The Daily Mail is reporting today that black, a color traditionally saved for funerals and looking street chic, is the new color choice for wedding dresses among modern brides. While I don’t doubt that many women are bucking tradition and going with darker colors, I have a hard time believing that black, despite how slimming and elegant it is, is now the “shade of choice,” as the paper insinuates. Then again, they did quote an “expert” from a wedding website that gets all of 2,000 visitors a month (for perspective, The Frisky gets about that many visitors every 25 minutes), so maybe there’s some validity to the claim. The trend is in response to the recession (of course!) and brides’ desire to buy a dress they can wear more than once. I don’t buy it for a second, do you? Would you buy a black gown for that reason? Would you really wear your dress again after your wedding? Doesn’t that kind of make it seem less special? [via Daily Mail]

I’m a regular watcher of TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress.” Why? I have no idea. If you’ve never seen it, the reality show takes place at Kleinfeld Bridal, a huge bridal store in Manhattan. Each half-hour episode follows three or four brides shopping for their wedding gowns. Usually, some hijinks occur. A mom is mean to a bride! Somebody cries! A husband sees the dress before the wedding! For sure, women have diverse tastes when it comes to what to get married in, from the totally conservative to the downright weird. But there’s a certain type of bride who likes a certain type of dress. She’ll start out by saying she wants a gown with a “wow factor.” Something that “glitters.” Something that’s “over the top!” Then, she’ll mention her favorite designer by name; invariably, it’s Pnina Tornai. Take this one, for example. It’s Aphrodite meets Liberace by way of silver lamé. Fug of fantastical? Sound off in the comments. More after the jump…