Opinions on strapless wedding dresses

[XeniaCasaraghi]

I think strapless wedding gowns are pretty and appropriate for certain weddings, for example a British royal wedding it would not be appropriate but for my wedding I would wear one. I also don't think someone as slim as Kate or Pippa would look good in a strapless wedding gown. And Pippa was not showing off her cleavage for crying out loud.

[Skippy]

I absolutely do not like strapless wedding dresses. I think they do not look elegant and are too bare for a wedding.
A poster on another forum has this opinion about them and I feel exactly the same way:
"A wedding is a solemn occasion, not a prom." I am conservative about it and am happy that Catherine wore a long-sleeved dress.

[Kellydofc]

Going to throw in my 2 cents here. I am not a fan of strapless dresses for two reasons. One they are COMPLETELY overdone (same reason I hate kitchens that are all granite and stainless steel) and after awhile they all start to blend together. Two is the fit or lack thereof.
Ultimately the problem with strapless gowns is that 90% of the time they are not fitted correctly. I personally do custom and historical sewing and have made corsets, ballgown bodices & strapless gowns for all types of women from super skinny to plus size and honestly it's usually the women who have weight on them that look best in corsets and or strapless gowns if they are properly constructed.
One way to spot a great strapless dress is that it has a seperate boned bodice inside the gown, there should be NO skirt hanging off of it and the gown bodice should only attach at the top edge and arm scythe. I'm betting that's what was done for Kate's dress. Of course this usually has to be custom made and that adds big bucks to the cost of the dress. And most women do not have the money to have a dress custom made for them.
The sad thing is designers know this and yet they keep churning out strapless dresses that do NOT fit correctly because they haven't been made correctly. I would say skip it to most brides but since beautiful sleeved gowns are few and far between this is what a lot of women end up wearing. Except my friends who sucker me into making their gowns for them.

[Soli Deo Gloria]

For me it's very easy: a wedding gown is not a ball gown made for a ballroom, it's a dress made to wear at a church service in a church, and a church is not a ballroom... =)
Strapeless gowns are beautiful and perfect for gala! Each thing(gown) has its place and funktion! So for me a wedding dress can't be strapeless, simply because it's not made for a prom =)

[KittyAtlanta]

Kelly, I didn't realize people still used the word scye when speaking in terms of tailoring/dressmaking! The last person I heard say that word was me!

Strapless has to be done right and off-the-rack is very iffy for that style.

[scooter]

I had a strapless dress with a ball gown skirt for the sunset garden/riverview wedding at Mark Twain's house on the hudson. For the ceremony I had a tight fitting long sleeved jacket with tiny buttons up the front. I then ditched it and the long train and veil for the evening black tie reception. natural flower 'tiara' in the hair a la Duchess of York.

[Jacknch]

Well, since my last post about this subject, i now have forst hand experience in stapless wedding dresses! My Italian friend is getting married and asked me to help her make a final choice on her wedding dress. All of the dresses were stapless, and because she is marrying in church she wanted to cover her shoulders, so she is going to wear a kind of tuille shrug thing that she puts her arms into from the back and it goes over her shoulders. Because it is plain tuille, it doesn't clash with the embroidery on the bodice and she looked absolutely beautiful. Because she is getting married in Italy and it will be really hot, she can take the shrug thing off after the ceremony. She will also wear a very plain tuille veil so the whole thing kind of all goes well together. Oddly, a shorter, slighter fuller figured lady also tried the dress on and it swamped her completely. So to wear stapless, sleeveless dresses, I think you need to have quite a long neck and nice shoulders.

[Kellydofc]

Originally Posted by KittyAtlanta

Kelly, I didn't realize people still used the word scye when speaking in terms of tailoring/dressmaking! The last person I heard say that word was me!

Strapless has to be done right and off-the-rack is very iffy for that style.

Okay, now I have to ask what do people normally call it? Maybe my use comes from all the Victorian/Medieval recreations.

[Kellydofc]

I am watching Amsale girls on WE. They did a shot down the rack and I was sad to see that literally every dress was strapless.

[scooter]

It was Amsale who made my custum strapless dress. She was just starting out and the design meetings were in her studio appartment. I've told my almost 9 year old daughter, have whatever dress you like then the time comes, but this is a classic!

[Burzg]

Originally Posted by dilsnub

and yet even worse than that...
The ”Enfant Terrible” of French Wedding Dresses

what this dress make shape?

