The Wonderful World of Weddings

Dresses, dresses and more dresses. Economical dresses and higher-end dresses; ball gowns, fit and flares, mermaids and tea length dresses. There were bride maids, mother-of-the-bride, flower girl and more.

On Sunday, I attended the 44th Annual Wonderful World of Weddings at State Fair Park with TCD’s Photo Editor Brian Jacobson. I got to the venue just in time to get our spots for the bridal fashion show which had a very large turnout.

The fashion show started with three “grooms” coming out and doing a kind of strange dance to strange music. Not really the “you’re my one true love” songs. (Question: why do women always get rowdy when men come on stage? It’s like they’ve never seen attractive males before. But I digress.) Then the dancing brides start coming out. It was all kind of a strange vibe and a lot of choreography to execute, but it was entertaining.

I showed the program to Brian and told him there were going to be 194 looks. We both sighed thinking we’d be there forever, but with three or more people on the runway at a time, the show moved quickly.

There were dresses of all styles, designs for all price ranges. There variety of colors included variations of Tangerine Tango, which is Pantone’s color of 2012.

The styles I found glaringly missing were copies or variations of Kate Middleton’s (now Duchess of Cambridge) wedding gown as well as her sister Pippa’s dress. Middleton had an absolutely gorgeous Alexander McQueen lace long sleeve dress. Yet I didn’t see any dresses with any length of sleeves, including long ones. Long lace sleeves are very sexy. They leave something to the imagination while giving glimpses of skin through intricate designs. Pippa’s dress, if you remember, was very form fitting (especially from behind). I didn’t see any bridesmaid dresses of that style. Strange.

And they kept coming. I’m a huge fan of bling, so the dresses with the most bling caught my eye. There is one pictured at right has rows of crystals from the bodice all the way down to the floor. It looked somewhat like a pageant dress but had enough bridal details to make it wedding-ready.

Wedding dress tip: if you’re on a very strict budget and you have champagne taste, think of other ways to get the dress you love. My husband and I paid for our whole wedding ourselves so we had a limited budget. I didn’t want a cheap dress and high designer. Where did I find it? In the newspaper. There were want ads for wedding dresses, so I went to a private seller to look at an Eve of Milady (designer-higher end). It was perfect, close enough to my size to get tailored and had tons of bling. It had been featured in a bridal magazine and she gave me the page from the magazine. I got a $4000 dress for $350. Oh yeah, I was elated.

Getting back to the show, of course who isn’t a sucker for ultra-cute kids? The little flower girls, ring bearers and mini brides started flouncing out in their adorable dresses and tuxedos and for a moment, everything else was forgotten. Such innocence and joy (and fear).

I hadn’t seen any crimes committed until out came a woman, who had already been presented as a mother of the bride multiple times, in a very form fitting gown with bright aqua long satin gloves and a large aqua flower in her hair. Huh? I was stunned and somewhat frightened. The look was both jarring and disconcerting. I beg you; please don’t do a combination like that. Your guests and photos will thank you.

After the show, Brian and I walked through the vendors looking for more inspiration. We found that and a variety of cakes that I tried to talk Brian into sampling with me. I mean, when you’re at a wedding show, it’s required to try the cakes (at least for me). My favorite was a very moist banana cake with butter cream frosting and a thin chocolate filling from Aggie’s Specialty Cakes in Jefferson. Yum! There was also a scrumptious red velvet cake from Brookfield Cakes and a delightful strawberry and pineapple filled cake from Rich’s Cakes. Needless to say, my healthy eating went out the window for a few hours.

Even though I didn’t see any bridal fashion that was completely new and revolutionary, there were quite a few styles that caught my eye and got me thinking which ones might be right for different clients. I guess when it’s all said and done, it always comes back to love.

We have a wedding party filled with images from this past weekend’s bridal show. You can also see the whole set at our TCD Flickr page.  Say “I do!”