Dreaming of a strapless wedding dress for your big day? Before you buy your dream bridal down with a strapless neckline, be sure to read on for our expert styling advice for everything brides need to know about a strapless wedding dress. If you are a bride who is beginning to think about what style of wedding dress you want to wear on your wedding day or have begun wedding dress shopping, you might have noticed that there is a large variety of strapless wedding dress designs. Strapless wedding dresses have long been a popular style with bridal designers as it’s such a versatile style and is easily customized.
A strapless wedding dress might seem like a no-brainer for brides, especially if you are getting married in the summer or in a warm climate, but there are some important things to think about when it comes to wearing a strapless dress on the wedding day. We are going to dive into the truth about strapless wedding dresses today and share all the factors you need to consider if you are thinking of wearing a strapless bridal gown. These tips will be especially important to any bride with a larger chest but are important things to keep in mind for brides of any size.
Video: The Truth About Strapless Wedding Dresses
If you are a bride who is thinking about wearing a strapless bridal gown on wedding day, you won't want to miss our advice video where we share the truth about strapless wedding dresses, including our expert tips on all the things you need to consider and logistics to think about when it comes to wearing a strapless wedding dress.
Keep Expectations Realistic
One of the biggest concerns we hear from our brides when wedding dress shopping at our bridal boutique in LA is that they don’t want to spend all night pulling up their wedding dresses. This is especially true of our brides who are big-chested but still want to wear a strapless wedding dress. No one wants to spend their wedding day tugging at the bodice of their wedding dress to make sure their breasts are covered - you just want to enjoy the day and look amazing!
The most important thing to know about strapless wedding dresses, and just bridal gowns in general, is that they move and expand throughout the day. So if you attend a wedding and see a bride constantly adjusting her wedding dress or pulling it up throughout the reception, it’s not because it doesn’t fit them properly or is the wrong size. Think about your favorite pair of jeans. You put them on in the morning and they fit nice and tight but as you go through the day and are actively moving, the denim starts to warm up and stretch a bit and by the end of the day, your jeans can be big on you. A wedding dress behaves in the same manner. So you will have your dress perfectly tailored to fit your body and it will fit snugly when you first put your dress on on the wedding morning and by the time you are hitting the dance floor, your dress could feel a little big on your body.
Bodice Must Be Tight
One myth we want to dispel when it comes to strapless wedding dresses is that the top of the dress has to be tight to hold it in place. It makes sense that people would think this is the case, but it is actually the waist and bodice of the dress that is going to hold everything in place and keep the dress up. You’ll see many bridal dresses, particularly strapless gowns, that have a corset bodice so that it will lay snugly around the bride’s waist while the very top neckline of the dress is a bit looser so the bride’s chest has room to move while breathing.
However, no matter your body size, or your chest size, it doesn't make a difference as to what body type is going to expand more. It actually has more to do with the material of your dress and how that material responds to body heat and how that expands throughout the evening. You are going to be in your wedding dress for a long time and moving around a lot, so some expansion is inevitable. One element that can cause a difference is whether you have natural breasts or implants. Fake breasts don’t weigh as much as natural large breasts, so this is a factor to take into consideration when trying on strapless wedding dresses.
Strapless dresses or dresses with corsets are most often going to have boning in them. Boning is essentially a flat strip of stiff plastic to give a bit more structure and support to the bodice of your wedding dress. Plastic is used because it can bend and mold to your body better and more comfortably than metal would and will also be affected by your body heat, just like the wedding dress fabric. If you are large-chested, your wedding dress might require additional boning to help hold the bodice up. So keep in mind while wedding dress shopping that the weight of your breasts combined with the material of your dress and your body heat will all be components that factor into how well your dress will stay up all night.
Detachable Straps
No matter the size of a bride, if they are considering a strapless wedding dress, we always recommend a detachable strap of some sort. Strapless gowns are fairly easy to customize so that is why many bridal designers leave their dresses strapless and then allow brides to add on a strap or sleeve of some kind. This can be a great way to personalize a dress but it can also give you a bit of reassurance throughout wedding day. It’s very easy in the alterations process to have a removable strap designed to match your wedding dress that you can put on whenever that moment hits that you feel your dress starting to slip down. This could be a halter type strap, spaghetti straps, or even thicker straps, but just something to give you that sense of security that your dress isn’t going anywhere.
Keep in mind that your dress is still going to be tight on your body, just not as tight as when you first put it on on the wedding morning. Your dress is not going to just fall off your body, but you might have that sensation that it’s falling and that is going to be annoying all night long. A removable strap can easily solve this issue because you can’t fight gravity.
Have Backup Options
You could certainly get married in a strapless dress and never have an issue, never need to put on the removable strap, but there is no way to predict how your body or your wedding dress will move and behave on wedding day. Having a detachable strap that you can put on during your wedding reception will at the very least give you peace of mind knowing it’s an option, even if you never need it.
Another great option that is also very trendy right now is having a reception bridal dress. You could get a mini dress or a jumpsuit or just a different style dress to change into part way through your wedding reception so you can dance the night away without worrying about pulling up your dress or feeling like you are falling out.
One final tip that we want to share for brides who may feel like their dress is slipping on wedding day is a way to fix this feeling. Rather than continuing to tug up on the top of your dress, which really isn’t going to do anything, go into the bathroom and unzip your dress and raise the back up to realign it a bit higher on your body. Doing this should make you feel a bit more comfortable as the dress will settle into a higher spot. It’s the only way to really reposition your wedding dress, the tugging it up is not actually going to pull the dress up enough to make a difference.
More Helpful Bridal Fashion Advice
We hope you have found this advice helpful for any brides considering wearing a strapless wedding dress. For even more helpful advice when it comes to shopping for your dream wedding dress and finding your bridal style, be sure to check out our past posts:
- How To Determine What Style Wedding Dress You Want
- How to Accessorize and Style Your Wedding Dress
- What Wedding Dress Style & Shape Should You Wear For Your Body Type
About Lovella
If you're shopping for your perfect wedding dress, come visit us at Lovella Bridal in Glendale, CA. We carry wedding dresses in all sizes and styles, including plus-size bridal gowns and a full selection of veils and accessories. Lovella Bridal is the premier, luxury bridal wedding dress shopping boutique located in Los Angeles, California. Lovella features couture, feminine, modern and chic bridal gowns in all sizes from the best wedding dress designers. Schedule an appointment to find the wedding dress of your dreams at Lovella Bridal. We can't wait to help you!
About Wedding Fashion Expert
Our wedding dress shopping tips and advice are from Nayri, Lovella's own, in-house wedding fashion expert. Nayri is truly the expert when it comes to bridal fashion and wedding style. As the Wedding Fashion Expert, Nayri is the top bridal fashion stylist and the best-selling author of the book "I'm Getting Married And I Have Nothing To Wear," the ultimate guide to helping brides find their wedding day style and their perfect wedding dress. You can subscribe to her YouTube channel or listen to her podcast for more helpful and practical advice on wedding dress shopping.
