Spring and summer are the perfect season for short wedding dresses, especially for beach and garden weddings, and the beauty of getting a short wedding dress is that you can always wear them after your wedding. The little white dress is now very much a wardrobe essential as the little black dress, and you can’t get any closer to the perfect LWD than your short wedding dress. So if you’re a thrifty bride who’d like to cut down costs with a wedding dress you can easily reuse, there are two ways to go about choosing your little white wedding dress.

shoshanna eyelet dress
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Eyelet

Eyelet dresses have been around since the sixties and are often incorporated in wedding dress design, as well as casual dresses, skirts, and tops. The pattern on eyelet dresses are simple, feminine and sweet, making them ideal for beach weddings and informal wedding gatherings. What makes eyelet dresses so much fun is that it’s so easy to mix and match your accessories. With the right shoes – try pink espadrille wedges or turquoise pumps – statement jewelry, or a colorful headpiece, you’ll definitely look like a million bucks for way less.

betsey johnson white lace dress
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Lace

Lace dresses are far more dressier and formal than eyelet dresses, and they’ll be a bit trickier to wear on occasions outside your wedding. However, a more formal wedding will call for an all lace dress

As opposed to Eyelet, Lace can make you look very dressed up. This is a little tricky because it’s easy for us to go overboard with too much lace, (even for dressy occasions.) I suggest choosing a dress that’s not completely made of lace, like the one pictured above where the white tube dress beneath the sheer lace is made of cotton. There are still “fully laced” dresses that can work, though, as long as it doesn’t cover you up too much, such as strappy and tube dresses.