Wedding Gowns & Bridal Gowns

Not all wedding dress trends have to be superfluous and decorative. Some of them serve practical purposes! My favorite wedding dress trend (and dress trend in general) is pockets. Pockets allow you to keep small items like a mirror, lipstick, tissue, maybe a pack of cigarettes if you smoke. They’re perfect for brides who have a habit of forgetting their purses because they’d like to keep their hands free – and you’ll be needing your hands throughout the reception. What I love most about pockets is that you can either make it a part of the dress design like in the photo above, or tuck it discreetly in between the pleats. Click on the cut to see the wedding dress styles that look great with pockets.

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Photo credit

If you want a little avant garde flair into your wedding day look, I suggest you take inspiration from fashion house Lanvin’s Collection Blanche – their bridal collection. Alber Elbaz, one of the lead designers behind Lanvin, created the first Collection Blanche as part of the resort collection. This year, there are four new wedding dresses in Collection Blanche. Not all of them are wearable though; I much prefer the dresses from 2009 (shown above). Still, the 2010 collection is worth a look.

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Continuing with the theme of simple wedding dresses, I found this stunning gallery of Papilio wedding gowns by Russian photographer Marina Danilova. Papilio doesn’t seem to have a website or anything that I can refer to, but the photos make for gorgeous inspiration. I’ve posted my favorites without resizing the photo so you can see every detail. Simply click on the picture to see the larger version.

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I’m currently loving the Watters Spring 2010 bridal collection. While their designers certainly didn’t scrimp on the use of lace, the wedding dresses are not overly embellished and ruffly. I can definitely see myself walking down the aisle in one of these dresses, especially the first! It’s sexy yet utterly sweet.

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Over the years, we’ve given a lot of style inspiration and advice on how to find a wedding dresses. But I realized that we haven’t answered a rather important question – exactly when should you start shopping for a wedding dress?

When to start shopping for your wedding dress is up to you and the length of your engagement. Most brides don’t start looking until six months before the wedding, while others start the search shortly after saying “Yes!” I actually suggest starting the search soon after the engagement because it will take a while before you find the perfect design and the right couturier to create your dream dress for you. The creation process will also take several months, and most couturiers only accept orders if the wedding is four or five months away. Not to mention that if you shop for the dress at the last minute, you might end up with a dress style you don’t particularly like, or paying a lot of money for a rush-order dress. It definitely pays to give yourself the time to shop at a comfortable pace and leave plenty of leeway for changes and alterations.

The exception to this rule is if you’re in for a long engagement (a year or longer) because there are too many downsides to shopping for a dress early. For one thing, you’ll need to store the wedding gown if you buy it now – which can be a pain if you have a full ballgown skirt and not enough room. Not to mention that if you choose your dress too early, a whole new wave of wedding dress designs will come out next season. What if you find a dress you like better? While there’s no harm in looking around, it might be a good idea to save your money during the first year of your engagement so that when the wedding date draws nearer, you can buy the dress of your dreams and plan for your wedding without feeling the financial strain.