I've previously written about how to choose the best shade of white and the best wedding dress style to enhance our features and personality, but recently someone suggested me to write about my own bridal style; I got married just last year, actually.
Well, usually I don't like to talk about myself in my articles, I'm not that kind of blogger who publishes pictures of herself and posts about her lifestyle, but I have to admit that probably the best way to explain the meaning of "personal bridal styling" and its effectiveness is by doing practical examples and that probably the best example I can report is...me!
I am a typical "spring", which in the personal styling world means I have light and warm features. I have actually fair skin,blonde hair with golden shades and blue eyes with some yellow/green hues inside, that make them warm as well (differently from the icy blue eyes, typical of the "cool-summer" featured people).
This on the left is a quite recent photo. Last year, when I got married, I had very long hair, but this does not affect the colours' matter at all.
The first time I went to a boutique to try some wedding dresses I had a clear idea in mind : I wanted a mermaid/trumpet style dress, in ivory or blush colour; my ideal wedding dress style and designer was Pronovias.
Here below some examples of mermaid wedding dress style from 2016 Pronovias collection..beautiful, aren't they?
I went to the first boutique asking exclusively for this kind of dresses and I tried on some stunning samples indeed; I had to admit I was quite happy.. but not totally convinced.
First of all because of the colour. Those styles were in fact all in pure white.
Now, if you didn't read my previous article "50 shades of...white?!" you probably don't know that the pure white belongs to the cool colour category and that it is not really recommended to warm featured women like me.
I was aware of that, but in the meantime, I wanted to try them on because, you know, the pure white is the most classic colour for a wedding dress!
Well, I tried, but I wasn't convinced at all; my face wasn't illuminated, despite the sparkling decorative elements, and every flaw of my face like the eye circles and skin imperfections seemed to be highlighted. That's actually what happens when we put the "wrong" colour close to our face.. yet, apart from the colour I was still convinced about the mermaid shape. So I went to another boutique with exactly the same requests: mermaid cut and ivory/blush shade. They brought me several samples to try on, amazing these too, yet something wasn't really convincing me.. This time the problem wasn't the colour but I understood that it was probably the dress shape itself.
You must know that I am a "triangle" or so-called pear-shaped woman; it means I have narrower shoulder and wider hips. The typical triangle has small and quite slope shoulders while mine are angular and quite wide, yet my hips are wider and curvy!
Here a typical "triangle" or "pear" body shape
I was attracted by those mermaid shapes because they were the trend of the moment and, being me a fashion lover and professional, I was looking for the most trendy wedding dress, forgetting two very important details: my body shape and my personality.
Despite those dresses weren't that bad on me, actually, they simply weren't enhancing nor evening my body. Certain kinds of dress cuts call the eye attention on all the body areas or, depending on the style, they can even highlight the hips area; so if you don't have perfect proportions between your top and your bottom and, above all, if you don't feel comfortable with the idea of getting the attention on your side B (like some celebrities) those dresses are not for you. So, well, they weren't totally wrong for me but they simply were not my best! And I bet every bride wish to be at her best on her big day...am I wrong?
In the end I started to think more thoroughly to my body shape and finally I realized that probably my original idea wasn't the best for me and that I had to try something different; and then I spotted a dress in the boutique: it had a strapless sparkling corset and a smooth satin skirt, a dress with the so called "A-line" shape; the colour was a light pinkish ivory, warm , soft and delicate...I loved it at first sight!
I was only afraid that the skirt, a bit voluminous, would have made me shorter (I'm not that tall actually) but then I tried it on and, instead, everything seemed to work well: the colour, the shape, the style!
A picture of my wedding dress (picture by Alessandro Mayer)
I was feeling confident and comfortable in it (and trust me, that day you need to feel as much comfortable as possible in your dress!). I was feeling myself! That's what, most of all, made me go for it.
The shape was also perfect because it was drawing the attention on my bust and shoulders, rather than on my curvy bottom part, balancing this way my body figure; the skirt wasn't too wide, so it didn't make me shorter, and the soft fabric gently slips on my curves.
As for the style..well it was very feminine and romantic and of all the "styles" romantic is the one that represents me most!
Discover Your Bridal Style Now
That wedding dress seemed to have all the elements to make me feel a "perfect bride", enhancing my body, my complexion and my personality; so I bought it, without hesitations.
After that all the other details and choices came along quite naturally: the hairstyle, the accessories, the flowers for the bouquet.. the dress is, in fact, the most difficult and important choice for a bride-to-be; in my opinion is the dress, actually, that determines all the other features of a bride's style!
Well, I bet now you are curious to see the final result of my bridal style, and here I am
- pictures are by Alessandro Mayer www.photomayer.it -
So...what do you think? did I make the right choice?
I hope this article will help you for your wedding dress choice. But if you'll need some professional advice I'll be honoured to be your personal stylist for the big day! Basically I will help you to find your best dress in terms of colour, shape and style, as well as I've done for myself.
