To think brides often get their dress wrong?

[FreeMantle]

I have always thought this actually but no one else seems to have noticed.
My lovely friends, who pride themselves on dressing very well, seem to chose a dress that doesn't suit them at all. Skinny ones go for the tightest column dress ,so they look like beans. My large busted ones are falling out of massive strapless meringues.
The latest is my size 8/10 cousin who without an inch of fat, has wide hips. So of course she's gone for a full on strapless mermaid. Making her shape look totally out of proportion.
Obviously she'll be beautiful as a bride but why that dress?
I am now looking for one for myself . Despite being short and athletic everyone seems to love a huge ivory fluffy tulle princess type dress on me. I look like a dumpy fungus. It's thin straps and tight bodice totally emphasise my lack of top half. And yes, I'm tempted.

Well I’m lucky I guess in that I’m slim with good arms and shoulders.
I’ve been to a lot of weddings and have never seen a bride who looked hideous. They’ve all looked radiant and happy and beautiful, whatever they’re wearing.

Oh, Peacheachpearplum - yes, the hoicking of bodices among booby ladies in unstable clothing!

When I got married I had mini boobs and all of the dresses that were supposed to show off a heaving bosom just showed off an expanse of spotty chest. Awful :D

I know I had the wrong type of wedding dress and knew at the time, but I’d always wanted an empire line dress because I’d watched lots of Jane Austen adaptations and this was my opportunity to get one that was fitted to me. I have big boobs and the right style would probably be a cross over or something. There’s no way I would have gone strapless though.

I’d guess that there are plenty of women like me who have always wanted what they chose and actually aren’t sorry about that choice.

My mum also made me take my glasses off, which was a bit odd on the day, but I’m nosorry about that either as the photos do look better for it.

My dress was a silk halter neck, antique gold Edwardian style dress and it fitted me perfectly but wanted to cover my arms, so had a ivory silk jacket made, and I loved it. I also wore ivory laced up ankle boots, not shoes, as I love boots.

I agree I picked totally the wrong dress though it didn’t help that I dropped 2 dress sizes and didn’t fit like a glove as it had been altered so much, really I should of just gone a purchased another one.

Thing is, for dress shops strapless is MUCH easier to sell lots of because they are so much easier to alter. (knowing from experience of dressmaking...)

It's easy to try them on people even if they are too big/small to show how they will look. It's easy to make them and fit them to people no matter what their shape. I have narrow shoulders and back and big boobs so I need the front of everything altered otherwise I get odd folds of fabric in weird places. A dress with straps would be a bit more of a pain and when you add sleeves that's even more of a headache.

Put me in a strapless dress and unless it's got a steel boned corset in it, it's going to fall down all day and I will have horrible back fat even though I am not actually 'fat'. Awful.

I will not be wearing strapless.

That said, I've seen larger brides wear strapless and look lovely with no back fat, I think it's more my shape that's the problem than my size.

Redrosebelle are you 5'2" though? I look like a giant ballet dancer has dropped her dress over my head.

I'm not saying brides don't look happy. Just that they seem to get the dress bit wrong. Yet in every day life they all know what suits them.

I got married 19 years ago and had a dress with short lace sleeves and a square neck line and lace to empire line level and then loose chiffon below - so have to disagree that the only dresses around years ago were strapless.

I was adamant I wasn't going to have a strapless dress because that's what everyone was doing.

My 2 best friends got married within 2 years of me and none of us had strapless dresses.

Do agree that you have to ignore the staff in bridal shops - they don't know you and what suits you or what is your style and just want to sell you the easiest / most expensive dress. I knew exactly what I didn't want and went in saying I didn't want a strapless dress but had to be really firm with them.

90% of friends' weddings I've been to (and I've been to a lot), they've looked fantastic. Dresses which suited their figure and personal style. But then most of these friends were slim and gorgeous anyway, which makes it a bit easier.

I'm neither slim nor gorgeous! (Well, my husband thinks gorgeous, but he's rather biased ) With a 46-32-43 figure and quite fixed ideas on certain aspects, it was very hard to find anything to suit me.

I was lucky enough to have a made-to-measure dress, which I think was both flattering and quite "me", but without a generous and wealthy relative, I'd have ended up with a very unflattering dress.

I know lots of brides who've looked beautiful on a shoestring budget, but they've all been slender and beautiful to start with...

When I got married, I had a big meringue dress as I had always wanted a 'princess' dress....plus i was ADAMANT i did not want lace and it had to be strapless...

Now 4 years on, I SO wished I had chosen a lacey 'tighter fitting' dress that clung to my figure a bit more! Im short and a size 8, so that meringue dress probably swamped me!

However, loads of people told me (and still do) that it was the most amazing wedding dress they'd ever seen (although I suppose they wouldnt tell me if that had thought it looked crap!)

