Your Wedding Gown

Here we will look at the impact of silhouette, colour, texture and design elements.

The shape of your gown will determine the size of your headpiece.

Full Skirt – The Cinderella ball gown style skirt needs a headpiece that will balance it out. Because the skirt is so dominant, this allows for a more dominant headpiece that will still look in proportion when worn with the gown. Strong tiaras and crowns are popular choices to wear with a full skirt.

A-Line – The A-Line skirt has more of a tailored look than the full skirt, with an angled flare almost triangular in shape. It allows for the widest range of headpiece styles due to it’s regular shape and versatile design options.

Fishtail – The Fishtail is a glamorous figure hugging, curvaceous gown which sharply flares out at the hem like a mermaid. In proportion, regular to smaller sized headpieces should be used. This design does limit the styles of headpieces that can be worn, due to the unusual style of the gown itself. I would recommend a hair comb headpiece to be worn at the side of an upswept hairstyle. Beading, flowers and/or feathers would be lovely.

Sheath – The Sheath style is an understated slim-line gown. Here it is best to choose a regular or small headpiece. A large headpiece would look overbearing, unless you want your headpiece to be the dominant feature of your bridal look.

Suit – Some more mature brides choose to dress in an elegant tailored suit. In this case, the size of your headpiece is more open to your own discretion. A simple bridal hair comb can be used, or a teardrop or Juliet cap variation cocktail style hat. More courageous brides choose a wide brimmed hat adorned in lace and beading. Millinery veiling (netting) is commonly used here as a more glamorous but discreet option rather than the full length veil, especially for second-time brides.

The most commonly used colours for bridal wear include:

White – stark white is most commonly found in man-made fabrics. You need to choose white veiling fabric and trims. White pearls, rhinestones, clear or iridescent (rainbow) crystals or beads, and silver wiring make excellent choices.

Diamond White or Silk White – This colour lies in between stark white and ivory. It allows for more versatility in matching colours. Of course, it would make sense to use trimmings of this same colour. But if this is not possible, you can choose lighter, cooler colours as described under white; or use darker, warmer colours as described in ivory.

Ivory – This is an off-white colour. An ivory or silk white coloured veil must be used. Trimmings of pearls, lace and beading are great choices. Depending on the depth of colour in your gown, you can choose either gold or silver wiring. The colours in your jewellery should also be consistent with your headpiece and veil.

Old World Ivory and Champagne – for deeper shades of ivory, an ivory veil must be used. The amorous look is brought through with strong tone ivory embellishments such as deep pearls or vintage lace. Warm tone metal wiring should be used in gold or antique gold.

Red – a recent trend has been for the bride to wear red. The colour choices you make for your veil and headpiece should be considered in relation to your skin tone. Brides with a cool skin tone would benefit from using silver wiring, rhinestones or crystals for a modern look. Brides with a warmer skin tone may be better to consider a diamond white veil and embellishments. Of course, you have the freedom to add red bias cut satin or ribbon trim to the edge of your veil, or red crystals and beads into your headpiece as well!

If the bodice or whole gown is covered with lace motifs and/or beading, try to adapt similar aspects into your headpiece. You can vary the texture in a very subtle way by using various sizes of the one form of embellishment. You can choose to keep a regular texture by using the one form of embellishment, or you can introduce opposing textures to highlight one another eg. pearls and crystals. This can also help to tie in particular items of jewellery.

The individual design of your headpiece should tie in with the design used in your gown. For example, the size and petal shape of a floral pattern in your gown can be adopted into the embellishment and arrangement of your headpiece. In the same way, a geometric design should continue the same shapes and arrangement into the headpiece.

Let’s move on to the next section,
Face Shape, Wedding Gown, Your Wedding Theme, Bridal Hairstyle

Or skip straight to the Bridal Headpiece section of my online shop.