While this $501,640 dress isn’t the most expensive wedding gown we’ve met, it’s certainly up there. Besides yards and yards of platinum-colored tulle, the dress includes 10 feet of platinum chain, 33 carats of diamonds, 145.84 carats of aquamarine, white keshi pearls, and a white south sea pearl pendant. The dress is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between Tutera, who hosts “My Fair Wedding,” and jewelry designer Erica Courtney. Call us cheap, but we don’t get it. Who needs platinum chain on a piece of clothing they’re going to wear one time? Especially one that’s not even cute. [Luxist]

“I’ve been reading The Frisky for a month or so (religiously!) and I thought this would be the place to get my questions answered. (You guys always seem to have the answers.) I’m getting married on Oct 31st of this year and want to know if it’s acceptable to wear a black wedding dress. I would pair it with an ivory shawl (in cashmere) with white pearls as accessories. Is this a fashion no-no? I just want something non-traditional and the bridal stores aren’t doing it for me. I’ve found this vintage black cocktail-type dress and hope that I can wear it! Thanks in advance!” —Melissa

Hey Melissa, what’s up? And welcome to The Frisky! Glad you’re here. I love your question because, personally, when it comes to fashion rules, I like to get all rebellious and say there are none. (Eh, OK, maybe just a few…) After the jump, let’s discuss whether a black dress can work for you on your wedding day or not.

“I wore an Azzedine Alaïa brown snakeskin dress, which he tortured me for about two months to get into, but at least it’s something I can wear again. I didn’t want some stupid white dress; it seems like such a waste.”

  —Kate Grand, editor-in-chief of Love and stylist who has worked with Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein Underwear, Dior Homme, Prada, and more [Times Online]

Thankfully, the final weeks of my engagement have been pleasantly devoid of bachelorette parties with plastic penis products or bridal showers with cheesy games, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a beautiful toilet paper wedding dress when I see one. Don’t think a toilet paper wedding dress can be beautiful? You obviously haven’t seen the winners of Cheap Chic Weddings toilet-paper wedding dress contest. Ann Kagawa Lee of Honolulu took the grand prize for her couture-like creation (compared by some to an Oscar de la Renta gown) made from nothing more than toilet paper, tape, and glue. Her theme was “Gone With the Wind” and Japanese origami, and it shows. The craftsmanship and attention to detail is astounding — even more impressive than the coffee filter prom dress we saw last month. After the jump, check out a close-up of the hat she made to go with the dress. [via The Cut]

Not to rain on our own bridal bonanza parade, but not all marriages end happily ever after. While there is no “right” way to handle a divorce, Brit Jo Wallace can’t be accused of moping. Rather than skulk around her house after her three-year marriage ended, Jo threw a divorce party. Sure a divorce party isn’t quite as conventional as a Tupperware party, but it was actually the dress code that caught our attention. Rather than don the average “night out on the town to pick me up a hunk of new man” garb for the pub crawl through Brighton, England, Wallace insisted that all the women wear wedding gowns. Not just any wedding dress, oh no, the most hideous dress one could find on eBay. Stomping around Brighton like Bridezilla probably doesn’t come up high on the list of conventional ways to celebrate one’s divorce, but we give Wallace credit for making lemonade out of lemons, and giving dresses that usually only get worn once a second life.  [Daily Mail]

Wedding season is starting up, and this peacock wedding dress made its debut last month at the Wedding Culture Expo in China’s Jiangsu province. Made of 2009 peacock tail feathers and 60 Hetian jades, the dress costs about $1.4 million. While it certainly is an interesting departure from the usual whites, off-whites, and ecrus, we always thought that peacocks were considered narcissistic creatures. Wouldn’t wedding guests leave with a negative opinion of a bride who wore such an ostentatious (and expensive) dress?

A lot of brides have already got something old, something borrowed, and something blue, but now they’ve really got something new—baby bumps!  According to the Daily Mail U.K., there was a sudden rise in maternity bridal dress sales to satisfy the estimated 20,000 brides in Britain who were with child on their big day last year. That number accounts for a record 10% of women under 45 who are tying the knot for the first time! Here in the States, one in six brides is preggers—just like Jennifer Garner and Jessica Alba when they married their spouses. And these gals are not just waddling down the aisle on their wedding day wearing a muumuu; they’re going for traditional white gowns with big price tags. 

