While white wedding dresses remain the most popular choice for many brides, colored wedding dresses are growing in popularity and offer many outstanding options for women who want a stunning wedding style.
A Hint of Color
Subtle hints of color on a wedding dress have been popular accents for years, and might include choices such as:
- Sashes or bows
- Colored hems or necklines
- Colored embroidery
- Contrasting inset panels
- Colored beading
While these delicate details can add a tinge of color to a dress, full colored gowns are also becoming more popular for modern, trendy brides.
Colored Wedding Dresses: Daring to be Different
Today's independent woman doesn't want to go along with the crowd; she wants to stand on her own merit. One way for a bride to stand out and make a statement about her personal style is to choose a fully colored dress. Brides have many reasons to choose colored gowns, including
Indian wedding gowns are richly colored and heavily detailed.
- Desire to be "different" with the wedding attire
- Cheaper prices for party dresses rather than white bridal gowns
- Cultural considerations where a certain color is traditional or symbolic
- Ability to reuse the gown and wear it for other special occasions
- The entire bodice, skirt, train, and even the veil may be colored, as well as other accessories such as wedding shoes, gloves, a purse, or a handkerchief. Choosing the right color for a wedding dress, however, can be just as challenging as choosing any colors for the wedding palette.
Choosing Colors
There are several ways brides can choose a color for their wedding dress without resorting to white, eggshell, ivory, ecru, snow, or diamond shades. Brides who want to go bold with color should consider
- Seasons: Many brides who are choosing colored gowns do so according to season. Spring brides are choosing pale pinks, lilacs, and blues, while those who are marrying in the summer choose deeper shades of these same colors. Brides planning fall weddings are choosing yellows, golds, and even shades of orange. It's the winter bride who is making the boldest statement, however. Deep reds and blues and even holiday or metallic hues are making their way down the aisle.
- Pastels: For the bride who wants color but doesn't want to be so obvious about it, faint colors are the way to go. Light blue or pale pink wedding dresses add color but don't go overboard. Consider a pale shade if you're not interested in making too bold a statement but still want a unique color for your dress.
- Theme: A themed wedding has a lot of options for fantastic color choices. A colored beach wedding dress, for example, can be a rich sandy taupe, a crystalline blue or sea green, or even a tropical magenta. A holiday bride might consider Christmas wedding gowns in an emerald green or ruby red, while an autumn bride might choose a rich fall color for her gown and coordinate her bridal party dresses in a rainbow of fall colors to match the colored leaves that nature uses to decorate.
- Prints: It can be difficult to find a formal gown with a colored print, but a casual wedding dress can be a lovely floral print sundress or cocktail dress perfect for a garden wedding, beach wedding, or modest affair. Prints also work well for bridesmaid dresses and flower girls for a fully coordinated bridal party.
What Will Everyone Think?
Traditionally, wedding dresses are supposed to be white and many people are set in their ways. A mother who has dreamed of the day her daughter walks down the aisle in a flowing white dress especially might not approve of brides wearing colored wedding dresses. You might remind the critics of the history of the wedding dress - white wedding gowns weren't the norm until after Queen Victoria wore a white dress for her wedding in 1840. In the general scheme of things, that's not too long ago.
