I think what I hate about modern wedding dresses is that they seem to have fallen so far from the real purpose of the wedding. I've been flipping through an issue of The Knot (I do love looking at dresses), knowing that I seldom see a wedding gown that I really like, when I started to realize what my problem is. It's not just that I dislike strapless dresses, super long trains, overuse of detail, underuse of detail, and unflattering shapes - including the terrible idea known as the "mermaid," in which the girl's dress is super slim down to below her knees, where the designer suddenly remembered he wanted a poofy skirt rather than a slim one and fanned it out at the last moment, resulting in something ridiculously similar to a fish's tail.
No, what I dislike most is the adjectives used to describe each praised dress: chic, modern, risque, dramatic, retro, flattering, fairy-tale, scene-stealing, statement-making. I'm not knocking a gown that's incidentally ethereal, or structured for the bride's body type. What bothers me is that we've quite turned the whole thing into an issue of fashion alone - Is it an "in" style? Is it sexy? Does it say what the bride thinks it should say about her? - and we have utterly lost the idea of preparing a bride for her groom, of making her beautiful to be received by him in a ceremony as a companion, lover, helper, and friend, as they will belong to each other afterwards for as long as they both shall live.
1 comment:
Roger that, Sparks! In focusing too much on "what the bride thinks the dress should say about her," people are losing sight of the third person, the person for whom the wedding is really performed, God. A wedding is two people, joining together, under God...that little factoid seems to be getting eclipsed these days. :::>
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