I’m not proud to admit I’ve already clocked more hours on my wedding-gown search than I did choosing a college.

From afar, it seemed like a fun task to find a gorgeous vintage dress to get married in. On the other hand, it only has to be the most knock-’em-dead dress of a lifetime, to be photographed more than any other outfit I will ever wear.

The upside of going vintage is that nearly every gown is one of a kind. This is also the downside. When you find a real beaut, there’s always at least one thing wrong: color, condition, price, it’s already sold (second most common problem), or the most common and aggravating issue of all, size.

If you like demure pencil skirts and classic pumps, you’ll love Newport News, the catalog/online retailer that always seems to be having sale! And if you’re attending a wedding, there lots of appropriate dresses, including this black one with pyramid beads at the waist. Personally, I’m a big fan of Newport News’ round toe pumps, which are just $28 each (subtract $8 if you buy two pairs)—good luck deciding which of the 12 colors to get.

The judges said it and the pictures speak for themselves (McQueen on the left, Kenley on the right). Girlfriend may not have been original, but the craftsmanship on her knockoff was still better than Jerrel’s doo-dad hot mess.

When I think of all the disastrous things that could happen on someone’s wedding day, I generally think of flowers dying, or the cake being dropped as it’s being carried to the reception site. Well, one bride in Italy had it a lot worse. When this woman was married in 2006, her dress came unstitched and slid down, leaving her butt on display to all of her guests, and now she’s suing the dress’s designer. “The priest concluded the ceremony and the couple were married but of course she was not able to take any proper photographs of the ceremony because she was semi-naked,” the woman’s lawyer said. Not that pictures of her wedding day would mean much to her today—she and the groom have since separated. [MarieClaire.co.uk]

A bridal store in Charlotte, NC, went bankrupt and left a bunch of brides without wedding dresses, some just weeks away from getting married. I laughed a little bit because some of the women in the video are crying, but then I thought about how frustrating that would be—not only did they lose “the dress” that they probably spent months looking for, but some spent as much as $5,000 and don’t even have a dress to show for it. Perhaps they should make up their lost money by forgoing a dress and getting married in the nude. [CNN]

Jerry Hall, the supermodel from Texas that married Mick Jagger in 1990, has dumped more than just the frontman of the Rolling Stones. Hall is auctioning off her bridal dress, as well as the wedding gift he gave her, an embroidered Japanese kimono, for a modest $600-a-piece.  While she’s looking to clean out her closet and donate the proceeds to homeless charity Emmaus, she has kept the prices cheaper than Jagger’s affairs!  [Daily Mail]

Disney Weddings versus Badgley Mischka! Who will have the best looking dress? Which will be the most heinous? State your opinions, in the comments.

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.

I am taking my first stab at wedding dress shopping in a couple weeks. It’s a ways off before I’m getting married, but I like to shop, so why not start with the fun stuff now? The thing is, maybe it won’t be so fun. ABC News did a report on how family members and friends should, could, and sometimes do react when a bride-to-be tries on a gown that they don’t like. Apparently people get really opinionated about other women’s wedding dresses! Should you tell someone that their dress is heinous? What if it’s just hugely unflattering? My friend Lesley, who is probably the most brutally honest of all of my friends—she openly sneers when you say or do something she doesn’t like—says she would tell me if she hated something I tried on. But then again, if I clearly LOVED it, she might go about indicating her feelings in a more roundabout (passive aggressive perhaps?) way. All of this has got me thinking about how honest I would actually want people to be. I mean it’s my day. But at the same time, I don’t want to be walking down the aisle while everyone whispers, “That thing is hideous!” So I think I would only read consider the opinions of people whose style I personally liked (Agathe are you available?) and who understood that what is considered stylish is in the eye of the beholder. So long as it doesn’t resemble a ball of cotton candy with beading barfed all over it. [ABC News]