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As you stand with your beloved in front of your community and offer one another wedding vows in the midst of your wedding ceremony, as you cut your cake and take the dance floor for your first dance, you want to look fabulous. Now, here’s a secret. You’re going to look fabulous anyway because you’re going to be so happy. And that’s great! But you want to work with that! You want every bit of support you can have, because even the clearest bride feels just the eensiest bit nervous on her wedding day. Looking fabulous helps!

What do you want to consider as you begin to think about a gown?

• Cost. Let’s get this out of the way. You don’t want to fall in love with a dress you can’t afford. So before you do any wedding planning at all, sit down and figure out what you can spend on a dress. And then do some research once you have that price in mind and figure out who makes dresses in your price range or how to get what you want to fall into that price range. (Think: borrow, resale, web!)
• Color: Your wedding dress needs to be something that flatters your skin tones and not simply what’s popular this year. If pistachio and gold are all the rage and you look like a parsnip in pistachio and gold, you don’t want to wear it. There’s not enough make-up in the world and you don’t want to wear that much make-up at your wedding anyway. It does nothing for pictures. Do you want a traditional white or cream gown? Do you want to sizzle in red or hot pink or purple? Certainly plenty of 2nd time brides are wearing white gowns, because it’s not the 50s any more and you’re not my neighbors down the street where the bride had to wear blue because her mother found out that she and her husband-to-be had had sex before. (Talk about taking out the ad in the NYTimes!) I wore basic black velvet and sparkled and glowed. What works for you?
• Style. Again, this is about you. What style makes the most of your natural assets and down plays the things you consider your flaws? What style do you find easy and comfortable to wear for a day? What makes you look and feel beautiful? This is something you want to consider before you go out looking for a dress. If you don’t feel totally comfortable about the answers to these questions, find a friend whose style you trust.
• Length. Do you want something knee length, tea length, floor-length? Do you want a train?
• Fashion. What’s in style? This may or may not matter to you, but it’s worth examining. One trip to the library, or a glance through a wedding magazine or a tour on-line is going to give you very good clues about what’s out there.
• Fabric. What kind of fabric do you want to wear. There are so many wonderful choices. You want the fabric to be appropriate to the season (which was why I was wearing velvet – ooh it was cold.) If you don’t know what’s available, go spend some time in a high-end fabric shop. (Beware, it can be addictive.)
• Designer. Do you have a favorite designer for your every day clothes? Do they do wedding dresses, and if not, you want to use them as a cue for what makes you feel comfortable. As you’ve been looking at dresses and pictures of dresses, is there any designer who catches your eye? Does that designer have dresses that address your style and cost issues? If not, keep moving. You don’t want to get fastened on something you either can’t have or isn’t right!
• Wedding Style. Are you having an evening wedding with candles or a beach wedding with waves?
• Ethnic heritage. I don’t know why more people don’t draw on their ethnic heritage when they’re marrying. There are so many fabulous styles and colors that the white dress often doesn’t measure up to. Many people of European extraction are here long enough and lived through enough assimilation that they have no ties to their family’s culture. But I always think there’s something wonderful about those accents, even if you don’t want to use the entire outfit. Many cultures have symbols to be embroidered in white on white and they make the dresses fabulously interesting.
• Comfortable: Your bridal gown should fit well and be comfortable for an entire day’s wearing. The undergarments should be comfortable as well, which means you need to think about what needs to be worn and or built into the dress!
• Flattering. Last and most importantly. You should look fabulous! It’s your wedding.

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Source by Ann Keeler Evans