Is selecting wedding dress too overwhelming? Is the staggering array of bridal gown versions stressful? Then consider the tips below to select the best contenders.
Ceremony Setting
Your wedding venue, season, and time influence your apparel choice. In fall or winter, a long formal wedding dress, sleeves, train, and veil with impressive embellishments suit an indoor evening setting like a candlelit cathedral. But a simpler yet flirty mini to tea length wedding dress is better for a daytime outdoor garden or beach locale during spring or summer.
Silhouettes by Body Shapes
Find your figure type:
- Pear: Narrow shoulders; wide hips
- Apple: Smooth line links similar sized breasts, waist, and hips
- Hourglass: Trim waist between evenly proportioned chest and hips
- Rectangle: One basic breast, waist, and hip size
- Inverted triangle: Shoulders and bust broader than hips
What wedding dress silhouettes are ideal for your body shape?
- A-line: All
- Empire: All
- Ball gown: Everything but apple
- Mermaid/trumpet: Pear and hourglass
- Sheath: Hourglass
Modern Trends – Selecting Wedding Dress Style
Browse JJ’s House new arrivals section for beautiful yet inexpensive wedding dresses featuring these modern trends:
Mermaid style: This alluring cut fits from bodice to knees, where its signature flare earned the mermaid name. It accentuates an hourglass figure.
Sleek lines: City-chic attire offers simple silhouettes like sheaths with clean lines for a sleek, polished look. Floor length and shorter styles are fashionable for a courthouse ceremony.
Structure: Instead of involving hard edges, structure defines your gown’s shape, fit, and details. This preference favors intentional form over soft, flowy, or puffy fabrics. Think body-hugging mermaid and sheath contours. Look for tailored collars, straps, bodices, sleeves, sashes, bows, and trims in stiffer materials.
Innovative shades: Colorful wedding dresses claim the popularity prize for 2017 and beyond. Options exceeding white basics start with powdery pinks, breezy blues, and decadent golds. Go to our Trend Collections filter and click on Wedding Dresses in Color. If overall hues are too much, try sheer outer layers or borders in various shades like black and maroon for a distinctive look.
Elaborate embellishments: Dazzling bling adorns necklines, hemlines and everything in between. Brandish a glittery broach, waistline baubles, or raised appliques with beading and sequins like glamorous Hollywood stars or bejeweled royals. In our Trend Collections, check out Sparkle & Shine for fabulous embellishments that turn all colors into ornamental masterpieces.
Mini length: If you shun tradition to show off your legs, pick a mini wedding dress. Variations include asymmetrical hemlines with a front mini dipping to floor length in the back. For versatility, some feature panels you can whip off for your reception.
Bohemian Influences
Are you a fan of relaxed, softly draping and swaying Bohemian fashions? Explore our new wedding dress arrivals for laidback gypsy-inspired styles. Or filter by Trend Collections and then Sweet & Flow to find retro looks including:
Feminine bodices: Sweetheart, scoop, and V necklines with crisscross or gathered bodices may flaunt intricate lace in feminine flourishes.
Bare shoulders: Halter necklines flash shoulders while drop sleeves elicit romantic sighs. Whimsical off-the-shoulder looks feature sheer, flowing, or cascading ruffled fabric, perhaps with lace or embroidery.
Tiered skirts: A-line and empire silhouettes’ delicate skirts with dreamy and wispy layers or playful and flirty tiers emanate Boho charm.
Slit skirts: Daring brides like wearing slit skirts to show off their legs and strappy shoes.
Unexpected shades: Free spirits prefer intense colors like jewel tones to classic wedding whites.
Metallic accents: Silver and gold enhancements bedazzle necklines, midriffs, and waists.
Vintage Memories
Use our Trend Collections filter to access Vintage Inspired wedding dresses including:
Ball gowns: Live out your lifelong princess dreams in this perennial favorite like the belle of a fairytale ball. Full, fanned, bouffant skirts hide lower figure flaws and float around the dance floor gracefully.
Lace: Lavish lace designs on delicate fabrics have expressed soft femininity and romance for generations. Reminiscent of bygone eras, you’ll find this ornamental stitchery adorning necklines, bodices, backs, sleeves, waist, hips, skirts, hems, trains, and veils.
Embroidery: Want another way to decorate your bodice, straps, sleeves, back, skirt, or hem? Try intricate embroidery. Colorful examples of this fancy needlework span from pastels like pinks and yellows to bolder alternatives including metallics, dark shades, and reds.
Dramatic trains: Long, formal trains trailing behind yesteryear’s brides created spectacular back views during processionals. Various silhouettes’ Watteau, sweep, court, chapel, or cathedral train will make your entrance and exit dramatic.
