Bad choices, family pressure, the wrong size… The outfit of the day, which should be the most beautiful of their life, leaves some people with a bitter taste. They tell.
“When I look at the wedding photos, my heart hurts.” 34-year-old Elsa*, a community leader, dreamed of tying her wedding dress to a happy memory of “the happiest day of her life.” But the search for the perfect dress didn’t go as planned. Seven years into her marriage, the look of her clothes still evokes bitterness.
Every year, around 230,000 brides in France search for the dress to celebrate their union. Searching for the perfect dress is based on multiple expectations, such as pleasing yourself, as well as your spouse and guests. “The particularities of dress are all the more confirmed in a ritual such as marriage, which involves a social issue, glorifies genealogy and the alliance of families,” recalls Anne Zatso, author Marriage, the catalog of a thematic exhibition held at the Palais Galliera in 1996. Social pressure has been exacerbated by the new visibility afforded to ceremonies through social media. And fueled by the fantasy of finding the perfect dress fueled by such movies and TV series Bridesmaids (2011), Sex and the city (2000), or typical TV shows The dress of my life (M6).
Added to this table is the financial factor, which can be significant for an outfit that will only be worn once and whose first price is rarely below 500 euros. It is enough to make the choice of a wedding dress a dangerous task, which some people have regrettably failed to solve. Disappointed brides who testify about their failures today.
“Without consulting me”
Susie* can say that her story is “from another time”, her trauma is still very much present. To celebrate her marriage on May 25, 1985 in Oxford, United Kingdom, her parents and in-laws agreed to give the engaged couple a “beautiful ceremony”. In other words, bear the costs. The 24-year-old young woman, who was a student at the time, agrees to have her mother make her dress. A model he envisioned in terms of empire. “Months go by and nothing,” recalls Susie, who decided to rush her mother a few weeks before the deadline. The case goes wrong. “My mother, father and sisters went shopping in London for the wedding and bought the fabric of my dress as well as the veil,” she says. “Without me and without consulting me.” As a result, the fabric is not to his liking. “The fabric wasn’t really pretty, satin with fancy patterns,” explains Susie, who didn’t have the courage to express her disappointment at the time. “I should have said it was terrible,” he regrets today. However, frightened by the generosity of his parents, he does not dare to make a scene.
In turn, her fiance became a victim of the same situation, whose tie was imposed by his family. Since then, the subject has remained taboo, which has not tarnished the longevity of her marriage. He, who will celebrate the anniversary of the wedding of Mercury (age 38), considered it an honor not to reproduce this pattern on the day when he in turn accompanied his daughter to find her wedding outfit. He proudly says: “We didn’t know how many stores we did before he said, ‘Wow.’
“I wanted to see me”
“I went all out,” Sarah jokes about her spectacular wedding dress. The young woman decides to get married in 2006, she just finished her studies. The ceremony is scheduled for July 9 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. At the age of 22, he is one of the first in his circle to reach this milestone. Without guidelines, she relies on the trends of the moment to choose her wedding dress. He admits. “I always like to be fashionable, which is a double-edged sword.” After many fittings, one model wins: a low-waisted corset dress with open straps and a long veiled handkerchief train resting on a ring coat. “Obviously they added feathers and rhinestones to the bust… There was a little bit of everything. Then, surprisingly, I had a tiara. I wanted people to see me.”
The bet won. the outfit was a big hit with her friends and husband. Sarah finds herself “very beautiful”, ignoring the lack of comfort and logistics that such an outfit requires; When the wedding is over, time takes its toll, and quickly what was modern seems out of date.”too much“. In the end, Sara agrees with her mother, who never stopped suggesting a simpler dress during the preparations. “When you get married in your 30s, it’s still a lot more thought out,” Sarah insists. Especially now, when social networks and Pinterest allow you to find inspiration.” Seventeen years later, she, who now works in the world of fashion, reviews her choice with humor. This does not prevent him from recommending that future brides bet on timelessness. “I laugh, but I want to get married again just to buy a dress worthy of the name,” she admits.
