Wedding Blog

During my lunch break a few Fridays ago, I had an appointment with the fabulous veil designer Sara Gabriel during her trunk show at my bridal salon, Anna Be. Sara was wonderful, bubbly, energetic, and highly creative. It was so much fun to try on veils and play dress-up, and the best part was that I got 10% off if I bought my veil that day. During the entire session she made me feel at ease, but I think the stress of the wedding and day-to-day life finally exploded into a bout of indecisiveness — I like to call it my very bridal moment.

What excited me most about the day was that I could try on my dress while trying on veils. When I arrived at Anna Be, Stacy, who helped me find my dress, informed me that my dress sample had recently been sold at their sample sale, but they had an Augusta Jones dress similar to mine. Although the top was similar, the bottom was not even close. I have a mermaid skirt and this was a pure A-line.

Just to give you an idea of my bridal attire theme, I am going for a modern, old Hollywood look — simple, yet very elegant.

When we started the session, I told Sara that I wanted to play around with long and short veils. She started me off in a long cathedral length veil.

This veil was incredibly beautiful and dramatic, but I didn’t like the embroidery. I like very clean, simple lines and not a lot of heavy beading or embroidery. I could have taken off the embroidery if I wanted to, but this veil just didn’t feel like me. Here is a photo of the side.

Because my dress has lines that are cut on the bias, Sara suggested that I go with a more tiered look to the veil to complement those lines. We tried on a shorter elbow length version of this veil, along with the cathedral length. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of the elbow length, but here is the cathedral.

It is very dramatic, and I thought with a 20’ walk down the aisle it would look fabulous. So I bought it, with much hesitation.

But I felt caged in with the veil. My dress has a beautiful back, which is one of the reasons why I bought it. After seeing these photos, you can barely see the back on this dress let alone on mine. For some reason, I had a hard time visualizing my dress with any veil. I should have listened to my inner monologue, which was saying try on shorter veils, but because it was during my lunch hour I was in a bit of a time crunch and made a hasty decision, which I regretted 15 minutes later.

I got in my car and headed back to work. While in my car the veil crisis began. First, came the sticker shock.  The cathedral length veil was $200 plus.  I can’t believe I even contemplated spending that much money on my veil. After the sticker shock came buyer’s remorse.

I had tried on Sara’s Anna,  an elbow length pencil edge veil, when I bought my dress, which I loved. But I got caught up in the drama of the cathedral veil that I completely forgot to ask about the Anna veil. Also, the veil that I love was straight across and not tiered like Sara suggested.

I called my MOH for advice and she made two fabulous points. First, since my wedding is outside, the cathedral length would get dirty immediately, and second, all the details on the back and side of my dress would be hidden in a cathedral veil. Her opinion, go with the shorter veil. The first words out of my mom’s mouth was, “What were you thinking. You call them right now and change it.” I couldn’t call them, I was too emotional. I was having a very bridal moment. So, I decided to go back to Anna Be, with my mom, on Saturday and change to the elbow length veil.

With my mom by my side for extra support, I returned to Anna Be and spoke with Sara herself. To my surprise, Sara was very gracious. Apparently, I wasn’t the only bride to reconsider her veil. Even though it wasn’t tiered, Sara told me that I should get the veil that made me happy. My pocketbook was a lot happier with me too, as the new veil was significantly less money. Below is a photo of me in my dress and the Anna veil.

What type of veil will you be wearing?