[Burzg]

Originally Posted by lexi21

william is a handsome & kate is a beuty, i like it i'm so jealous to see.

i'am too :)

[Burzg]

Strapless dress is good when designing is good too

[cath]

The thing I don't understand is why so many brides who go for strapless (ie nearly everyone!) don't mind looking almost exactly the same. Ok, there might be some lovely draping on the skirt, or pretty embroidery on the bodice, or whatever, but in the group photos where the photographer is more than a few feet away, the bride will look like every other bride in every other wedding photo - the silhouette will be the same; strapless bodice, big skirt.

As far as being inappropriate in church is concerned, people just don't seem to see that anymore. A lot of wedding couples aren't regular churchgoers (but in the Anglican church have the right to a church wedding if they live in the parish), so they have no experience of what's deemed appropriate, and even among those who do go to church, the boundaries are becoming blurred.

I was adamant I wanted sleeves for my wedding dress - not even straps, proper sleeves, but I had to have the dress made to get them. BTW, anyone on a hunt for a wedding dress, strapless or otherwise, find a pattern, find a dressmaker, and have it made for you - it will fit better than anything off the peg, and (this was the big surprise for me!) it will cost about half what you will pay for a dress from a bridal shop. Honestly!

[Maura724]

I'm surprised how many people have been so judgemental in this thread. Generally, this is such a tolerant forum. For example, I haven't seen anybody express disapproval of Nathalie for getting pregnant before her wedding, of William and Kate and Victoria and Daniel for living together before they got married, etc. The attitude generally seems to be that it's okay for people to make the choices they want about their lives. In light of that, I think it's weird that the one thing people are calling out as wrong is the choice of some brides to wear strapless dresses. It's her dress and her wedding - she should be able to have what she wants as long as it's in accordance with the church's rules, and nearly all the churches I've ever encountered don't have a wedding dress code.

Some churches have rules about attire for weddings, so yes it would be disrespectful to wear a strapless dress in such a church. But if a church doesn't have a rule (and all the ones I've ever gone to don't), and the members by and large don't care, and the bride and her family don't care, then why shouldn't she have the dress she wants, even if it's strapless?

[bonniechaz]

Bear in mind that I'm a product of 1950s Catholic schools in the US.....strapless at one time was not allowed at Catholic weddings and in some parishes may still not be. My big issue is when did it become the style for wedding dresses to be sexy, e.g. overflowing breasts, v-necks that are open to the waist level or slits up the side to the upper thigh???
They seem in such bad taste to me but then again...Catholic school in the 1950s!!!

[NotHRH]

Originally Posted by bonniechaz

Bear in mind that I'm a product of 1950s Catholic schools in the US.....strapless at one time was not allowed at Catholic weddings and in some parishes may still not be. My big issue is when did it become the style for wedding dresses to be sexy, e.g. overflowing breasts, v-necks that are open to the waist level or slits up the side to the upper thigh???
They seem in such bad taste to me but then again...Catholic school in the 1950s!!!

The world today is so far removed the 1950's (Catholic) world! If a woman can walk-up the aisle 7 months pregnant in a beautiful white strapless mini dress to wed her baby daddy's first cousin, then so be it! I do understand the words in your post and I realize that you have changed your views on acceptable's in culture. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Change is inevitable, and flexibility to accept changes is the only way to go! I think your wisdom to 'bend' your beliefs to the here and now, is right on cue!

[jen121419]

Originally Posted by IloveCP

I know everyone has their own opinions on wedding dresses but,Im wondering what the members think about strapless.I personally dont like them;it overdone and unoriginal.I rarely see a strapless dress that is original.Im glad its the norm for royals to not wear that.

Anyone else what to chime in?

I don't really like strapless gowns either. I would say after the 5 or 6 weddings I've been to in the past few years, all the brides wore a strapless gown.

[HRH Princess Sonya]

Okay I have seen some beautiful strapless wedding dresses. However the truth of the matter is not everyone can wear them. That style does not flatter every woman. Secondly the wedding dress market was just flooded with strapless gowns that's all wedding dress designers were making. All of a sudden a wedding dress with sleeves looked old fashioned. I guess my wedding dress is now considered a relic. I was married in 1995 & my wedding dress had long lace sleeves. Maybe Kate's dress will make sleeves popular again.

[mommabee]

To me, all the strapless gowns look the same, even tho they are not, some are beaded, skirts are different, etc.. The only Royal wedding gowns that I can think if with even SHORT sleeves are Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and the shrug that Autumn Kelly wore at her wedding to Peter Philips, everyone else has worn long sleeves. When I was married in the 80's, EVERYONE wore sleeves- I guess strapless became big in the early 2000's??