The Rise Of The Second Wedding Dress

Anyone who has watched Say Yes To The Dress will know just how torturous it can be to find a wedding dress. Let alone two. And, yet there is a rising trend for brides to wear multiple gowns over the course of their ceremony.

‘We’ve always had brides wear two and sometimes even three dresses during for their wedding,’ says Caroline Burstein of Browns Brides, ‘This trend has grown even more strongly over the past three years or so.’

Perhaps it’s because the most famous brides of the past decade - Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle, Kim Kardashian, Serena Williams and Solange - have led by example and worn multiple dresses (or jumpsuits if your name ends with Knowles). When the Duchess of Cambridge wed Prince William she famously changed from one Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen gown into another. Seven years later, the Duchess of Sussex walked down the aisle in Givenchy by Clare Waight Keller but spent her reception in a Stella McCartney halterneck dress. As over 51.8 million people tuned into these royal weddings, who knows what an incalculable impact this had on the collective psyche.

See: Celebrities Second Wedding Dresses

But brides have been having outfit changes long before royal weddings were televised. As early as the 1930s, they would swap their wedding dress for a second ensemble, typically a ‘going away suit’ for the close of their reception. Something sharp, practical and made for travelling if the newlyweds were lucky enough to have a honeymoon.

These days, the second dress is still the reserve of the monied - shelling out for one dress is expensive enough with the average cost £1,480. However, the drives are very different for the modern bride. Now, the mass casualisation of fashion is in part to blame for the trend for multiple gowns. ‘If a bride goes for a big dress with a long train they often want to change once the formal part is over and they can relax and dance more freely,’ Burstein explains. She’s seen a lot of women looking for a formal wedding dress with all the trimmings of tradition - a train, a veil even matching cream shoes - for the nuptials only to desire a show-stopper second dress for the party, hence its moniker, ‘cake cutting dress’

‘You don’t have to have the reception on the same day as the ceremony, or even in the same country,’ says bridal designer Hermione de Paula. She recalls her friend Christy, owner of Loho Bride in Los Angeles, who had the civil ceremony a year before her celebration with friends and family due to visas. ‘The second dress doesn’t have to conform to the conventional rules as they may have had their more traditional and religious ceremony,’ she adds recalling how her brides ‘can now express themselves in their second dress with personal embroidery full of symbols and their favourite bespoke florals or in bespoke colours. They also see this as a possible dress they can wear again.’

The two-dress trend has risen in correlation with the rise of the three-day wedding. With 23 per cent of couples spreading the celebration over several days, brides now need a wedding trousseau that accounts for the multiple outfit changes required by multi-day ceremonies. These event weddings have significantly increased the spend on average of bridal wear and accessories (its risen by 15 per cent over the last year according to Bridebook).

Of course, a second dress brings its own host of problems. Where a bride can get ready at relative leisure before a ceremony, once the party is in full swing it’s not as simple as nipping to the loo to make an outfit change. Most venues don't have more than a cloakroom or disabled toilet to change in. Hair, make-up even underwear consistency also has to be considered unless you’re willing to make your guests wait while a full makeover takes place behind the scenes.

Not every bride wants a second dress, but many, de Paula remarks, are looking for a gown that can transform. ‘We’ve also been developing layering options of separates which help our brides evolve their look from something more formal and traditional for the ceremony to a more fun party look for the reception that they can relax and dance in (until dawn).’ Offering a modern solution, she’s made slips with embroidered bodices that can be removed or voluminous overskirts with long trains that can taken off for the party. An evolving dress provides the bride a chance to showcase more of her personal style or, at the very least, shy away from fully committing to one specific gown.

No one ever said planning a wedding was simple!