Is it really bad that I want to get married again just so that I could choose a completely different type of dress

I saw some ten-year-old wedding photos the other day, of a bride wearing a ruched strapless mermaid dress, and OMG she looked - I can't even describe it - like a magical fairy, like a goddess. She was so, so beautiful - English rose features and colouring, long blonde hair that she had gently put up. I've rarely seen anyone look so lovely. TBH she spoiled the style for me, I actually think it suits quite a lot of people - I quite like the bursting-out-of-it womanly look - but oddly enough nobody else will look like her in it because she was such a complete beauty.

I would not pick my dress again.

However at least I didn't make the white mistake. I look like a ghost on the best of days so there was no way I was wearing white. Bridal shop said 'Ooh ivory' and I said 'no, real colours'. I wore a nice blue.

Sadly I also wore my own body weight in polyester on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year.

I agree! The worst is strapless with loads of back fat spilling out on top.

I'm wedding dress shopping now and THANK GOD the strapless craze has gone. There are lots of lovely ones to choose from atm - illusion neck, v-neck, sleeves, halterneck, nice floaty ones. Strapless meringue did look lovely on my slim and busty auntie, but not for me!

Also, agree about the white - looks horrid on me. Luckily a lot of dresses also come in sand/blush/champagne etc.

When my cousin got married, she chose a strapless taffeta dress that was in the sale. She was so chuffed with her bargain. Only downside was that she's a very busty size 18/20, the dress was a 16. Let's just say it wasn't an attractive sight. Most of what should have been inside the dress was exploding over the top........

Very few women suit strapless dresses in reality. And I don't like seeing so much flesh when normally that person wouldn't walk around with bare shoulders unless they were on holiday.

Yes it surprised me babyblackbird how little advice the staff offered.
It was me telling dd2 that although both dresses she liked were nice one was ever so slightly so much of a better colour for her. It stood out a mile to me how much more the last dress suited her colouring.

I used to be a make up consultant and in my opinion I was there to give an honest account to clients. Several times the client would bring a friend and the friend would offer advice, I always have an honest opinion even if it differed to the friends.
I had nothing to gain by selling a pink lipstick as opposed to a red one.

Even Hollywood actresses often can't get strapless dresses to work on the red carpet. If you're slim then a dress that flatters a slender figure is likely to gape at the bust and end up with a floating shelf with a gap where the boobs don't fill the dress out. If you're in any way curvy enough so your boobs do fill out the top then it's almost impossible to avoid armpit boob / back fat.

I refused to do strapless or meringue. I wore a 40s vintage style slinky silky gown with a deep v at the back (not me but this was the make I wore - Charlie Brear Haliton) - I tried on one strapless dress and it was beyond hideous!

I'm sorry! I know this is going to sound really mean but I'm going to tell you anyway.
Bride is small and round and appeared in the biggest meringue you've ever!
Then stomping behind her came about five or six bridesmaids in pale lilac, huge tuille dresses, all with same round shape.
I managed to contain shoulder shaking, hysterical, tear streaming laughter.
I couldnt help it, I know its mean but it happened.
I think it was the quite angry stomping walks that set me off.
Oh Well!!! I'll get mi coat!

I was massively pregnant when I got married, so I went for a dress just looked weddingy that fit (£25 from tkmaxx wedding section, thanks tkmaxx). This was 10yrs ago and I don't remember any strapless dresses there, just a lot of spaghetti straps. Which tbh, didn't suit me, could have done with a bolero.

I actually think slim women with large hips look best in fishtail wedding dresses. Very curvy and a sexy silhouette.

I am NOT slim and sexy so I went for a 50's style short dress with a lace overlay and three quarter sleeves. I loved it and I wore vibrant teal shoes to match DH's tie.

Such horrible comments on this thread.

I had a strapless dress and felt beautiful in it. Not chavvy, cheap, tacky or any of the other things posted.

Got married in 1990 in a meringue with puffy sleeves and - cringe - a big bow on the arse. That was the fashion then the 80s hadn’t quite finished!

To some extent I do think beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's about feeling comfortable too. I also hate strapless though. I'm 5'8 and a 10-12 and my dress was rather tight and slinky (satin), I am sure some people thought it was too fitted, but I was swayed into it by everyone who saw me in it and I don't regret it. Don't get me wrong there were definitely angles where it wasn't too flattering, but that's the nature of those dresses, and I don't have huge boobs so I probably did look a bit hip heavy too. A bit like even on a skinny Minnie, they can have bingo wings in strapless if they hold their arms tight to their sides. Oh well!

No adult woman looks good in a fussy w hite dress. Princess di looked ridiculous, Kate Middleton s lumpy lace made it look as if her bra was showing , and as for the horror of strapless - no.

Dress like a grown up.

10 years ago I was wedding dress shopping and hardly any strapped dresses - which is what i wAs after.

i actually did the first rounds of shops on my own. So agree that taking lots of people is a bit much to get an honest opinion.

YANBU or a bitch. I agree that some are just

I do think now wedding dresses and wedding have become more relaxed. So I would
Hope it would be easier to buy something flattering.

I did and do love my Dress but I do wonder after this thread!!