Bridal Fashion… Vintage Chic for under a $1,000

I started this $1,000 com­plete bridal ensem­ble with a Silk Taffeta Sabine Gown from J.Crew, for $695.  I love J.Crew’s wed­ding dresses because they are both afford­able and made in won­der­ful lux­u­ri­ous fab­rics; some­thing that you usu­ally miss out on when you pur­chase a wed­ding dress for around $600.  I per­son­ally think that all brides should be allowed to wear silk on their wed­ding day, and thanks to com­pa­nies like J.Crew most can now afford too.  Know­ing that the world has a few less poly-draped brides out there really helps me sleep bet­ter at night.

What I love most about this mid-weight taffeta gown is the pleat­ing detail on the fit­ted bodice.  I mim­ic­ked this detail in the shoes and hand­bag, to add a sub­tle match­ing ele­ment through sev­eral pieces.  The gown flairs out to an a-line from the bodice and falls strait to the floor, with a slight train in the back.  This strap­less style looks great on almost every body type and is sim­ple, yet lux­u­ri­ous enough to work for any style of wedding.

I found an amaz­ing pair of pleated round toe pumps at Zappos.com, for $119.  Seri­ously, I am obsessed with Zap­pos, they have the most amaz­ing cus­tomer ser­vice and a killer selec­tion.  Quite fre­quently they upgrade me to overnight ship­ping for free, which is just the icing on the cake!  The shoes are by Jes­sica Ben­nett and the style is Larkin.  The heel is 3 ½” and the sole is slightly padded, which for me is the per­fect pair of danc­ing shoes.

I went straight to Avelle (the new Bag, Bor­row or Steal) for the wed­ding jew­elry and hand­bag.  Right away I found the most exquis­ite vin­tage Chanel neck­lace, for $82 a week rental fee.  The neck­lace is gold with pearls and tiny star­burst medal­lions embossed with Chanel CC logo on the back.  I love lay­ered neck­laces with strap­less dresses.

As I men­tioned above the Python clutch that I selected for this look also has a won­der­ful pleated detail.  I found this bag, by Car­los Fulchi, at Avelle as well for a measly $26 a week rental fee.  You can’t really beat that!  The bag is a lit­tle larger than most clutches and mea­sures 9”L x 3”W x 5”H, plenty of room for lip­stick, pow­der and tissues.

I opted not to go with a veil, think­ing that is will over power the sim­plic­ity of the dress.  How­ever, if a veil is a must for you, go for a sweet short veil… stud­ded with pearls, pos­si­bly?   When I looked at all of the pieces together I really thought a great embell­ished head­band would be the way to go.  I found a won­der­ful head­band at Shopbop.com for $64.  The Deepa Gur­nani Mother of Pearl Head­band has mother of pearl details, sequins, embroi­dery with scal­loped edges and dou­ble elas­tic back to hold it firmly in place.  To hide the dou­ble elas­tic band, with is maybe the only ele­ment that screams I only paid $65 for this, try wear­ing your hair down and curled with the crown teased.  This is great hair style for all hair lengths, and very easy to pull off on your own.

Even though I am not adding the bou­quet into my $1,000 bud­get, I went ahead added a photo of the per­fect bou­quet for this look.

The total look costs $986, with­out ship­ping or tax.  Not bad for vin­tage Chanel and amaz­ing silk taffeta!  The break­down is as follows:

Dress               $695.00

Shoes               $119.00

Neck­lace          $82.00

Hand­bag          $26.00

Head­band        $64.00

Happy Plan­ning,

Melia Spring