At the risk of sounding too personal, we need to talk about your under crackers. You might not have realised it, but the lingerie and shoes you choose to wear on your wedding day will have quite an impact on how your dress looks, and that’s why we ask our brides-to-be to bring their wedding shoes and bridal underwear with them to their dress fittings.
The shoes part is a no-brainer right? You wear flats and your hem needs taking up; you wear heels and your hem needs adjusting to make sure you don’t trip over it and fall flat on your face. We have an array of lovely Harriet Wilde shoes in store for brides to try on and get an idea of how their dress looks with heels (and it pleases us greatly when said brides then fall in love with the shoes and wear Harriet Wilde down the aisle!).
Wedding shoes also affect your stature and stance. They change your posture. By the very nature of how alien they are to our bodies, heels make us stand up straighter. We pull our shoulders back, lift our chins a little and, dare we say it, pop that booty out a touch too. All of this will inevitably alter the way your dress sits on your body and, as such, we need to take that into account when doing your fittings.
As for your bridal underwear, we know you’re savvy enough not to turn up in a pink thong and big black bra simply because these will be obvious beneath your lovely white dress. However, we get so many brides-to-be who don’t realise how their under garments will affect the shape, silhouette and fall of their wedding dress.
In the first instance, go and get yourself measured for a bra. We all think we know our size but in the run up to your wedding you may find your weight fluctuating a little purely on nerves and adrenaline alone, so make sure you’ve got the right support for your bust. Then you need to invest in a good bra. No skimping! Generally, the more smooth and plain it is, the less it will affect your dress.
And when it comes to knickers, we’ve seen more spanx than you can ever imagine. That’s fine if you want to be tucked in and smoothed out, so to speak, although perhaps somewhat exhausting and uncomfortable by the end of a long day, but that’s entirely your choice! Our only advice is, again, to invest in something smooth without VPL – be that briefs or something a bit skimpier.
Of course, you may have imagined the most romantic of underwear and don’t let us rain on your parade! Ideally, you’d save this for your wedding night and slip into something a little more comfortable when the day is done because, as pretty as it looks, it’s designed to be seen and not worn beneath anything else, let alone delicate fabrics that make up a wedding dress.
Once you’ve decided on your dream wedding dress, we recommend looking to secure your shoes and underwear as soon as you can so that you can be safe in the knowledge you’ve got what you need when it comes to your fitting appointments further down the road.