” Vera Wang dresses, felt and looked cheap and tacky. Lace could be very beautiful—who knew I was a lace girl? Low-backed was better than low-cut, while stretchy satin did no favors for me in the thigh dimple and VPL departments. My hands got clammy when I tried on my favorite dress of the day—trust me, no matter how Bridezilla-since-birth that you may be, as many wedding album clippings you may have snipped, seeing yourself in a bridal gown is BIZARRE. It’s like looking at a totally different version of yourself that you’ve never seen before or met before. I wondered if my feef would feel the same when he saw me in something like it on our wedding day. Then I kind of realized maybe that’s what’s exciting about getting married—you’re still the same person obviously, but you’re also becoming someone just a little different too. Something about the dress is sort of signifying of that.
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Elle
wrote on April 10 2008 @ 04:07 pm: [report]
Do not buy a Vera Wang dress. I got a 4k Vera Wang dress for my wedding and I regret it. What happened was that I thought I loved the dress and put a deposit it on it (2K). After thinking about it I ended up having buyer’s remorse and wanted to get something cheaper. I called up the store to see if I could get my money back since the dress hadn’t gone into production yet and they flat out denied me. I even told them that my fiance called off the wedding and I wouldn’t need the dress anymore and nada. They told me that I could forfeit my deposit and not have to pay the rest of the dress and that’s about it. LAME.
Let me just say that any company that treats it’s clientèle that way, especially considering the industry they are servicing, is a horrible horrible company.
I think that our society places too much emphasis on having the perfect dress and I was totally suckered by that. If I had to do it all over I would get a dress from some cheap place and call it a day.
teets
wrote on April 10 2008 @ 07:34 pm: [report]
Hmm. That TOTALLY sucks about your deposit (I lost my first wedding site deposit, after I changed my mind about where I wanted to get married following the death of my father. Even then, the Belvedere Mansion in Rhinebeck didn’t give a #&@$%. Am still praying the cheap-ass liar of an owner develops gangrene and permanent conjunctivitis.), but I disagree. To this day, I’m pretty sure my initial wedding shopping experiences rank in the Top 10 Ugly Fashion Experiences of All Time, featuring dresses straight out of the land of beading and Mrs. America Pageants (which happens, unsurprisingly, when you’re from The O.C.). After being persuaded by a few close friends who wore Vera Wang (whom I was once vehemently opposed to wearing, due to watching woman act like crazed animals over her gear), I visited her store with my bridesmaids to help them find THEIR dresses. Lo and behold, I not only found my dress that day and knew it was the right one immediately, but I actually found millions of dresses I would wear, were they not white which made them all a bit “bride-y”. I completely agree that our society places too much emphasis on having the perfect dress and even the Right Wedding, but I just had to speak up for the VW gals if only because I spent my 2-year-long engagement planning something of an anti-wedding, more of a booze-fueled Ultimate Dinner Party with as few parents’ friends and extended family as we could get away with, and my dress experience was, in the end, pretty…awesome. I think she offers a lot more for girls who aren’t looking for the typical tulle and beaded nightmare.
Amelia
wrote on April 10 2008 @ 07:41 pm: [report]
Whoa. I think we should have a debate: Vera Wang - Saint or Anti-Christ?
tulipthecat
wrote on April 10 2008 @ 08:20 pm: [report]
I imagine that with your fashion sense that you could have your dress hand-made with your idea of how you would like it to look. You pick out the material. You sit down with a really fine seamstress who makes beautiful clothes, and tell her what you like…maybe do a few drawings and talk it over with her (or him). Then work with the person as it evolves and it would also be fitted perfectly. And it would be you. Which may take a lot of the BIZARRE out of it, because a wedding dress can feel like a costume. Just a thought. I mean, you could probably have one sewn according to your design for not much more or even the same price as one created by the Anti-Christ.
- Sarah Bellum
Amelia
wrote on April 10 2008 @ 09:04 pm: [report]
I’ve definitely considered that but I haven’t looked into the cost aspect. Wedding dresses are expensive, but if having one made is in the same range, it’s definitely something I would consider, though it is more of a time committment.
TheSavage
wrote on April 11 2008 @ 10:57 am: [report]
I am totally on the Vera bandwagon. I HATED all wedding dresses until I visited Vera, and I found a few dresses that I really liked, and were not too “wedding’y.” Lots of no poof and lots of personality. Go Vera! Also, I was surprised that the majority of the sales staff was not as snooty as I would have thought they would be.
toyen
wrote on April 11 2008 @ 11:31 am: [report]
Your feef?
I think you need to post a poll… Vera Wang - Saint or Anti-Christ?
Whenever I get married, I want a simple ‘50s style tea-lentgh dress. Even better if it costs like $200. of course, I say this now…
gillybeans
wrote on April 11 2008 @ 11:39 am: [report]
I think you should call Rami Kasheem and get a handmade PROJECT RUNWAY wedding dress. That would be awesome!! It would be in the style of a Grecian goddess naturally but I think you’d look hot in some Rami draping. Since we’re on this dress subject, how do people feel about colored dresses? I went to a wedding where the bride wore green. But she was German. Maybe that meant something.
Amelia
wrote on April 11 2008 @ 11:40 am: [report]
Honestly, I think rocking a red dress would be pretty fierce.
gillybeans
wrote on April 11 2008 @ 11:46 am: [report]
Oh, I also wanted to say def stay away from beading. My friend dropped 4K for intricate beading and by the end of the night those little things were ALL over the floor. If you’re gonna dance and party in it, it needs to be somewhat durable…she’d been planning in reselling it on Ebay too. Oh and another pal bought hers off Ebay which I kind of think is gross, even though I like shopping at Goodwill.
Amelia
wrote on April 11 2008 @ 11:47 am: [report]
There’s something wrong with a used wedding dress, unless its from within your family. I mean, what if it’s cursed by the ghosts of divorces past?
looseseal
wrote on April 11 2008 @ 04:29 pm: [report]
Haha, people get so superstitious when it comes to everything wedding.
I’d go with a rocking red dress myself, if I were the marrying kind. Red is the color of joyous occasions in my culture. White is a funeral color.
Of course, a lot of people here are all westernized now and crazy about the poofy white dresses. Weddings here are like a fashion show. There’s the poofy white dress for the signing of the papers, then a ball gown for the reception, then the traditional red dress for the tea ceremony.
You could go the fashion show route if you like several dresses and just can’t decide. Heehee.
Slainna
wrote on April 15 2008 @ 06:57 pm: [report]
If you hate most of those gowns, consider something non-traditional! Maybe something medieval or celtic? Maybe you could even have a dress custom-made for you.