Tips for Choosing a Wedding Dress

If you grew up like I did with a romantic vision of what my wedding should be like, then no matter how many questions there are to ask yourself, you’re sure of one thing, it needs to be perfect. Nowadays not everyone appears as concerned about finding the perfect dress, but for most of us – deep inside – it really does matter.

As soon as you begin planning or the big day, choosing your wedding dress becomes an urgent need for most brides. Nobody wants to wait. While dealing with wedding stress and preparations, be sure to allow yourself plenty of time to try on different styles and find the one who says “you”. Read more

Saving Money on Your Wedding Dress

If you are on a tight budget the cost of a special order wedding dress can be a little bit hard to swallow. But what can you do? Yes, you will only wear the dress once, but it is your wedding – quite possibly the most important day of your life. You want a wedding dress that looks fabulous.

Stay Unique – Make your Own Wedding Dress

Shopping for the right wedding dress can be a painful experience and after you have seen six or seven it may feel like you have seen them all. Your wedding day is probably one of the biggest days in your life and you want to look and feel amazing. If you wish for something special and tailored to your personal taste then why not have your own work of art created?

When choosing the fabric for your wedding dress think about, style, design structure and comfort. There is a big difference between buying a dress from a retailer and choosing the material that is tailored towards your personality and exclusive taste.

It maybe that you are one for sticking to the tradition and opt for a white silk/ ivory dress that screams white wedding. However there are various materials around that would make your dress extra special and unique. This is your big day and if you want to make a statement then think about fabrics and colour.

Smooth Lurex Dupion

A luxurious fabric which contains 39% Lurex to make it easier to work with. It would be perfect for the most structured and slim fitting dress. The finish of this silk has a slight glimmer that really catches the light with the main colours being ivory and dark ivory.

Lurex Organza

This is a very fine, sheer and light fabric that provides a fairytale glimmer.  It is made from 64% Lurex 36% silk and is perfect for overlays, veils, trains and the trimming of full skirts.

Lurex Taffeta

This is a rough cut, traditional fabric that would be suitable for a big dress and structured styles as it is quite heavy. If you are looking for the ball room gown style wedding dress then this choice of fabric would be right for you. It has a slight shimmer that provides an edge of difference without being too over the top. It is is 64% Lurex and 36% silk.

Spot Embroidered Organza

If you are looking to add a little variety to your wedding dress this embroidered, 100% silk, definitely gives you originality. The silk has been finished will embroidered spots to simply give a cute and elegant touch.

This fabric would be perfect for the Basque of a wedding dress as it provides eye catching detail but it doesn’t want to be over used as it could overkill the final look of your dress. A little detail is more effective than masses.

Sparkling Organza

A stunning and ever so elegant silk that really captures attention

If you are planning a Christmas wedding or simply love the thought of glimmering as you walk down the aisle then this fabric would be suitable for you. It is finished off with small eye catching sequins which make this fabric unique. With being 100% silk, the fabric would be perfect for the overlay on the tail of your dress.

Your wedding day is special and you should take certain factors into consideration before jumping straight in with the first idea. If you are never too sure then take a couple of friends with you and look through the sample books.

This short guide was brought to you by James Hare, specialists in silk fashion and designer fabrics.

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How to pick your perfect wedding dress

If you ask most women what the most important thing is on their wedding day, we’d take a guess that the majority are dead set on finding that dream wedding dress to walk down the aisle in.

Women spend more time and energy looking for their dress and more thought is likely to go into this decision than any other!

Of course, everyone has their own idea of what their perfect wedding dress looks like with some preferring sleek and elegant gowns and others opting for more traditional full skirted dresses and of course there are endless options of length, colour, styles and accessories to choose from as well.

A few things to remember about choosing your wedding dress is that you’ll be looking at these pictures for years to come so picking a dress with timeless elegance, rather than going with the latest fad style is probably better in the long run so your pictures will always be something you are proud to show off.

Pick a style that suits you. It’s all very well falling in love with a style of dress that looks fantastic on the hanger but shows off all of your lumps and bumps or doesn’t show off your best features. Try out a variety of styles, and take along a trusted friend or relative to help you choose a style that makes the best of all your attributes. Try everything on, sometimes a style that you think will look horrible on you will actually turn out to be the one that you fall in love with, it’s worth trying as it’s a once in a lifetime dress so you want to get it right!

