Brides say goodbye to the plain white dress and bet on colors when getting married

The New York Times

Elizabeth Arasevi, 36, had no intention of following customs when choosing her wedding dress. “Any bride wants to feel as beautiful as they can be on her day, and slipping into a sugar-white dress in the name of tradition wasn’t good enough for me,” said auditor Arasevi, who lives in Bloomington, Minnesota.

She added that she was not interested in being seen as “a pure, virginal bride awaiting marriage”, and instead opted for a tailored red dress with black lace trim for her wedding to acupuncturist Michael Arasevi. 32, at a ceremony held in Pepin, Wisconsin.

She was surprised by the dress’s success, stating that guests told her that both the dress and the party were “just like her”, and very beautiful.

After Queen Victoria of England wore a white satin dress at her wedding ceremony to Prince Albert in 1840, the color became synonymous with a wedding dress, despite the tradition until then of colorful dresses. But Elizabeth Arasevi is part of a growing group of contemporary brides and wedding fashion designers who, 182 years later, are beginning to embrace more colorful dresses.

A study published in November by Brides magazine and the website Investopedia, which involved interviews with 1,000 people planning to get married in the next two years, found that 28% of participants wanted to ditch the white dress and classic suits in favor of alternatives. atypical.

Another study, published in December by the craft website Etsy, which examined data collected on the site between September and November of that year and the same three-month period in 2020, found that searches for colorful wedding items, including dresses, suits, veils, and table decorations, had grown by 223% between 2020 and 2021.

“The new generation of brides are very concerned about the online visibility of their weddings,” said Anastasia Stevenson, a stylist and wedding planner, who divides her time between Los Angeles and Savannah, Georgia. “They need to do something different if they want to differentiate themselves from the hundreds of thousands of other posts” by brides on TikTok and Instagram.

And what’s more, now that cohabitation has become more common than marriage, according to the Pew Research Center, the idea of ​​a white dress wedding that symbolizes purity is an old-fashioned concept, said Lynzie Kent, wedding planner and founder of The Pop-Up Chapel Co., in Toronto.

Still, most brides are hesitant to make the leap from white to bold shades of yellow, red or whatever the color may be, according to Heather McReynolds, vice president of fashion and wedding dresses at the store specializing in products for David’s Bridal, where a quarter of customers are choosing wedding dresses in champagne or another neutral but non-white color such as pink, pale pink, mauve or light brown, McReynolds said.

Pink has been the most popular non-traditional color for wedding dresses at David’s Bridal, she added, but in the last 18 months the range has expanded to include black, red and blue wedding dresses. Colorful dresses now account for about 10% of the brand’s collection, up 30% from last year.

“Black, in particular, has really resonated with brides looking for a chic, dramatic look for their wedding,” said McReynolds.

Amber Lee, 41, had originally purchased a white dress for her wedding to Michael Lee, 45, a speaker and relationship coach, which took place on December 30, 2021 at the El San Juan Hotel in Puerto Rico. But Lee, who was previously married and wore an ivory-colored dress to the first ceremony, doesn’t like her appearance when she wears shades of white.

“When I saw a black dress, I fell in love with it,” said Lee, who is chief executive of the Select Date Society, a dating service in Richmond, Virginia. While non-white dresses may be a more common choice for second-time brides, wearing black had less to do with it being her second marriage than it was choosing what felt right, Lee said.

She hit the hammer and bought the dress designed by Rachael Allan, much to the dismay of her mother and future mother-in-law, both of whom considered the color to be inappropriate. “But when they saw me on their wedding day, they both loved the dress,” Lee said.

Lazaro Perez, chief stylist for Lazaro Bridal and the Tara Keely collection, said he likes to look for the perfect off-white tone by layering in different colors. Drawing inspiration from works of art such as Monet’s portraits of ballerinas, he created dresses that incorporate shades of pale pink, peach and ivory, with silver and gold accents.

Sarah Holway, 25, was inspired by fairy tales and fantasy stories when she was looking for a dress for her wedding in September 2021. But none of the stores she visited had models that met her vision. While she hadn’t completely ruled out the possibility of a white dress, she said she was looking for something unique.

“I wanted something different for my dress,” said housewife Holway, who married Braydon Badger, 27, a cafe employee.

The pale pink dress she wore to her wedding in Edmonton, Canada, had bright pink accents and flowers, and was custom-made by her mother to fit the dominant color of the couple’s chosen wedding decor, a green. -dark. While some of the guests were surprised to see a bride who wasn’t in white, Holway said many told her the dress was “memorable” and “just like her”.

Andrew Kwon, a New York-based designer who created pink and green designs for his wedding dress collection, said one of the benefits of wearing a colorful dress is that it can be easily reused after the wedding.

“I know that some of the brides I wore thought about how they could incorporate the dresses into gala occasions or events they would attend,” Kwon said. When choosing a bolder dress, said Justina McCaffrey, founder of the eponymous wedding dress brand in Ottawa, Canada, brides need to be careful not to overuse color in their weddings.

“My recommendation is to have everything the same shade, but not exactly the same color,” McCaffrey said. “If the color is lavender, I would select a light lavender for the dress and a slightly darker hue for the bridesmaids.” Lavender should also be used on the wedding cake, for the flower colors and other small details, she recommended.

Finding a wedding dress (or the right partner for a wedding) can require a lot of rejection; the same goes for the choice of colors.

Shelby Henry, 25, fell in love with a Berta Balilti gown in nude color, embellished with 3D floral patterns and pearls flowing down the train. Initially concerned that the model was too far from tradition, Henry, vice president of operations at The Sixpence, an event space in Whitestown, Indiana, tried on nearly 50 other dresses before returning to his initial favourite.

“Ultimately, I decided to choose that dress because I felt it was exactly what I wanted: something very unique,” Henry said in an email, adding that, upon seeing the model, “it didn’t immediately strike me as a wedding dress.”