Slip Dress

Slip Dress

Inspiration for Elegant Wedding Dresses

Every bride wants to be the epitome of elegance on her big day. If you’re a bride-to-be planning your wedding dress, here are a few helpful ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Pair these concepts with your unique style and personality for a truly elegant wedding dress.

The Fairytale Princess Wedding Dress

A classic ball gown is the picture of elegance for many brides. Cinderella, Snow White, and nearly every other iconic princess don a ball gown dress. These romantic dresses are form fitting through the bodice, and then flare out into a full, voluminous skirt at the waist.

Pair a ball gown dress with the right accessories, like a tiara and a long flowing veil to complete the princess look. Look for shimmering, mystical colors to use as accents, like purples, pinks and metallic gold and silver.

To push it over the top and fulfill your girlhood fantasies, consider arriving at your reception in a horse-drawn open carriage.

The Garden Party Wedding Dress

When many brides think about their wedding, they think about the flowers. Take a cue from the colors of nature’s lush flora and fauna with a garden party wedding.  While most garden party weddings are considered on the informal side, a garden party wedding can be quite formal and elegant when the backdrop is evening candlelight.

The wedding gown sets the garden party theme with a flounced hemline of silk roses, flowers worked in crystals, seed pearls, and sequins on the bodice or a lace veil embroidered with flowers. Of course not all of these elements should be used on one dress.

Garden party wedding colors that include pastels set the mood perfectly. Or the colors can be monochromatic, like various shades of pink.

Of course, garden party wedding décor revolves around flowers, flowers and more flowers. Think about a garden gone wild with lots of different flowers that include the wedding color palate, or using one flower, such as roses, or orchids extravagantly. Candles should be everywhere from votive to pillars to candelabras.

The Little Mermaid Wedding Dress

A mermaid dress with its flaring skirt below the knees is the perfect dress for a formal wedding with a beach theme. The skirt can feature overlapping crescents of lace. The bodice can be embroidered with metallic thread accented by seed pearls. Or iridescent crystals can be used to accent the neckline, reminiscent of moonlight glinting off the ocean's surface. Pale blues, greens, aqua, and turquoise are perfect wedding party colors.

The bridal bouquet can reflect the colors of the sea and be tied with iridescent ribbon. Smaller flowers threaded with tiny sea shells, mother of pearl, or crystals add the perfect touch.

At the reception, compose table centerpieces of pale blue, green and white candles nestled in sand in a clear glass fish bowl. Add a few baby starfish and pure white shells to complete the theme.

The Glamour Girl Wedding Dress

The sheath-style wedding dress became popular during the 1950s, and so did the all time glamour girl, Marilyn Monroe. A sheath is long and lean with seaming at the sides, rather than at the waist, to define the shape of the dress. Long, elbow length gloves make the perfect accessory. Now is the time to wear diamonds. A classic bouquet of orchids or red roses would perfectly set off the elegant simplicity of the sheath gown. Wedding colors include '57 Chevy baby blue, Corvette red and of course metallic gold and silver accented by black.

Carry the theme through to the reception using red roses with a single white orchid in a silver vase set on a mirrored charger.

The Tropical Paradise Wedding Dress

Echo an exotic, lush jungle paradise with a slip dress accented by a long tulle veil and set off by metallic sandals. A slip dress lends itself to fabulous jewelry since the lines are simple and the fabric is fluid. Now may be the time to wear chandelier earrings, multiple strings of pearls or a gold and gemstone filigree bracelet.

Wedding colors reflect a tropical sunset of muted tones, exotic shades of pink, red, and orange, or the dramatic touch of black.

Continue the tropical setting with table runners of banana leaves or overlapping palm fronds. Instead of all floral centerpieces consider intermixing fruits such as bananas, pineapples, mangos, grapes, and peaches. Accent each place setting with one perfect tiny orchid.

The Downtown Sophistication Wedding Dress

Black, metallics, or rich gem tones of ruby, emerald, and sapphire are great color choices for the downtown sophistication wedding. Think of a jewel box lit by flickering candlelight. Gold is too predictable to be sophisticated so use bronze, copper, or steel.

Formal weddings can be fun and elegant when the theme begins with the wedding dress and carries through the entire event.

About the Author

Dee Power is a freelance writer who writes about weddings and fashion such as great styles of wedding dresses.

Do you slip dress over your head, or step into it?

I crossdress and am trying to learn how to do things the right way. While I am able to get in a dress, I am not sure whether you step into it, or slip it over your head?

It depends on the dress and your body shape. If it's a nice fitted dress that doesn't zip or button up, then I put it over my head because my hips are bigger than my waist line and torso and I don't want to stretch out the dress. If it's spandexy material or a dress that unzips or unbuttons, then I step into it and then zip it up or button it up.Same thing for taking it off.

Rhonda Shear Lace Noir Shaping Slip Dress