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A big problem
Ball of the wedding dress showcase, Matilda, 30, wanted to do without it. At least for the outfit she wore on her wedding night. Slim savings for this young London-based entrepreneur, who planned a total of six dresses for the 2021 celebrations in the UK capital. The outfit for the party had to meet a number of criteria: short, chic, white, recognizable without being too expected, and reasonably priced. She turns her attention to a dress from ready-to-wear brand Khaite that ticks all the boxes with its square neckline and baby doll cut. The order is placed on the brand’s website and arrives safely six months before the big day. “I’ve had enough Relax on the dimensions,” warns the young bride. Confident that Matilda was in no rush to try on her purchase. It wasn’t until two weeks before the ceremony that she finally decided to wear the dress, only to discover that the zipper didn’t go all the way to the top, closing at chest level.
“All the designers I consulted with told me: Unable to add fabric. It took me ten days to find someone who could do it.” He who “didn’t particularly want” his marriage to be a “blockbuster” is biting his fingers for not foreseeing this pitfall. In an extreme case, Matilda manages to recover her dress, but without the desired effect. Worse, the clothes are uncomfortable. “I was squeezed at the level of the chest,” he recalls ironically. Well, that didn’t apply to that event.” Even if she admits she went a little too light, Matilda takes issue with the sizing guide for cheating her on choosing her size, which never happens to her. His moral of the story. “Absolutely go and try on in a store, or at least always be suspicious of measurements on merchant websites.”
Baby boom!
The marriage, the dress, Caroline did not attach so much importance to it. And for good reason, his plans didn’t quite go as planned. In 2012, just before starting her working life, the 25-year-old young woman decided to start a family with her partner. Months pass, with no expected pregnancy to begin, and the couple agree to marry in April 2013 in Sainte-Marne. “When I said “I’m going to stop trying or I’m going to get pregnant at my wedding,” I got pregnant, says Caroline, still amused by this twist. The event is saved. the birth is scheduled three months before the ceremony. On the other hand, when the time comes, it is impossible for her to try on wedding dresses. Caroline, who is seven months pregnant, naturally asks her sister to dress her up. And for some time he stops his choice. “My mum who gave me the dress said ‘wow I like that one’ and then my sister tried the dress on and I said ‘yeah let’s go with this one, it fits’. you good
Between her delivery and her wedding day, Caroline finally got into the dress for the final touches. She then notices that the piece in the organza with the “slightly meringue” skirt doesn’t look like her at all. It is too late to retreat. “but under the influence of hormones I think I wasn’t myself,” she concludes. Only later, when she received the photo album, the image shocked her, less slender than her ten centimeters taller sister, tight chest… The style of the dress is far from what she imagined. “Even my husband told me. “He wasn’t great, though,” laughs Caroline. Without getting upset, she admits that she paid more attention to her child than to the clothes, and prefers to laugh about it. Only his mother is camped in his positions. Since then, she has continued to defend the dress, which she considers “very beautiful”.
Monoprix dress
With 280 guests, the cost of the ceremony was more than enough for Elsa and her fiancé, who decided to fund their wedding mostly themselves. The dress, which did not appear in the priority points of the expenses of the ceremony celebrated in Loire-Atlantique in August 2016, Elsa chooses to go for an affordable model. That year, the Monoprix brand launched an affordable collection with the wedding dress brand Lora Folk. “I saw the dress and said to myself: this is really my style. Also, the price was right for me. It was really what I needed.” The first difficulty. when it was released in January, the collection went down a storm. Elsa mobilizes family and witnesses from all over France to get hold of the model. “Pretty schmilblick already,” he breathes. But the young woman does not end her troubles.
After finding the dress, the bride-to-be is disappointed that the size is too small. “I told myself that I have time, that I am going to lose a few kilograms,” he says. However, the day of the ceremony approaches, and the young woman finally comes to terms with the facts: she will not fit into the dress. And you need to find a tailor to make the dress bigger, even if it means changing its style. “In the end, everyone saw nothing but fire. Laura Falk was a well-known designer, I was happy to wear one of her pieces, but here, I knew she had patched up,” remembers Elsa. Disappointment goes beyond the simple appearance of the dress. “In hindsight, I regret not having a good time with my witnesses. “Because I didn’t go to try on wedding dresses, I didn’t experience the emotion of saying to myself, ‘Ah, this is the one,'” she regrets. And to conclude. “I couldn’t put two thousand euros into a dress. But the fact remains that I advise those who are going to get married not to sacrifice the budget at the cost of memories.
*Names have been changed
Source: Le Figaro