The most traditional colour for wedding dresses is white and you’ll find that the majority of wedding dress stockists have most of their dresses in this colour. Of course white isn’t for everyone and you’ll be pleased to hear that many dresses are offered with other colour tones in them, resulting in many off-white colours such as ivory, cream, gold and many other hues. There are also dresses available in completely different colours so if you look good in red or blue there’s no reason why you couldn’t go for a wedding dress in those colours as well.

When you find that perfect dress, the best advice you can take is to buy it on that day, especially if it’s a dress on sale or there’s only one left in stock. There’s nothing worse than finding your dress, only to have someone else buy it while you think about it and come back a few days later to find it has been sold! You can tend to reserve dresses as well, so at the very least make sure you do this, you can always change your mind but once it’s gone – it’s gone forever! With Very.co.uk you can order the dress and try it on and of course, if it’s not the right one for you it can be returned.

Another important factor in the bride’s mind is the issue of bridesmaid dresses. Whether you’ve got one bridesmaid, or a dozen; coordinating them to wear the colour and style that you want can be tricky, especially if you have a few bridesmaids you are all different shapes and sizes.

The first thing to decide on is what colour you want, many brides will fit the bridesmaid dresses into the colour scheme, so if you’re having pink and white flowers and table centrepieces for example, it’s likely that pink will be a good colour for the bridesmaid dresses.

You could also go for a colour theme, such as purples, which include plums, lilacs and bright purple colours so you are able to find a colour that suits everyone.

Once you’ve chosen your colours, then you’ll need to find a style for your bridesmaid dresses, which again can be a little tricky if you have a few bridesmaids of differing shapes! The best thing to do is take them all to try on a variety of styles and pick out the one which is best across all of your bridesmaids.

If you’re going for block colours then you can dress up the bridesmaid dresses with accessories that match your colour scheme, such as corsages or hair pieces which fit into the scheme. This is often a nice idea if you’ve gone for plain block colours, such as cream as it brightens up the outfits and also makes the bridal party easily identifiable!

To get some ideas for your ideal style of wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses then there is a beautiful selection at Very.co.uk where you will find inspiration not just for dresses but also everything from accessories and jewellery right through to wedding shoes and veils to make your wedding day absolutely perfect.

The Most Expensive Wedding Dresses in the World

No matter who you are, the bride’s wedding dress is going to make a big dent in your budget and as many a man has discovered, whether he be the bride’s father or the groom who are paying for it, they end up being highly perplexed that a dress which is only to be worn once can cost so much money.  When you are dealing with cost issues in your wedding, it may help you to consider that these items, and the wedding dress ranks very high up there with them, are not so much about “cost” as about the value they give – the look and feeling they give to the bride, the groom and the assembled cast who are participating in the wedding.

As the credit card advert says, “Priceless!”

From the humble wedding to the sublime or ridiculous, you can take your pick; we have the wedding dresses where money is clearly no object and nothing has been spared for delivering the ultimate creation.

The most expensive wedding dress in the world to date is the USD $12 million creation, known as The Diamond Wedding Gown, which was the result of a collaboration between Renee Strauss (owner of a super successful, wedding salon in Beverley Hills) and Martin Katz, a rare jewel dealer.  The dress itself uses over 150 carats of diamonds and to give you an idea of what this means, the typical engagement ring rarely hits a full carat and hovers around the half-carat mark.

The Diamond Wedding Gown was premiered in 2008 and took the title of the most expensive wedding dress in the world from a design by Yumi Katsura of Japan.  Her creation followed the same traditional white design as The Diamond Wedding Gown, but came in at a paltry USD $8.5 million though it does lay claim to containing over 1,000 pearls and one of only two 5 carat white gold diamonds in the world.

Coming down to the mid-range in terms of expense, we have the Peacock Feather Wedding Dress which was launched in 2009 and contains 2009 peacock feathers to commemorate the year.  For a miserly USD $1.5 million you can have the ultimate in mating display for your wedding day and for the non-traditionalists, it isn’t white.  One word of caution here, with a display of male peacock feathers of such grandeur, you should not be so surprised to find the bride being trailed by a long line of brown hens!

We have to take all of these dollar values with a pinch of salt given the recent economic wrangling; Vera Wang who is the wedding dress designer to the stars and claimed the most expensive dress she’s ever made was the unused wedding dress for the J-Lo/Affleck marriage that never was, is now selling her wedding dresses at a 50% discount compared to last year.

Finally, there is a chance for all of us to get into something, expensively uncomfortable, and then hang it in the closet for the rest of our lives!

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